I would like opinions re: Aldi Earls dog food?

Laney xox

Hi all,

I was just wondering what your opinions were regarding Earls dog food?
I have been feeding my dogs, an 8 and a half year old cross breed boxer collie and 6 and a half year old jack russell this for some time. I find it seems to agree with both of them especially my larger dog as he is prone to having a sensitive tummy and his poos have also been much more pleasant to clean up. I had been giving them the beef flavour, but during the week when i went to do my shopping the beef was out of stock and I purchased a large bag of chicken complete dog food. All was going well until fri night when the big fella became unwell with vomiting and diahrea. Saturday morning my dining room was destroyed so i had no choice for him to go outside. In the meantime the jack russell began retching and had a loose bowel motion. I then noticed the big fella was pooing a lot of blood and I immeditaely rang the vet. I brought both dogs down, thinking not much was up with the JR. Both dogs had high temperatures but especially to my surprise the JR who had a temp of 41 and became snappy with me and the vet which is not like her. The vet gave them both injections and put them on antibiotics. I asked the vet could they have been poisoned as I have had issues with neighbours but she reckons it was just a bug. They have been put on a diet of boiled rice with olive oil and parmesam cheese and seem much better but Ive noticed they are still not drinking much. I have noticed a strange smell from the bag of food and I found a used firework rocket in my garden... I suppose im wondering a few things really because Im a dog owner all my life and never experienced anything like this.
1) Can Earls dog food be recommended?
2) Where could I have the bag tested?
3) Does the dogs complaint sound like a bug?
4) Have I reason to believe my dogs have been poisoned by the dog food, rocket or nasty neighbours? (ps my neighbours garden is riddled with garbage and vermin)
5) Last and not least, if it is a bug, can people catch it because now my husband and I have been ill.

Many thanks

lrushe

1) Can Earls dog food be recommended?
There are higher quality foods out there but if it is working for you're dogs I see no reason to change it, maybe just up the nutritional value with some good protein like raw mince, fish, eggs, or fish oil.
2) Where could I have the bag tested?
There should be a place to contact if you are unhappy with the product on the bag itself. I was once unhappy with the quality of a bag of dog food I purchased, I emailed them the batch number of the bag and they had it tested.
3) Does the dogs complaint sound like a bug?
It does sound like a bug to me so I wouldn't worry too much, just keep an eye on them.
4) Have I reason to believe my dogs have been poisoned by the dog food, rocket or nasty neighbours? (ps my neighbours garden is riddled with garbage and vermin)
As above it does sound like a bug but if you are still concerned supervise your dogs while out in your garden and just have a quick look around for anything suspicious before letting them out.
5) Last and not least, if it is a bug, can people catch it because now my husband and I have been ill.
I wouldn't have thought so, there are v.few bugs that can be transmitted from dogs to humans.

Laney xox

lrushe wrote: »

1) Can Earls dog food be recommended?
There are higher quality foods out there but if it is working for you're dogs I see no reason to change it, maybe just up the nutritional value with some good protein like raw mince, fish, eggs, or fish oil.
2) Where could I have the bag tested?
There should be a place to contact if you are unhappy with the product on the bag itself. I was once unhappy with the quality of a bag of dog food I purchased, I emailed them the batch number of the bag and they had it tested.
3) Does the dogs complaint sound like a bug?
It does sound like a bug to me so I wouldn't worry too much, just keep an eye on them.
4) Have I reason to believe my dogs have been poisoned by the dog food, rocket or nasty neighbours? (ps my neighbours garden is riddled with garbage and vermin)
As above it does sound like a bug but if you are still concerned supervise your dogs while out in your garden and just have a quick look around for anything suspicious before letting them out.
5) Last and not least, if it is a bug, can people catch it because now my husband and I have been ill.
I wouldn't have thought so, there are v.few bugs that can be transmitted from dogs to humans.

Thank you very much Irushe for taking the time to answer my questions:)
I feel a good bit more at ease regarding me worrying about whether or not they had been poisoned and whether or not they had passed the bug to us.
We do generally give the dogs raw eggs, cod liver oil and occasionally tins of sardines. I am considering looking for a better food for them but am terrified if I do ill upset their digestive systems all over again. I hope I never see them ill like that again... I found myself checking on them all during the night just like I would my little daughters. They really are a huge part of the family. Thank you again.:)

djflawless

Hi just a quick post with hopefully some helpful info.wouldn't be able to answer all your questions but i have a 3 year old sprocker spaniel bitch.when i first got her i too was feeding her on earls nuts and tinned food.she wasn't to keen on eating it but i just put it down to her being in a strange humour in a new home.but after a week of feeding her earls she started to wretch and vomit alot.ever since ive been feeding her madra nuts and brandy tins.the nuts are about €15 a bag and last me 3 months.you should be able to get them anywhere.i feed her tins of brandy.12 pack is 7.69 in tesco

toadfly

Laney xox wrote: »

I am considering looking for a better food for them but am terrified if I do ill upset their digestive systems all over again.

What is your budget for say 15kg or 7.5kg bag of dog food then maybe we can recommend something better in that range. Thing is with feeding cheaper foods, you need to feed more so it doesnt actually cost less to feed. Example my dogs are on 45g of Burns/day each. Burns cost about €55/60 for 15kg. Pedigree costs about €40 for 15kg but I would have to feed them 100g a day.

If you change them over gradually, even over 3/4 weeks they should be fine. When I change foods I usually do it over a week or 10 days but if they are likely to get upset stomach just introduce the new food very gradually.

Pennicus

Laney xox, I am giving my dog canned Earl's food from local Aldi in Rathmines. She is Border Collie, 1 year old, and loves it. She actually never complains about any food, but she didn't like the dry food from Lidl, can't recall the brand name.
I can't say Earl's is bad, maybe it really depend's on a sensitivity of dog's stomach but these canned foods are pretty nice. Hope your doggies are alright.

Paddysnapper

The only Earls food I buy for my lad, a Tipperary Bitza is the mixer nuts, he is fine with them but can't tolerate Pedigree Chum anything. His main complete is Madra at just under €10 for a 10Kg bag in Dunnes, Great value!. As a mix of Lab. Collie he is a bit inclined to a sesitive tum. He is now 11 and a half and fit as a flea!

paultf

Laney xox wrote: »

but during the week when i went to do my shopping the beef was out of stock and I purchased a large bag of chicken complete dog food.

I wonder is your problem caused by the change in flavour to chicken?

If your dogs are doing well on the beef flavour and your happy enough with that....

There are better quality foods out there and as another poster said, even though they may seem more expensive, in the long run they do work out cheaper and they have better ingredients. I mean Earls would be cheap to buy but you are adding extra food to it aswell so that brings your food cost up. Some people would argue that by adding extra's like sardines to a food like Earls would be a good thing. Though if you have a good quality food you don't need to do this, I think.

I got 2 x 15kg of Burns today from Zooplus - I kept an eye out for coupons & each bag cost €38 (it's €56 in the petshop around the corner). Each bag will feed my 3 cockers for 6 weeks. With Burns I know I am getting good quality ingredients. With Earls the ingredients are animal & cereal dervivates - probably 4% each. There has been threads on this before, with foods like Earls, Pedigree, Bakers, etc the quality of ingredients wouldn't be gauranteed. When they list ingredients as derivatives that means from batch to batch the meat/cereals will vary - whatever they have at the time and whatever is the cheapest. In saying that when you changed to the chicken flavour there could been something in the ingredients that didn't agree with yours dogs. Because the ingredients are derivatives you won't know exactly what is in the chicken flavour. And finally when you are changing brands you are suppose to gradually introduce the new food - this may also apply when changing flavours so that could be your problem.

star-pants

This thread is over a year old, and the OP has not been online since before last summer so I'm going to close it off now.