What does my dog need to eat? Not a dog food thread.

[Slubberdegullion]

Please, please, please do not tell me what brand of food you are feeding your dog and how well they are doing on it. I have read so many dog food threads on here and on Labrador Forums I am starting to mutter brand names in my sleep.

I appreciate dog nutrition is a HUGE and contraversial subject but I'd like to understand a bit more about what dogs (and puppies - as I have one) need to eat to be healthy.

I'm very confused about protein percentages, everything I read (and I appreciate almost everybody is trying to sell me something) is warning of the dangers of too much or too little protein, esp for large breed puppies.

Carbs too, and wheat and fruit and veg, and ash, and meat derivatives...

For those in the know can you explain it to me gently, or point me in the right direction of a web site that isn't trying to sell me their dog food

Thank you

Sorry haven't got long but..
Labs are considered large breeds (usually any dog with an adult weight of 25kg and over, appreciate you do get labs smaller than this) Great Danes, mastiffs etc are considered Giant breeds.
I think someone has already said about dogs using protein for energy. Dogs are not designed to use large amounts of carbs for energy. Cheaper dog foods are high in wheat which is a common allergen/sensitivity for dogs so it tends to get replaced by rice in more expensive foods. Pork is also a recognised potential allergen hence it being mentioned as omitted in the Jewish food
Generally your dog should be fed a Large Breed formula dog food so that he/she grows at a steady rate. Puppies that put on weight too quickly might be more predisposed to joint problems and weight issues.
Basically go for the best you can afford for the first 18 months then downgrade if you need to. Look at the back of the bag for the words meat derivatives and try to avoid it and if it has more than about 10 ingredients as they are just not necessary. You may find that the premium brands (Hills, Royal Canin) fall into this group.
My dogs are fed a working dog food because 1) it is cheaper 2)they burn off lower calorie foods more quickly 3)they like it!

Sorry all a bit of a mish mash hope it makes sense!

Btw I didn't mention what food my dogs were fed just the names of some random foods

I think there are two main questions to ask when choosing how to feed your dog

1. commercial dog food
2. Barf

If you choose option 1 you should not add supplements or extra human left overs as the food is complete and this will mess up the balance of the food. Stick to food that does not contain additives and clearly list its protein source eg beef not meat products. (don't get me started on meat products!)

If feeding BARF then you do need to research a bit more what dogs require and what makes up the food. The basic guidelines for BARF are:

Feed around 2-3% of your dog's ideal adult weight daily, split between however
many meals you feel necessary. If the dog gains weight, lower the amount; if it
loses, increase the amount.

The diet should be 80% meat, up to 10% edible bone and 10% organ of which half
should be liver. Aim for a balance over time, not every meal, every day or
even every week. Edible bone is always contained in big chunks of meat and not
fed bare. Bones which are not edible are all beef bones and leg bones of other
largish animals (birds are OK). No vegetables, fruit, grains or supplements are
required.

I choose to feed BARF but that is my decision there are a lot of ingredients that are in commercial food that is unneeded and irrelevant to a dogs diet eg vegetables, wheat beet pulp etc but millions of dogs eat it.

Re working food - it is just a way of not having to pay VAT so if you give it to your dog and they put on weight just give them less of it. It does not contain any magic ingredient that will make your dog "work" or needs to be "working" to eat it.

Oh I said I feed BARF does that count as mentioning a dog food sorry!

I really would not worry too much - you feed you DC's okay without worrying about levels of protein and mineral balance.

Agree with all of Minimu1's post, just don't have the storage to feed BARF

shufflebum, interesting that they're not set up to get energy from carbs. So is it mostly the fat in the meat that they use or do they process the amino acids in a different way from us to produce energy?

minimu, how far to I have to push you to get you onto meat products?

I tried to join that yahoo raw food group you recommended and nothing doing. I sent the dude who runs it practically a cv on who I was and why I wanted to join but got nothing back.

About the vegetables bit, I have read some views that say veg, fruit nuts is fine as that would have been dog's natural diet, and other opinions such as yours where you don't include it. Can I ask you why? (sorry super nosy/interested)

Dont worry to much, feed them anything. You don't want to end up with a fussy dog.

My friend would always feed his dog 'the best' ie people food, so used to spend his day thinking about what to cook the dog for its dinner, "I can't do chicken tonight because he had that last night"

Another dog I knew would only eat its dinner if it had cheese grated on top bolognese style.

By 'feed him anything' I mean any dog food.

lol darcymum at the grated cheese.

Fear not, I think it is very unlikely that I have a fussy dog

One of my labradoodles has eaten most of a sofa!
Unfortunatley she cant read dietary advice sheets.

Thread hijack (sorry Slubber).

My pup is now 16 weeks old and has so far not chewed anything she is not supposed to chew. Does this mean I may well get away with the dreaded chewing of sofas, chairs, table legs etc, or do they tend to start the major chewing later? She is a golden retriever. Am I living in a fantasy world?

Hijack over. I thank you

elastamum

cor what a bloomin cheek. First she tells me what she is feeding her dog when I emboldened the not in do not tell me (and thusly have thrown ANOTHER dog food into the mix wot I am going to have to go and look at the ingredients list of)

AND THEN

she bloomin hijacks the thread with a chewing question

I don't know

Ahhhh, Slubber, you know you don't mind really. And I did virtually admire your walking get up MANY TIMES

(Whispers, I spent ages looking at/researching premium dog foods and couldn't choose so I went for the brand with the cutest looking puppy on the bag )

Slubberdegullion don't worry I expect the BARF man(!) will get back to you eventually. He is a practising vet and does have busy times.

There are two types of Barfers (lol) one the prey drive model and then the more traditional just meat and bones.

The prey drive model works on the principal that dogs in the wild would eat all of their prey including stomach contents so would eat grain and vegetables that way.

However if you feed offal especially liver and green tripe they are getting all the same nutrients from that.

Dogs can not digest cellulose so if you give them veg it has to be pulped or wacked in a blender to break down the cellulose. If cooked it loses the mineral and vitamin content that dogs require. Doesn't mean that they don't like eating it though.

Mine manage fine without but I am careful to make sure they get a good mix of offal to give them all the nutrients they require.

Neither way is right or wrong just a personal preference.

Oxo Re the chewing I reckon you have the worst to come no only kidding some dogs just don't chew much.

rofl at your choice methods

hahaha

Thanks for your post minimu. Really interesting stuff. What is green tripe btw - sounds beyond foul.

If I wanted to become a half barfer (my mother who will look after the dog on holidays etc has said NO! to barf so I need to be able to switch her onto full time dry kibble when she goes there) do you use the same rules of thumb that you explained in your first post and then just divide it by two and give one meal a day kibble and the other meal the raw stuff?

Hope that makes sense.

green tripe - vom inducing. White tripe is vile enough but green?

Slubber, sadly, your post has interested me enough to google barfing

ok I googled green tripe - so its the stomach(s) and intestiney bits etc that have not been washed or bleached.

mmm mmm

So minimu your dogs eat this stuff outdoors do they?

I have fed BARF/RAW and found it far better for my dogs than any complete food, they didn't smell 'doggy', poos were better and less, they were happier, coats were better etc. Sadly,for a few reasons I couldn't continue feeding it.

Dogs just don't need carbs, especially in the large amounts they are in most commercial complete foods, they can't untilise them well and they can cause all sorts of skin and other problems.

If you are looking at complete foods, look for one with as high a meat content as possible (preferably 70% plus, you'll struggle!) and for that to be a named meat such as 'chicken' and not just 'chicken meat meal'. Look for low or no cereal content, and where cereals are present, rice is far better than maize/corn or wheat and anything is better than 'cereals' which usually means manufacturers change to whatever is cheapest at the time, so it will vary from bag to bag. Anything other than meat or fruit/veg on the bag is likely to be fillers to make the food cheaper to produce, beet/sugarbeet is one.

Would your Mum be prepared to feed raw mince and bone if it was freeflow from a packet int he freezer? It wouldn't be much different to feeding minced beef as it is all ground up like mince is. Otherwise, how about Nature Diet or similar, which is a wet food but packed in trays and high meat content (70% I think). It does contain some cereal, but might be easier to swith to/from than BARF/RAW to complete dry kibble. My Gran is extremely squeamish and won't handle raw or cooked meat with bones in but both of these would be an option for her, so maybe your Mum could tolerate those?

Thanks midori.

My mother is going to take some persuading. It's not that she's squeamish more that she fed our two Golden Retrievers on god-knows-what-in-a-massive-sack and of course they were never ill, looked fabulous and lived for aeons . If I could just give her the pre-prepared sachets though that could work though (she'd do it with a on).

Very helpful advice on chicken vs chicken meal and the cereals content. Having learnt lots on this thread I'm going to start looking through all the ingredients lists on the complete foods again.

Many people I know feed both. When camping at competitions people feed kibble.

Just don't mix the meals up in one meal eg a bit of barf and a bit of kibble as it can cause the runs as it is digested at different rates.

If you have oodles of money there are companies that do ready prepared BARF meals.

oh god now you're asking Slubber, will have to get back to you on that one, my college days are a distant memory!

Sorry if someone else has already posted it , I found this site helpful for analysis of dry food.

My dog would probably love BARF but it is a step too far for DH. The dead mouse habit she has escalated this morning when the cats brought in a dead rat, thank goodness DH was first down today.

rats ...... nice

Slubber - don't worry so much! We have two labs, and they eat whatever complete dog food is on offer at the local "Countrywide" - they occastionally get bones and chews, otherwise they supplement their diet with whatever disgusting things they find lying around.

Our vet and other people have always said how well they look, and what good condition their coats are in and they get no fancy stuff whatsovever. If they get scurfy, I stick a knob of margarine or olive oil in their food for a week or so.

My main observation is - feed by eye, do not follow the guidelines on the sacks word for word as chances are you will end up with a fatty and that is bad. If we give ours lots of exercise (they come riding with me once a week) and are looking light then I'll up their food, if we have a quiet week and they're in a lot, then it goes down. Occasionally they get vegetable left overs, but generally we're pretty low key about their food.

Do not obsess about their diets! They will tell you they are always starving, do not believe them, and they will also tell you that they haven't been fed, even if they have. Whoever feeds ours has to leave the bowls out so that the other person knows they've had their dinner, they can be very convincing sometimes - "no, we haven't been fed, no, honest we haven't"....