Our Cosmic Autumn Rebellion (Adolescent Support Group)

[MonCoubousMonTourmalet]

Okay folks, let's head into late summer/autumn.

Thread is quiet currently so I'm adding some food links for @VanGoSunflowers
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Please help or disagree or correct me as you all see fit. I know that @SpanielsGalore has also done a lot of food research and may have some thoughts for other good options

First suggestion:

https://essentialfoodsgb.co.uk/search?options%5Bprefix%5D=last&q=working

@tizwozliz told me about this and it's wonderful food. If you ask her nicely she may be able to offer you a discount code 😉

The puppy version is poultry based but I feed Brie on the Estate one which is lamb with venison. Ordering the "working dog" bags is a significant saving. Brie loves this food.

Second suggestion Millies Wolfheart. I know I've been critical of them before but nope, I trusted @Bupster and @YorkshireFelix , cut down the amount, as they suggested and now poo is fine. No smelly wind at all.

https://www.millieswolfheart.co.uk/

The puppy packs and sample kibble bags are a great way to start.

They have a lot of recipes with protein levels anything from 19% to 40%.
We give Brie a 50/50 mix of lamb & veg and Countryside mix.

Final recommendation for now is from Jollyes. @VanGoSunflowers

https://www.jollyes.co.uk/brand/lifestage/online-category-offers-dog-dog-food

It is amazing value! Other places sell the same food rebranded for almost double the price.

Brie is on the lamb with mint, which obviously is not puppy food but she is almost 18 months and I do mix it with her Calibra junior food.

I have switched to the Lifestage trays from the Forthglade ones now, because she seems to prefer them.

I'm not caught up on the food discourse but here's another experience of food –

Pupsy is on half Skinners and half raw and it works really well for us. Skinners is VAT free as it's working dog food and very good value. I haven't done heaps of technical or nutritional research as others have but it suits her fine. She's not allergic to anything and has never had any tummy trouble (save for the first week or so as a tiny pup) and it doesn't make her anymore hyper or any less herself for any reason. She's on an adult mix now but was on a couple of different Skinners puppy flavours until she was about 18 months. We get Skinners from the nearest shop to our house which happens to be an ag shop but when they haven't had it I've ordered it next day on Amazon before for the same price.

She has raw mince from various brands every day mixed into her kibble and then it is topped with PureFlax flaxseed oil. I prefer this to salmon oil – it comes from a family farm (which you all know I am passionate about) and it doesn't go off and it doesn't go rancid like some salmon oil can. I also give her PureFlax's working dog mix on top for condition and coat and a cod liver oil tablet that I started her on after she was spayed and have just carried on.

She gets oily fish if I have it and other bits of human food as and when it's suitable – steak if I have steak etc. I have been known to but her a small steak to go with human dinner because she is very spoilt.

The result of all that is firm poos twice a day like clockwork, no wind, no sickness, and an all-round happy, extremely fit, lean dog.

I was hoping you'd contribute @brushingboots because it's good to have the raw feeding viewpoint too.

I'll have another look at flaxseed, because Brie doesn't like salmon oil so it might be a good choice for us.

She gets oily fish if I have it and other bits of human food as and when it's suitable – steak if I have steak etc. I have been known to but her a small steak to go with human dinner because she is very spoilt.

Steak is actually cheaper than a lot of dog treats weight for weight. Remember seeing some treats that worked out as £60 per kg!

M started on the Skinners field and trial puppy food (chicken). He had explosive diarrhoea at about 5 months old, which we put down to being sensitive to chicken as it went away when he was on a turkey based prescription food, but came back when we reintroduced his normal diet. He’s now on a salmon based feed and has lovely firm poos. The diarrhoea did coincide with him eating fallen plums, but who knows- I’m very reluctant to try chicken again!

My eventual goal for Midge is to become a hospital/ care home/ school visiting dog and he wouldn’t be allowed to do this if he is fed a raw diet.

@Aubrielle I really recommend PureFlax! There are other brands but that's the one I always use and I have a discount code for one of its stockists too.

@Nella68 We didn't get on with the Skinners chicken puppy either so I always used their duck or lamb puppy, but now she's on Skinners Maintenance and that is, I think, mostly chicken! Can't explain why it works now but it seems to.

How glorious to think of Midge as a hospital visiting dog, that is so lovely.

Our trainer uses some freeze dried meat treats which look great but they are SO expensive, I couldn’t believe it!

Thanks @brushingboots , just looking at their website now.

That's wonderful about Midge potentially becoming a PAT dog @Nella68 !

Ah I love that @Nella68- my dd’s primary school had a little cockerpoo therapy dog and dd loved it.

We’ve just been on a walk with a new friend! I always bump into a girl (I say girl as she’s younger than me 😄) who has a black cocker that’s just a couple of months older than V and they only live 2 streets away, so she asked if we wanted to do some walks together. She thinks he’s actually got some show cocker in him because he has a very slightly domed head and fluffy legs, but also he is SO chilled compared to V. Vinny was like a rocket going 100mph and fizzing with energy the whole time, and the other dog was just plodding along having a bit of a sniff. He really wanted to play with V but he was a a bit nervous but I’m sure if we walk a few times they will get used to each other. They look almost identical but have such different personalities, it is funny! He also walks like an angel on lead and apparently has never chewed anything. Couldn’t be more different to Vinny 😂

Thank you all so much for the recommendations, you’ve honestly saved my sanity! I’ve opened all the food suggestions up in to new tabs and I am off to have a look at all of them!

Happy to send you some samples of all the ones I mentioned x

I feel I have missed something. This morning @VanGoSunflowers was sticking with Burns and adding a meat topper. I shall have to check out the puppy thread again.

@Nella68 My friend's dog is raw fed and visits hosptials and schools. They do it through Therapy Dogs Nationwide. Just incase you wanted to switch to raw, which you probably don't. 😂

@YorkshireFelix That's lovely to have a new friend and walking companion, even if Vinny isn't so keen. Some dogs just aren't fussed about playing.
I used to meet a friend once a week. Our dogs greeted each other enthusiastically in the car park, and then totally ignored each other for the entire walk.

Yes he’s definitely not that fussed! I think he’s only ever played with another dog 3 or 4 times in his whole life. He has always been a bit anxious around other dogs but it’s getting better as he gets older. I think you said recently that P is the same? He doesn’t jump into my arms to be saved but he absolutely would if he knew it was an option 😂

Needless to say, it was me @SpanielsGalore , I have been feeding Brie a junior food that ticked a lot of the boxes for VanGo and can be fed up to 2 years.

Nothing wrong with Burns at all, she may well decide to stick with that, but I always think food talk could be relevant for someone else who happens upon these threads and has a picky pup.

@YorkshireFelix P is a weird one. She is confident enough to want to meet and greet all dogs, and is extremely polite in her approach. She'll sit at a distance, look to the side and then move forward in a crawl. But she only wants to do a quick sniff and be off. Any prolonged interest on the other dog's part makes her anxious and she'll lie on her back, exposing her stomach. She also doesn't like packs of dogs. She's not so bad if everyone is walking, but she'll want picking up if we are standing still chatting and the dogs are milling around.
She's only ever played with K and my sprocker. She ran up and down with a collie we met on a walk once, but that's it. We met a young lab this morning that K ran around with and she watched them, but she wouldn't join in.
Fortunately P is only 12.5kg, so still a manageable size to catch when she leaps at me. I think I'd struggle with a 16kg dog. Although she is teaching K to do the same. I haven't worked out how to catch two yet, so it's a first come first served basis. 😂

For what it’s worth, I still feed Twatdog puppy biscuits with his BNB. All my dogs get puppy dry food until they are 3 years old, then they go onto just ‘adult.’ Is it a bit bonkers? Possibly. But none of my dogs have ever had any joint issues - despite the breed being prone to it and their size - and I can’t help but think my choice in food is a big a part of that as their genetics.

My dogs are big, with delicate joints and bones, so they need the added calcium, fat and protein. Something like a cocker could probably sooner transition to adult food than a retriever can…

@SpanielsGalore that’s interesting about the raw diet being allowed; at the hospital where I used to work, raw food was an absolute no.

The Trust, where I nursed, introduced visiting dogs a couple of years before I retired. It was amazing to see how having a dog to stroke could really unlock something deep down in some of the patients with dementia. I would love to be a volunteer visitor.

M is a very friendly dog and loves people and being stroked. Calm greetings are the thing we need to work on. He’s getting a lot better as he matures, but he tends to see anyone who makes eye contact with him as his new best friend!
I had a really good walk earlier- an older lady asked if she could pet him, and luckily she was very happy to follow my instructions, so she took her time and didn’t just barge in. She came close in stages so I could reward M for staying calm. By the time she was in stroking distance the initial excitement had gone so he did a lovely calm, 4 on the floor, greeting.

See I think we messed up previously @LandSharksAnonymous by putting them onto adult food too soon. Bear in mind this was 25 years ago so nothing like the amount of info available or ways to source new food.
But Algy & Brie have been our biggest, strongest, most robust dogs and I think keeping them on puppy food longer has played a part.
Would you recommend that I keep her on junior food longer then? I might consider it...

@Nella68
My Dad had Alzheimer's and spent his last 4 years in a residential home. The regular visits from the PAT dogs was a real highlight for him.

We are also working on calm greetings, Brie is still very overenthusiastic when people want to stroke her, and I live in fear of her knocking someone over.

Today she made friends with a 17 week old cockerpoo. Both of them were on the lead and they had a nice friendly little greeting and a sniff.

@Aubrielle how old is she? I’d say 24 months is minimum for a big dog, and 36 the upper end of pushing it. But that’s based off Goldies, not PMDs! But they are big dogs and the puppy food provides extra calcium for bones, so I don’t think it would hurt! One of my friends with Bernese keeps her dogs on puppy food for life. Once they get to 3 she does 50/50 puppy and adult.

It’s so hard knowing what to feed dogs - particularly as the advice changes. I’ve said before but all of mine are different combinations of various foods, but I know if I swapped Twatdog to raw he wouldnt be as healthy…but Pen is on just raw and is flourishing. It’s like neutering - whether or not to do it is completely individual for every dog.

I love the idea of Brie greeting such a small puppy so gently! It will have done the puppy so much good - for some reasons dogs seem to find big, white, fluffy dogs to be scary. What a softie she is 😍

@Nella68 you should do it! M’s still young so calmness will come to him and I’ve found dogs do tend to know to be gentle with older people tbh. Twatdog in particular has always been gentle with older people - although he’s a menace with everyone else.

She's 17 months @LandSharksAnonymous and I have her on Calibra Junior Large Breed which says up to 30 months.
She has that mixed 50/50 with Essentials Estate for lunch and dinner.
Breakfast and supper is Millies Wolfheart.
She gets a tray or can of meat a couple of times a week.
Also has goats milk, cheese and carrots plus occasional leftovers.
I'm very happy with her diet; her coat is amazing and she is really sturdy but agile. She is now taller than me when she stands up against me; I don't encourage it, but the other night she spontaneously did for the first time in ages and it was a surprise how tall she actually is.

Yeah, she was sweet with the puppy. I can hand on heart say they've all been brilliant around other dogs, aside from both Finn & Algy playing "my bark's louder than your bark" with the Malamute that used to live opposite us 🙄
PMD are obviously highly territorial, but away from their own little patch they'll generally make friends with almost anything. I'm not sure if you saw my conversation the other day with SpanielsGalore and YorkshireFelix but I've never had an issue with any of our lot being defensive when other dogs approach, despite them being on a lead. Seriously, never a grumble. Tiny pup today was perfectly safe, and fortunately her owner knows us and knew our other dogs, so she had no worries at all about Brie making friends with her new little companion.

@Aubrielle I’m really pleased with how Midge is learning to read body language and adjust his play style accordingly. He used to play with all sizes of dogs in the same way (i.e, with no consideration to his size) but over the last few months he will body slam and box with large dogs, but with small dogs he’s much more careful and self handicaps. I do still have to intervene as it’s like with young children things can get just that bit too exciting and will end in tears!

Recall seems to be improving too. We had a quick play in an enclosed dog park this morning. It was empty but full of smells. I decided jus5 to let him run around without the longline and didn’t try and call him as I knew I wouldn’t be able to compete with the smells and didn’t want him to think he could ignore me. At lunchtime we went to a country park, where I assume the smells were less concentrated and he recalled beautifully every time.