Alternative to Hills ID

toadfly

Hi All,

I am looking for an affordable food as an alternative to Hills ID? Anyone have any idea? The OH just paid €20 for a small bag of it which isn’t possible long or even short term right now. Also don’t like that they use meat derivatives in it.

Thanks.

Tranceypoo

How many kg's do you get for 20 euro? I recently switched my two to Whites, 15kg for 39 euro, after every 8th bag you get the 9th one free (online ordering), free delivery in Ireland. I had them on Barking Heads which was great but 12kg was 52 euro plus I either had to drive to Petworld in Galway or order online and pay 5 euro delivery. Am pleased with Whites it's not had any detrimental effect on either of them anyways!!

ISDW

Can I ask why you were using the ID? Is there a dietary issue there?

Vince32

Dry food Ratings and Reviews

When it comes to food, you really do get what you pay for, Try a 5 star premium or a 6 star super premium. There are 100's to choose from and spending the extra 5-10 Euros a month on food will increase your dogs overall health.

You'll see there are good 3-4 star rated foods that are affordable and meet all the dogs nutritional needs, you can easily spend €60 and go home with enough food for a 2-3 months.

It's not ideal, but it is affordable, what size dog have you got? how many? how much do they weigh, and how much exercise are the given?

toadfly

Tranceypoo wrote: »

I recently switched my two to Whites, 15kg for 39 euro, after every 8th bag you get the 9th one free (online ordering), free delivery in Ireland.

Its the Hills ID food I am on about, the presciption food. Have been looking at Whites though as well!

ISDW wrote: »

Can I ask why you were using the ID? Is there a dietary issue there?

Sorry I should have said in the OP but was at work with very few minutes to go online!

Yes long story short Lexi has been losing weight over the last 6 weeks or so. We had changed her to Luath Lamb & Rice and had given her a raw bone for the first time so thought when she got the runs it had to do with those so put her back on the chicken & rice. She had lost 3kg at this stage (17 down to 14). That worked for about 2 weeks and the runs/vomiting came back. Back to the vet she had lost another .4kg. They done blood tests (protein & B12 levels down) and xray to see if she had swollowed something she couldnt pass but that was clear. Back to vet today to get more bloods and she was down another .3kg.

At the stage now that they are recommending a bowel biopsy in UCD, she is booked in for Wednesday but when our vet spoke to UCD they said she might be better going onto Hills ZD for a month but she cant eat anything else in the 4 weeks or we will be back at square one. This is a problem as she eats anything she gets her teeth into. Grass, bird seed, hard plastic serving spoon. The food is €90 for 15kg but they think the pet insurance will cover one bag.

Am very confused at the minute and we have to decide by tomorrow morning what we are doing. The OH can bring her to Dublin on Wednesday but if they need to keep her overnight he has to be in Letterkenny for work Thursday and morning and I cant get time off so really bad timing but we cant leave it much longer.

Sorry about the long post

Vince32

If she is eating everything, inc bird seeds, plastics and others, she may well have a blockage and not be processing her food.

On the site I linked, the 1 star food is good quality, the premo and super premo foods are recommended

There is a little known brand called "Select Gold" it's a super premo kibble and it cost's €22.95 /4kg.

Portion size for a small dog is 125g / day or 66g x 2 times a day.

4000/125 = 32 days of feeding which is very economical, but if your dog is losing weight that fast at such a steady rate, I would side with the vet and get the dog the operation, UCD does fine work.

paultf

Burns claim to offer an alternative to perscription diets. Info on their website. You might even be able to contact their customer support by email - I have often got a response out of hours.

But in a way Luath is similar to Burns so may not be suitable. Burns would be cheaper though.

John Burns claims all Burns dogs are slim & he reckons they will live 2 years longer.

ISDW

I'm going to shock myself and probably a few other people now but, maybe consider the Royal Canin Sensible. I had a sibe boy here who was always underweight, and had been to lots of vets with his owners for all sorts of tests. He was emigrating to Australia, so we found a food that his owners could get over there as well as here, and Royal Canin was the easiest for the quarantine kennel and me to get hold of. He has been on it now for about 3 months and is flying, his owners couldn't believe how well he looked when he came out of quarantine, they have never seen him look so healthy. He's not being sick anymore, nice solid poos, and holding his weight really well.

I know its not that cheap either, but I'm sure is cheaper than the Hills. I got some bags from Jollyes, they had an offer, buy 2 get 3rd free.

toadfly

Vince her xray was clear so no blockage.

Paul I have tried Burns Chicken & Rice but it only worked for 2 weeks before she was sick again. Also tried Burns Potato & Pork but no good.

Vet was more pushing towards this special diet because she doesnt even know if UCD will do the procedure or not. They will decide when they see her, they might just recommend the diet and see how it goes.

Very confused.

toadfly

ISDW wrote: »

I'm going to shock myself and probably a few other people now but, maybe consider the Royal Canin Sensible.

Just looking at it on zooplus, it is £48.99/€64.99.

Maybe best thing is to try the ZD for one bag and if she settles change her over very slowly to a food for sensitive tum.

Edit: dogfooddirect have it for €60 delivered.

tk123

TillyGirl wrote: »

Maybe best thing is to try the ZD for one bag and if she settles change her over very slowly to a food for sensitive tum.
.

This is what I did with my guy - just so we had him back to normal before making any more changes. I had a feeling it was the Luath because it was rice based so cut out everything and got RC sensitivity - that's all I fed him for a few weeks - I even made treats out of it lol! :rolleyes: After a couple of weeks on it I slowly introduced everything except the Luath and no probs - 1 portion of Luath and we were back to square one. He's on JWB cereal free at the moment and doing great on it. I didn't like the sensitivity control - apart from the dent in my wallet the smell seemed to be oozing out of his pores - my car even stunk of it lol and it just seemed too chemically!
Obviously a fresh/raw diet would be best but I'm not in a position to change him at the moment so we'll stick to JWB for the time being.

Btw for RC/Hills prescription check out vetuk/petmeds/medicanimal. Hills is 10% off on vetuk atm and medicanimal always give 10% off if you buy 2 food items. Vetuk is usually cheaper and faster than medicanimal.

carleigh

My dog was on ID for a long time and it is very expensive. Like you say, the small bag is €20 and the tins are €2.79 in my local vets. We gave it to him on and off for a year, but eventually he wouldnt touch it anymore, but we mixed it with rice/turkey/chicken/fish to get it into him, and even the smallest bit makes a difference. We could make 3 tins last a week. We now feed him Burns Mini Bites (a small handful mixed in his food every other day), and thats €10 for the small bag, the vet suggested the Burns as an alternative seeing as he went off the ID. Hope your dog feels better soon.

LucyBliss

TillyGirl, I'm so sorry to hear that about poor Lexi. I hope it gets resolved soon and that she's back on the mend. She's such a gorgeous dog, bless her.

toadfly

Thanks everyone, it's very frustrating. We have been trying so hard to get her sorted and it's upsetting to see her getting thinner.

She is very thin now so can't go on much longer. Might try the ZD for a month, get us over Xmas and go from there if no improvement.

Yes Lucy she is quite cute

lorebringer

TillyGirl - so sorry about your (and your dogs!) problems, nearly more stressful when they are ill than when we are!

I found Royal Canin Sensitivity Control fantastic, works brilliantly with one of mine that has bouts of colitis every so often even when we found Hills I/D to be a bit irritating to her. We tried several different foods of varying prices and it is what worked best for her. We buy it in 7kg bags, about the €50 () but we found that we feed significantly less than the I/D so it does last longer. It can be gotten cheaper online than at vets (www.medicanimal.com) and I highly recommend it. We also give it to our other dogs is they get an upset belly for whatever reason (minor bug, ate something funny... you know the deal!) and it really settles it.

Vince32

Good to hear she has no blockage, that just leaves the environment, if there is any rodent bait, snail or mouse traps, slug'it's she can get too, remove it asap.

We had a Maltese who got very sick, but luckily ( I guess ) we noticed her vomit had a green / blueish hue and the penny dropped. Have a look around the gardens and surround and make sure no one has placed bait traps. Other than that I can only offer kind wishes to you and lexi.

Get well soon.

toadfly

Thanks vince. Surely if she was poisoned it would have shown up in the blood work? I really don't think she was. She is never off lead on walks.

It's the ZD we are looking at now, the vet rang this evening after she spoke to UCD and said not to open the ID and to ring her in the morning with our decision.

I think at this stage we will try her on the ZD if the insurance covers it and look into the biopsy after Christmas.

Thanks everyone for advice and good wishes.

toadfly

Can anyone advise me on this please. The insurance won't cover the presciption food and it's €70 for the 10kg of Hills ZD, this will only last her around a month. After that her problem may not be with the food and it will have been a complete waste of money. If we send her for the biopsy the the vet thinks UCD will recommend this diet for her anyway.

I mentioned the possibility of putting her on a raw diet but she thinks we need to use the ZD first and then eliminate other food after that.

We don't have the money to buy it and from looking online there are some terrible reviews of it, that it's full of fillers and corn being one of the ingredients is a worry.

Really don't know what to do, am wary as I know hills & RC are recommended by some vets as they get large commission. Not saying thats what the vet is doing but have to think of it.

littlebug

Poor doggy
I can't advise on Hills, just give you my own experience. my dog was put on RC gastrointestinal (prescription) but I only kept her on it for a month because it was just so expensive. I switched to Whites light & sensitive and she has been absolutely fine on that... hasn't had any digestive problems at all since we started it in the summer so it might be worth a try. I've moved up to their chicken and rice this week and so far it's ok too.
Hope it works out.

toadfly

Thanks littlebug, is that the salmon version of Whites? I was thinking that might be an option.

tk123

RC do an allergy food too that seems to work out slightly cheaper than hills if you go for the biggest bag -http://www.vetuk.co.uk/royal-canin-veterinary-diets-royal-canin-hypoallergenic-c-62_65_74/royal-canin-hypoallergenic-canine-dry-dr21-p-261

I know with Hills they offer a guarantee so if the food didn't suit her you could get your money back - one of the nurses in the vets told me that when I was getting RC.

If you can't afford the food would you maybe try her on something light? Some cooked chicken/turkey/scrambled egg and even a small bit of mash with it to avoid cereals/grains? Robbies salmon & potato is like instant mash with other veg and the little robbies/luath kibbles in it - you add hot water. When I was mixing up batches of Robbies for Kongs I realized a bag of spuds and some meat and vegs would be a LOT cheaper - I had gotten the bags cheap at pet expo thou

Oh another thing - have you thought of mailing land of holistic pets to see if they can offer any advice? The guy is a vet after all so no harm getting a free opinion

littlebug

It is the salmon one.
Unfortunately you can only get it in the 15kg bags so can't try it out with a small bag first. Maybe see if you can get some samples?

I don't know where in Galway you are but I get mine (and got samples) in the pet shop in Tuam. They didn't have it in on Monday (thus me buying the small bag of chicken & rice) but said maybe Wed or Thursday. maybe they'd have samples they could give you in the meantime?
If I hadn't just finished a bag I could have given you some to try out

toadfly

tk123 wrote: »

I know with Hills they offer a guarantee so if the food didn't suit her you could get your money back - one of the nurses in the vets told me that when I was getting RC.

Oh another thing - have you thought of mailing land of holistic pets to see if they can offer any advice? The guy is a vet after all so no harm getting a free opinion

I am waiting on a call back from a girl I know that works for RC to see what she suggests. I have been feeding her on chicken and rice with a little burns pork & potato the last week and she hasnt been as bad.

I dunno if there is any point emailing him, he is just going to recommend some version of of luath/robbies isnt he? Robbies is very expensive.

littlebug wrote: »

It is the salmon one.
Unfortunately you can only get it in the 15kg bags so can't try it out with a small bag first. Maybe see if you can get some samples?

I actually live about 10 minutes from Whites house in Galway! We called over 4 weeks ago to get samples, I was planning on changing her over when things got sorted but they never did. I think I only have the regular chicken flavour one though but I will check later. Think we will have to go the route of a few weeks of presciption and then try and light food like Whites. Or go grain free although she does fine on plain chicken & rice and on the tinned Hills/RC so dont think its the rice.

Thanks everyone

Peppa

I know you are not in Dublin so this suggestion may not be any good but try the DSPCA. I recently donated my old cat food to them and mentioned the price I had to pay for the new food in conversation and they were able to get me my food for a lot lower. I bought a 10kg bag for €49 dunno what vet would have charged but this is what they did charge:

- vet charged €20.80 for 2kg bag and DSPCA quoted €15.

It might be worth giving them a ring to see if they can do you a favour and see if they can supply you with what you need.

I know you are in Galway but there will be loads of boards.ie travelling from Dublin to Galway over the Christmas that might be able to help and I thought this might be worth posting.

Good luck - animals can be so expensive. I have 4 so understand completely especially given the current economic climate.

toadfly

Thanks for that Peppa

DogsFirst

TillyGirl wrote: »

Hi All,

I am looking for an affordable food as an alternative to Hills ID? Anyone have any idea? The OH just paid €20 for a small bag of it which isn’t possible long or even short term right now. Also don’t like that they use meat derivatives in it.

Thanks.

Sounds like a gluten intolerance, that's why she settles on the ID. Whatever food you chose it needs to have no wheat / barley / rye in it. Ideally no cooked protein either (cooked protein as in dry food is denatured protein and why "beef" and "chicken" rank as the number 1 and 2 allergens in dogs today, like a cow being allergic to grass). Also remove all chemical additives (any one of the million in dry food have all been pinned for allergy at some stage). Recommend:

Remove all antigens from his diet, including gluten (gluten is found in cereals such as wheat, barley and rye, and these are grass, often the very first heads up that you have an internal gluten sensitivity is weight / condition). We as omnivores have been eating gluten for 2,000 years and still today 30 - 40% of people depending on your ethnicity, ie how long you have been exposed to it, imagine how many carnivorous (therefore poorer at digesting gluten and more prone to it's affects) dogs are susceptible to it.

This is why so many dry foods are coming out with gluten free varieties and why people today are moving away from dry food (US dry food sales fell in quantity for the first time last year, Euromonitor Pet Food Report 2010 -2011, summary available online) and sales of fresh/frozen products are increasing exponentially. Every brand does one, doesn't matter which, it's pretty much all the same bar the bag.

Heavy dose fish oil to stabilise immune system in mean time. Low fat probiotic yoghurt for gastro tract recovery, maybe some chamomile.

If determined to stay with dry aim for a gluten free "hypoallergenic" variety (which is at best a misnomer as all dry food is cooked / processed, and therefore allergenic to sensitive breeds).

toadfly

DogsFirst wrote: »

Heavy dose fish oil to stabilise immune system in mean time. Low fat probiotic yoghurt for gastro tract recovery, maybe some chamomile.

If determined to stay with dry aim for a gluten free "hypoallergenic" variety (which is at best a misnomer as all dry food is cooked / processed, and therefore allergenic to sensitive breeds).

Thanks DogsFirst. How much fish oil would you recommend? She is 13kg. I'm not determined to stay on dry, I just know I dont have the space for raw at the minute and its a bad time for us to be changing over, my OH is going to be at his parents over xmas and I will be working so hard to organise.

The RC gastro typoallergenic food is ordered and will be collecting it tomorrow. €89 for 14 kg :eek: She also let slip that its only costing them €54 to get it in. Rip off or what :mad:

DogsFirst

TillyGirl wrote: »

Thanks DogsFirst. How much fish oil would you recommend? She is 13kg. I'm not determined to stay on dry, I just know I dont have the space for raw at the minute and its a bad time for us to be changing over, my OH is going to be at his parents over xmas and I will be working so hard to organise.

The RC gastro typoallergenic food is ordered and will be collecting it tomorrow. €89 for 14 kg :eek: She also let slip that its only costing them €54 to get it in. Rip off or what :mad:

That's an expensive bag of crackers alright!

Two strong caps say (1000mg, available in Lidl real cheap) each day depending on need. Have a read of the post below re fish oil.
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=75480638&postcount=7

Really reccomend you read Watson 1998 tells you all need to know on the subject.

Best of luck