Cost of dog food!!

[Supernova23]

Clearly it's gone up with everything else, but Jesus Christ!! I always used to feed my dogs decent food, but I really can't afford to be spending £40+ for a 12kg sack given they get through that in two weeks. I used to feed Millies Wolfheart which was £29.99 for 12kgs. Now it's £44.99!! I've had to bite the bullet and put them on a cheap food. How are you managing pet food costs?

@GuyFawkesDay I forgot to add it needs to be the apple cider vinegar with the mother xx

@BelindaMelinda that's awful poor pup. It's definitely changed, I also noticed they have added extra iron which affected the dogs uric acid levels, leaving him and my oldest girl with brown patches as they can't process it. I fed Skinners years ago, different flavours and never had this problem. That's great your pup is doing well now. X

I like Ci too. If you Google the ingredients you can see which other companies are buying it from GA and repackaging - Ci seems to be the most reasonable, and the customer service is friendly and quick. Both of our dogs are doing well on it.

Ci service is out of this world... I think I'd actually say it's the best service I've ever had in the UK in my entire life.

After I'd found them on All About Dog Food, I was struggling to choose between two of their ranges so I called them. It was 4.45pm on a Friday night (I didn't think anyone would answer as it was a standard Landline). The woman couldn't have been more helpful, she spent 20 minutes talking to me about the breed (she clearly knew Springers inside out) and ddog to help me decide, then she took my address and sent me 3 x 100g sample packs of different flavours to try...totally free of charge. Every other order we make, ddog gets a free toy 😊

Excellent service really can inspire loyalty, even if I found the same food elsewhere for cheaper now, I'd stick with Ci.

To those persons slagging off Royal Canin I would like to know why.

I have a Siamese cat who thrives on it and two Pugs and a Chihuahua who all eat the 'pug' food.
They are all healthy happy and well.
I told the vet what I feed them and she agreed that Royal Canin breed food is the best. For some reason the Chi does not like the Chi breed one but he eats the Pug one.
None are overweight. none have the runs and they all have nice coats, eyes and teeth

We feed CSJ all rounder at £40 a 15kg sack. Their customer service is also fabulous, if you email the nutritionist they'll recommend foods, supplements etc and send free samples. We worked out from the samples he liked this one best and he really enjoys it.

The Cic stuff is same as Jollyes etc so you can interchange

It's very expensive for what turns out to be relatively poor nutrition stats. That's all. Pepe think the shiny packaging and breed specific stuff helps but in reality its really not amazing. There's plenty of equally if not better food out there for less.

I brought some pedigree chum for 97p!! That's a fortune in dog money!

That is fine but you are not really explaining why ! My vet recommended it when we got the Chi. The breeder was giving him 'Pedigree' puppy food and the vet told me to get him off it asap and feed Canin. I told her we already use it for the other pets and she said 'good - that's the one.
Pup is six months old now and looks great. I would like a better explanation as to why it is not good ??

They've switched to Cesar trays which they are stuffing down. I use Pooch and Mutt small bite kibble which is grain free and they enjoy that too.

Definitely gone up. I feed Arden Grange fish kibble and it’s shot up by about £10 a bag. Thinking about changing to Autarky. I also feed wet food and tinned sardines.
Chappie Original is brilliant at sorting out upset tummies and when I told our vet that it seemed to be the only thing he could tolerate at the time she said there was nothing wrong with Chappie. Always have a few tins in just in case.

6 dogs here, labrador, 3 labradoodles, a labrafloodle and Yorkie. We used to buy Akela dry 80:20 and got through around 2 x 13kg bags per month. Now we buy one 13kg 80:20 and one of their 15kg country kibble which is a 50:50. Now make it last around 6 weeks. We feed raw one meal a day and one dry meal. Raw costs around £12.30 a week, Akela we get a discount on so probably around £85 every 6 weeks. Raw carrots for snacks at 40p a 1kg bag, 4 bags a week. The food really suits them and their coats are fantastic on it.

Vets know very little about nutrition and what they do know is generally what they're taught by two companies - one of which is Royal Canin. The other is Hills.

Royal Canin is very cleverly marketed. It's sold in vets (so people assume it's good quality), it has fancy packaging and lots of different varieties that are suited to all these different breeds and diets and requirements.

But if you actually look at the ingredients, the quality is pretty poor. Lots of fillers, not a great deal of protein and lots of ingredients that many dogs struggle to tolerate. It's also incredibly expensive for what it contains - again, down to the marketing.

www.allaboutdogfood.co.uk is a great resource and will show you just how poor Royal Canin is compared to other, much cheaper brands.

My very experienced and knowledgeable behaviourist recommended Ci to me. Unfortunately one of my dogs refused to eat it. But it's meant to be very good.

Always feed working dog food to mine, good enough for sheepdogs it's good enough for mine, buy from the farm supply shop, it's £25 for sack that last a 20kg dog 2 months. He then gets human leftovers for treats

I use Dr Johns Titanium for my 12kg with some Forthglade wet food to top it
He's in perfect health

You say this but I've had cats all my life and they've lived to grand old ages, last one was 20.

She refused anything but whiskas!

Our 2 girls have a tin of Aldi dog food between them for breakfast and Morrison's puppy kibble for dinner. They have a chicken breast between them for Sunday lunch. It has gone up a bit but I'd pay far more to keep our girls happy.

Our dog food is £64 for £15. Lasts a month but bloody hell it's steep and continues to just rise in price

We feed Arden Grange sensitive and it has gone from about £34 for a 12kg bag to £60+ in less than 3 months. I need to switch but it took ages to find a good out 7 year old lab didn't react to.

I feed my two a mix of Harringtons Large Adult Turkey and Rice (14kg sack for £33 which usually lasts about a month), with a tin of Asda Hero Working Dog food (2x 24 pack last a week at £30). They get fed 3x a day, female gets one tin and one scoop of kibble each time, male gets one tin and 3 scoops of kibble each time. Both very active dogs and so far very healthy and happy. Female is a 7 year old Belgian Malinois called Fiona and male is a 14 month old Kangal called Stabley. Food is definitely getting more expensive for them but to be honest if it ever came down to it, I’d rather go without myself than see them ever be hungry.

We've just started our lab puppy on Nourish kibble, which is £49 per 13.5kg on subscription. He's also on Butternut boxes too, which is quite dear, but seems to suit him (we had issues with Skinners, much like others described). I don't know if we'll continue on Butternut, but I've spent hours down the dog food wormhole, and anything of equivalent quality is no cheaper. So we may have to just suck it up!

Can somebody tell me more about Ci please? Not heard of it but sounds great.

Mine have either Wellness Core or James Wellbeloved Superfood dried. Both rate well on allaboutdogfood (which I always use) at about 80% nutritionally.

James Wellbeloved has gone up about £10 for a 12kg sack, Wellness doesn’t seem to have.

Royal Canin is a very high carb diet. Over half of the ingredients are carbs.

It also contains dehydrated chicken protein as its main protein source. Not the best.

A good dog food usually needs to be higher meat content than carbs.

There are a lot of filler ingredients in Royal Canin eg maize, wheat flour and beet pulp (all pretty indigestible for dogs.

It also has antioxidants and as they dont specify what they are this usually means they are dodgy! Soe are ok if natural like Vit e. However as they are not listed they are usually BHA and BHT which are banned in Europe and US after studies found they cause tumours.

A lot of the vet recommended foods cost just as many problems. Zooplus is a good place for ordering dog food, either the more expensive ones, or cheaper ones. Highly recommend their Wolf of the Wilderness, which is grain free and not too expensive. Prices in the UK are quite reasonable, compared to France, where I live, where sacks of anything decent start around 75€ in the pet shops