What do you feed your dog?

[KateGrey]

What do you feed your dog? Our puppy came to us on Hills and from reviews nutritional content is low. I was looking at Eden but worry the high protein content could upset his tummy. He also has nature’s diet meat one meal a day. I’d prefer not to feed raw.

Beco, everything else gives him the shits

Forthglade wet for my 5-year-old Lab bitch, with a small amount of all in one for her main meal. Great coat, very fit and lean and reasonable in price. Poos are firm. May feed the next one raw though, as I feel it's more natural.

Is Iams a good mid price dry food?
It seems to have reasonable reviews with meat as the first ingredient.

mymugmytea what percentage though is the meat. From allaboutdogfood.co.uk the amount looks very low. Not something I would pick to feed my dog tbh.

it's 24%meat as the first ingredient. a lot I looked at were cereal/grain first

mymugmytea Just for reference we feed around 70% meat.

oh really! what do you use? I'm quite keen to use a dry food . maybe I need to rethink

I mostly use forthglade, millies wolfheart and carnilove.

Whilst I feed wet, forthglade and millies wolfheart also do kibble but milles has more choice in flavours.

mymugmytea forgot to say if you want to compare costs with what you are feeding now you need to look at the feeding guides for each brand.

This is because typically the better quality foods with less fillers will need less quantity so whilst it can seem more expensive in terms of the same size bag often it isn't when you look at the price per day for your dog.

Our two spaniels are on Harrington's dry, they love it and it's a great mid-priced food. Our cats also have Harrington's biscuits.

Burns Alert - cheaper than normal Burns as it doesn't have VAT. We add leftovers/eggs/yoghurt/Burns wet food in for a bit of variety.

Is Iams a good mid price dry food?

In a nutshell - no. It's full of additives, grains and fillers and not enough meat. We feed a variety of grain-free foods that are all 70% meat or higher.

I don't feed ours anything with grains in as it makes his behaviour noticeably worse. We have about 6-7 high quality foods in the cupboard and feed a mixture of those. As they're all fairly equal in terms of composition he doesn't seem to be affected by us switching brands all the time either.

He gets bored if we feed him the same meal two meals in a row and refuses to eat!

oh gosh, such a lot to think about. I'm new to all this. puppy is coming to us next month. Vet sells Hills but I've heard that's rubbish . Thanks all for your advice, keep it coming please

You'll be fine - a lot it you learn as you go along!

I find that even though the foods we buy are quite expensive, they last much longer than any cheaper foods because you don't need to feed them as much. My dog is one and fully grown size wise - he costs me about £40 a month in food - we feed a mixture of wet and dry but they're all high quality, grain-free brands. I do spend a fair bit on chews on top of that though.

But it's worth it. For his age and breed he's relatively calm in the home. He has a routine we stick to, set meal times, and set times where he knows he gets play, or when he knows he gets a chew, or when he knows he has to sleep/settle on his own. He knows what's expected of him and it seems to work really well for us :)

What kind of pup are you getting?!

mymugmytea allaboutdogfood.co.uk is a good place to start. Use the filters to modify what type of food you are after. You can also put in the age and weight of your dog and then you get an idea of cost per day.

Typically I do that to get an idea of some brands then I actually go and look at them in more detail.

Whilst I wanted to feed kibble we tried with our puppy but after a while swooped him onto wet which he liked much better. Lunchtime turned from a battle trying to get him to eat to one he enjoyed. He also helped his stomach as we didn't realise at the time he had a stomach condition.

Some brands do food specifically for puppies, adults and seniors whereas others like millies wolfheart are applicable to all ages.

We went through an assortment of different ones. DDog is a rescued street dog and could live off raiding bins but any dog food that is remotely good for her gives horrific shits. We finally settled on pets at home step up to naturals. The sensitive one

It's not the best for her but it's the only one we've consistently been able to feed her and is better for her than bin scraps

adaline we are getting a labrador. he will be 10 weeks old.

can someone please explain what a raw diet consists of please?

Ours came on Arden Grange, but we shopped to Harringtons which she's equally happy with. She rarely has wet food as she picks at her food as and when she fancies it, she loves grabbing a mouthful and running off to hide it too (I don't want a mouthful of wet food in my bed!)

Ours has a mix of supermarket brands, both tinned and kibble, he also likes scrambled eggs, roast chicken fillets and cooked minced beef.
He is 10years old, full of life and has never had to go to the vet (except for boosters).

Lily’s kitchen wet and dry, with one of their bedtime biscuits each night! He also has cooked chicken too.

Ddog has a raw complete - Natural Instinct.

It comes in trays already done for you so you know your dog is getting the correct ratio of meat/bone/offal.

You would feed 2-3% of their body weight daily.

can someone please explain what a raw diet consists of please?

Raw meat - e.g. chicken breast
Offal (internal organs, entrails etc)
Bone
Plus often some veggies/herbs.

They all need to be in the right proportions so a commercial mix will mince these all up together for you ready to feed. Otherwise, some people compile their own, by feeding things like raw chicken legs (bones and all) plus tripe.

just spoken to the owner of puppies mum.
She said she has always fed Lilly's kitchen but when the dog became pregnant it made her ill so she's using Harringtons at the moment. She has some Lilly's I can take if I want.

Boiled chicken mixed with mashed potato, rice, carrot and brocolli. Sometimes Pedigree Vital in gravy. Sometimes Bakers Moist Meaty Chunks,sometimes a raw bone.