What is everyone feeding their puppy

[Dottymum2]

Our 9 week old cockapoo is on Autarky dried with some wainwrights puppy wet food mixed in. The wet food was butchers last week and his poo's were a lot looser. Anyone have any experience of either brand if they are good/bad. Just want to make sure he getting quality food. I know a lot of people say raw food is best but not sure I could go down that route so want to make sure we get the best shop bought. Thanks in advance x

Have a look here All About Dogfood.

I order mine online and use milllieswolfheart after looking on allaboutdogfood.co.uk to get a good quality for the price food.

we have used Millies Wolfheart Countryside mix since our lab was a pup. They don't do a puppy version as their normal version's quality is suitable from weaning.

We switched him from another brand that was giving him very loose stools/smelly wind and it sorted it out within 3 days.

That's really helpful thank u :)
There's so many varieties out there, it's a bit overwhelming in the pet shops!

My dog also has Millie's Wolfheart. Nice firm non-smelly poos here! Good choice of Ford, with lots of varieties to try.

We use Skinners dry food and Pedigree wet food, the others gave him loose poo

Good choice of food .... Not Ford

Raw. I too order online once a month and fill the freezer. She eats chicken, lamb, turkey, pork, duck... and bones to clean her teeth.

How have u found the raw feeding thewolfisjustapuppy?

Raw. Species appropriate, really enjoyable, healthy and good for their teeth. You very very rarely see an overweight raw fed dog, and overweight is a big deal these days.

Autkry is not that bad a food.

Take a look at allaboutdogfood.co.uk.

As general guidelines:

1. Go for nothing less than a 3 out of 5.
2. Look for one with a named meat source as one of the first three ingredients and avoid anything with maize or wheat as many dogs are intolerant.
3. Avoid anything that says "meat derivatives" as this is just whatever is cheapest.
4. Take a good look at the ingredients list - the fewer highlighted in red, the better but try to avoid them completely. If you do pick a food with reds, the lower down the ingredient list, the better.
5. Ignore the reviews - this is about finding what's right for you and your dog, not what didn't work for someone else.
6. Get the best you can afford but be aware that price is not an indication of quality - there are plenty of poor foods with a top price tag (for example Hills and Royal Canin, which people are led to believe is good because vets sell it - it's not the worst food out there but you can get better for the same price, or less).

As a rule of thumb, almost everything you buy in a supermarket (Own brands, Wagg, Harringtons, Pedigree and Bakers) is nutritionally poor - filled out with wheat or maize which dogs do not need nutritionally and many are intolerant of - though some supermarkets have started to stock better quality stuff like Lily's Kitchen. Look at the ingredients, not the brand name.

If you absolutely MUST go the supermarket route, Harringtons is probably the best of the bunch but under all circumstances AVOID BAKERS - it's little better than poison IMO (see the additives list below).

If budget is a concern, then in my view one of the best price to quality ratios is Skinners Field and Trial (the hypoallergenic range only) as it's about the same price as Bakers/Pedigree/Wagg/Harringtons but far superior quality (as an added bonus it's a proper working dog food, so is VAT free).
Your dog can eat it even if they are not "proper" working dogs, however it is only really suitable if your dog is expending the energy - for example I know a lot of flyballers feed it.

I'll freely admit there are even better foods, but I fully acknowledge that not everyone can afford that, and Skinners F&T and CSJ No Grainer are good compromises on the price/quality front.

RAW - Is a good option, but it does not suit everyone. Personally I don't have enough freezer space and the oldest is fussy enough that she won't touch it anyway.
There are some knowledgeable raw feeders here who can advise fantastically on the subject if it's a route you want to take. It's not as expensive or fiddly as you might think. I'm not going to say more on that subject, as there are others who are better informed than me.
Unfortunately the web does have a few evangelical raw feeders - don't let them make you feel you are not doing the best for your dog if you do not feed it raw

Our pup came to us on Trophy dried kibble. I was not happy with this and tried to move her too soon. Learnt my lesson. Slowly I have moved her to Nature diet in the mornings with kibble in the evening and in the last few weeks to Gentle cold pressed kibble in the evening. I give her raw bones a couple of times aweek and kongs with sardines, or a mix of potato and veg. I am planning on moving to raw with naturediet eventually but am going slow because she seems to get constipated with too much raw.

I dithered a bit before changing my pup to raw as I wasn't sure I could get it right and the more I googled the more confused I got. In the end I just went online to a company that had been recommended to me by a canine behaviouralist and ordered a load of complete meals and it has been plane sailing since. My pup was quite a fussy little madam who turned her nose up at the expensive kibble I bought for her so I was a little nervous about what she would do with meat on her plate but she LOVEs it. She still inspects every meal very carefully before she tucks in but she eats everything I give her. As I feed complete I don't worry too much about percentages of meat, offal and bone as it does all balance out in the end (I give her bones too which upset the balance a bit but are good for her teeth). The behaviourist did explain that there is often less protein in raw food (I found this hard to understand but it turnout to be true) and that 80% or so of behavioural issues he sees in dogs are down to them having a poor diet with too much protein - he thinks it should be less than 15% and certainly less than 20%. Pup was not difficult before she was on raw and she has remained a relatively easy dog to have around.
I am fairly pragmatic about pups diet and occasionally she has kibble if I forget to defrost her dinner. She also has the occasional grain based treat and even yogurt and cheese (purists believe that dogs should have no dairy and no grain, ever). I could probably feed her a lot more cheaply if I DIY'd the raw diet but I don't have the time or the energy as it is her food costs me about £50 per month plus treats.

You're not supposed to switch between kibble and raw though - they digest at different rates, which can cause problems.

All food digests at different rates. It's illogical to say that the digestive system cannot cope with kibble and raw meat but is perfectly fine with rabbit and then trout or kibble mixed with wet food.

I think the mixed feeding worry is that kibble lowers the PH of the stomach, so bone is slower to digest. I think that is a problem if you feed half and half as the stomach doesn't get acidic enough to deal with the bone. I don't worry about my boy having the occasional bowl of kibble.

Some people will give kibble and raw together all the time, raw in the morning, kibble at night.

Kibble is really slow to digest. It sits in the stomach for hours. My dog has sicked up kibble hours after eating it (we fasted him before a car journey so he wouldn't get sick!).

Aatu 80:20 here. They've recently brought out a puppy specific kibble but apparently their ordinary kibble's also fine.

There haven't been many proper, peer reviewed studies on the subject of raw feeding I don't think but this experiment looking at the digestion rates of raw versus dry food is very interesting.

There's no actual evidence (other than anecdotal) that suggests there's anything wrong with feeding a dog raw and dry together, even in the same meal.

I feed raw. I'd honestly rather stick pins in my eyes than feed my dog anything else.

I feed raw too, some brands can be expensive but it costs no more than when I used to feed kibble and the dogs enjoy it so much more.
(I also don't believe in Boosters sparkling
Saw you on another thread, you speak a lot of sense in my opinion)

I'm another raw supporter. Defiantly cheaper to DIY and by in bulk, plenty of places online now too. But sticking to % of bone, organs and muscle meat is vital. Just feeding chicken breast for example is one way to cause serious problems. Variety (just like with people) is key.

IMO any animal part not from a carnivore is fine, and a minimum of 3 different animals including at least 1 'red meat'.

I feed Farmina Natural and Delicious. It's either no grain or low grain, and very high in Animal products so is apparently a good choice for raw feeders if they need to have a dry diet at all. ( eg if camping etc.

Our huskies eat a mix of netro (US branded James Wellbeloved) we supplement with salmon or venison depending on how well DH does hunting

Thatsnumberwangg - ahh thanks half the time I stop going back to the thread as I can't be arsed with people thinking I'm insane or neglecting animals by not giving them boosters.

Even if I just reply once with the facts, if it saves one dog from being injected when there's no need, then I've done my job

Glad to see you raw feed and don't booster too!

I'm on reduced boosters. I need some for the kennel, titres were expensive last time I asked.