Advice on dog food choice

blindside88

Hi Boardsies,

Just looking for a bit of advice on changing my dogs foods. I have a 2 year old Jack Russell cross, we had her on Royal canine for a good while but after reading reviews on here we decided to change her to a better quality food. About 6 months ago we changed her to Taste of the Wild and she seems to really like it. About 4 months ago she started scratching a lot more and chewing at her back. We've been to the vets a few times and she is upto date on her flea dose. We also had her checked for harvest mites. The vet said it may be the new food causing dry skin (although no real visible signs). We're thinking of changing her food to see. Any recommendations of a good grain free food of similar price?
Thanks in advance

DBB

What flavour is the TotW you have her on op?
Did your vet do a scrape for mites?

Latatian

Why not switch back?

Listen to the dog. If the dog does well on it, feed it.

blindside88

DBB wrote: »

What flavour is the TotW you have her on op?
Did your vet do a scrape for mites?

Thanks for the reply, yes she did. We also switched from a flea dose only to one that does mites as well. She has always licked her paws in the evening but the vet said that a lot of JRT's have what's like OCD about cleaning their paws.

blindside88

Latatian wrote: »

Why not switch back?

Listen to the dog. If the dog does well on it, feed it.

I have read that Royal Canine is very expensive for a poor quality food (a lot of filler). I've no problem paying for food but want quality for my money

blindside88

DBB wrote: »

What flavour is the TotW you have her on op?
Did your vet do a scrape for mites?

It's the lamb flavour

DBB

I asked had your vet done a scrape for mites, as some dogs are also affected by the storage mites that live in dry food. But you seem to have ruled this out!
I'm with Latatian on this one op... I'd be inclined to go back to the RC and see what happens. Look, for the money it's not the best food out there, but it's not the worst either... And if it restores your dog's skin back to where it was... well.. Then it's kinda immaterial whether it's the best, the worst, or anywhere in between. If it works for her, it works!

Donne

What do you guys reckon about Pedigree Chum cans, like you would buy in Tesco?

This is for a mature Boxer.

Knine

Donne wrote: »

What do you guys reckon about Pedigree Chum cans, like you would buy in Tesco?

This is for a mature Boxer.

Read the ingredients on the can! It is basically crap with little or no meat. I would not feed it to my dog. You are looking for food with meat as the first ingredient.

DBB

Yeah, it's not the greatest, I wouldn't be feeding it to mine either (though I had a mad little spaniel x who'd go through phases of not eating the lovely, nutritious, expensive food that I had researched til I was blue in the face, and all she'd eat was Pedigree )
If you're looking for a tinned or soft food for your Boxer, zooplus.ie have a brand called Rocco, which is stuffed with meat and some veg, and when you buy the large (800g) tins in bulk, is usually really good value.

Knine

I never tried Rocco. Must get some the next time I do a Zooplus order.

blindside88

Just as an update guys, I changed her back to Royal canine as suggested. I had a bag here in the press anyway. She has been wolfing it down and has stopped the itching so it must have been something in the taste of the wild that didn't agree with her. Thanks for the advice

Choc Chip

Glad it worked out for you blindside!

Slightly off-topic, but does anyone else find themselves noticing all the different ways quality food affects their dogs' coat, skin, teeth etc and vow to eat better themselves.... then throw that out the window as soon as they see a galaxy bar? 😂

amm2

My 1.5 year dog initially been on RC, about a year ago I've tried few good/best quality foods - Origin, Acana (2 flavors), TaseOfTheWild (3 flavors); On all of them she had pretty unstable stomach, gases etc. Turned her back to RC - happy days, back to normal. So (pretty abstract) best quality food not always best quality for one particular dog; I think nothing terribly wrong with RC, at least it is not cheap supermarket stomach filler...

Latatian

Also makes me think of how we use all these proxies for what is 'best'. Ingredients, presence of 'filler', and so on- even stuff that doesn't necessarily make sense, like taking soft stools as 'bad' when it might mean more fibre and therefore more closely matching the diet of a wild animal that will eat fur and plant materials from the stomach. We know with human medicine stuff isn't always as intuitive as it seems. Stuff that looks like it should be true isn't, you can get drugs that lower blood pressure but not your actual risk of heart attack. So maybe our ideas of what is 'best' don't necessarily reflect reality, but without a proper investigation we can't really know.

Imagine if someone did a proper blinded controlled trial of dog food, for a decade, and figured out which foods actually produced longer lives, glossier coats etc. I can well imagine some of the foods currently considered to be 'low quality' and 'high quality' might not be so on the test.

Nody

Latatian wrote: »

Also makes me think of how we use all these proxies for what is 'best'. Ingredients, presence of 'filler', and so on- even stuff that doesn't necessarily make sense, like taking soft stools as 'bad' when it might mean more fibre and therefore more closely matching the diet of a wild animal that will eat fur and plant materials from the stomach.

Sorry going to jump on this as it's a bit of a red herring thing; first of all if you assume the dog is eating animals only then by definition meat content should be in the 80% range (and about 15 - 20% bone which they only eat partially). Because animals are made up of meat and bone; their stomach and it's content even in something like a cow (how a dog kill a cow is a different matter) would still only add up to a few percentage at best so that's really a red herring in claiming stomach content as a reason for vegetables.

However dogs are closer to omnivores than carnivores (unlike cats) that does not however mean that veggie protein is as good as meat protein due to differences in amino acids etc.

However if you were to rank food in general on a scale from best to worst for dogs as a population (rather than individual pooches) I'd guess the below list would be the outcome:

• Raw / home cooked food
• Wet high meat content
• High meat content dry
• Wet low meat content
• Low meat content dry (i.e. RC)
• Wet low meat content Non existent meat content (i.e. Supermarket brand)
• Non existent meat content dry (i.e. Supermarket brand)
• Scavenging
  '

The reason being dry food is a modern (100 years or so) invention and would be the most processed version from what a dog could get in nature (and hence furthest away from the historical genetic based food for dogs) while home cooked / raw would be least processed.

Now on top of that there comes other considerations such as for example domesticated meat (i.e. chicken, cow etc.) tend to be very much fatter than what you'd get in nature which also plays in to the whole discussion as well.

So the long and short story is in general more meat is better but individual dogs needs may not match the total population needs; this can be seen simply in the fact the lower meat content the more other chemical addons are required to get the dog to get a complete meal and eat it imo.

TitianGerm

Choc Chip wrote: »

Slightly off-topic, but does anyone else find themselves noticing all the different ways quality food affects their dogs' coat, skin, teeth etc and vow to eat better themselves.... then throw that out the window as soon as they see a galaxy bar? 😂

We moved out Mini Schnauzer and Jack Russell Cross onto raw food about a year ago now.

The dogs look so much better, especially the JRT who's coat is super shiny now. The vet couldn't get over the difference in him the last time they saw him.

No longer do you have to coax him to eat, he stands wagging his tail as you fill the bowl with rabbit/chicken/venison/oily fish/beef/duck (not so much pheasant though) and he won't leave a scrap either.

Best decision we ever made for them.

Latatian

But take into account that when animals hunt they often don't eat the entire thing themselves. You start with the stomach and soft organs, then you may get driven off the carcase by something bigger. Amino acids can be compesnated for by using a mix of different plant proteins. Good point about the fatter domesticated meats. I'm just saying that rankings like the one you have are common but we don't really have much of a basis for them beyond theory, and theory can be misleading. The historical genetic based food for dogs may not actually be the optimal diet (for example it would likely include much rotting meat), the modern diet fed by people feeding wet high meat content food, raw food, home cooked food etc. may not much resemble nutritionally what dogs would eat in the wild any more than dry food does. 'Processing' is not 'good' or 'bad' it just means stuff was done to the food. That might include for example cooking it to make it safer.

tk123

emmetkenny wrote: »

We moved out Mini Schnauzer and Jack Russell Cross onto raw food about a year ago now.

The dogs look so much better, especially the JRT who's coat is super shiny now. The vet couldn't get over the difference in him the last time they saw him.

No longer do you have to coax him to eat, he stands wagging his tail as you fill the bowl with rabbit/chicken/venison/oily fish/beef/duck (not so much pheasant though) and he won't leave a scrap either.

Best decision we ever made for them.

That's funny - I've heard of other dogs not being mad about pheasant! My two love it!

TitianGerm

tk123 wrote: »

That's funny - I've heard of other dogs not being mad about pheasant! My two love it!

Neither of ours will eat it unless you cook it a little. And I hate the smell off it.

Oily fish is their favourite and a recent addition to the menu.

Donne

Sorry for the late reply DBB.

I have a Rocco treat ordered for my fella!

Cheers.

Jayop

I had mine on RC and she liked it to begin with but after a few months she seemed to go off it. Now she's on Acana and again at the beginning she was gobbling it up but seems to be bored of it more than anything. Now I know part of the problem is she's waiting to see if she gets anything better, scraps from the kitchen or stuff the kids drop when they eat.

The question I have is it possible a dog just likes to change food every couple of months out of boredom eating the same thing all the time?

TitianGerm

Jayop wrote: »

I had mine on RC and she liked it to begin with but after a few months she seemed to go off it. Now she's on Acana and again at the beginning she was gobbling it up but seems to be bored of it more than anything. Now I know part of the problem is she's waiting to see if she gets anything better, scraps from the kitchen or stuff the kids drop when they eat.

The question I have is it possible a dog just likes to change food every couple of months out of boredom eating the same thing all the time?

My Jack Russell was like that. Would rather go hungry than eat the same food (different flavour) month after month.

Jayop

Interesting. I had read (probably on here) that changing dog food should be done really carefully and ween them off one and onto another a little at a time so I had kinda took it that changing frequently isn't the best for them. This bag of Acana is almost done so I'll maybe try another one now and ween her onto that and see how she does.

As it stands we can only get two feeds a day into her but we used to do three. We've had to up the amount in the two feeds to compensate but I'd rather feed less and more often.

Bells21

Jayop wrote:

Interesting. I had read (probably on here) that changing dog food should be done really carefully and ween them off one and onto another a little at a time so I had kinda took it that changing frequently isn't the best for them. This bag of Acana is almost done so I'll maybe try another one now and ween her onto that and see how she does.

Jayop wrote:

As it stands we can only get two feeds a day into her but we used to do three. We've had to up the amount in the two feeds to compensate but I'd rather feed less and more often.

When we changed foods and even flavours within the same brand of kibble we would ensure there was an over lap i.e. a small amount t of the new food mixed with the older food and gradually build it up that way.
In regards to how many times to feed, I would follow the dogs lead. If she's happy to eat twice a day rather than three times then go with that. Otherwise you could with hold a small amount t from either meal and use this as training treats in between both meals?

Jayop

Thanks for that, I'll have a look for different flavours and maybe not buy such a big bag the next time.

Yeah she's happy to eat twice. She very rarely eats when the food is put out, she'll normally leave it for ages then go over and eat all of it in one go.

Bells21

Jayop wrote:

Thanks for that, I'll have a look for different flavours and maybe not buy such a big bag the next time.

Jayop wrote:

Yeah she's happy to eat twice. She very rarely eats when the food is put out, she'll normally leave it for ages then go over and eat all of it in one go.

Acana also do smaller bags think they're 500g if I remember, they do work out dearer but might help if you're looking for something to interest her. I got them on zooplus.
You could also try taking up the food after 15/20 mins of it being down and then offering it again a while later again taking it up if she hasn't eaten. It might help to get her in a routine of eating when her food is put down.

Jayop

Is it a problem letting her eat when she wants? My wife was going to try that lifting the food but we didn't start yet.

Bells21

Jayop wrote:

Is it a problem letting her eat when she wants? My wife was going to try that lifting the food but we didn't start yet.

No I don't see it as a problem, when ours were on kibble that's most likely what would've happened. I just know some people find that encourages the dogs to eat and it keeps their toileting in a routine too.

Jayop

Bells21 wrote: »

No I don't see it as a problem, when ours were on kibble that's most likely what would've happened. I just know some people find that encourages the dogs to eat and it keeps their toileting in a routine too.

Cool. Toileting was never a problem since she was trained as there's someone home 24/7 with her more or less. That said she has been having a few accidents in the last week but she had her first heat less than a month ago and we put it down to that.

Bells21

Jayop wrote:

Cool. Toileting was never a problem since she was trained as there's someone home 24/7 with her more or less. That said she has been having a few accidents in the last week but she had her first heat less than a month ago and we put it down to that.

Just to say and I'm most certainly not ramming any diet choices etc down your throat, but ours were very fussy eaters also and we found ourselves adding tuna etc to kibble to get them to eat and there were often days where they just wouldn't eat their kibble. I know I was guilty of caving in and giving treats etc then because I just wanted them to eat something. But in the past year we've changed ours over to a raw diet and they are thriving on it. Very rarely is there a day now where anything is left.

Jayop

Bells21 wrote: »

Just to say and I'm most certainly not ramming any diet choices etc down your throat, but ours were very fussy eaters also and we found ourselves adding tuna etc to kibble to get them to eat and there were often days where they just wouldn't eat their kibble. I know I was guilty of caving in and giving treats etc then because I just wanted them to eat something. But in the past year we've changed ours over to a raw diet and they are thriving on it. Very rarely is there a day now where anything is left.

Do you mind telling me a bit about the raw diet? She's only a little tiny thing and I was worried about feeding raw. I'll read up properly for sure but what kind of things do you feed?

Bells21

Ours weigh 7kg and 10kg(he needs to loose weight and has been doing so). I feed completes which means the ratio of 80% meat 10% bone and 10% offal is already mixed although some may contain more or less bone. There are three suppliers that I'm aware of slaney pet foods, carnivore Kelly's and k9 kitchen, they supply completes but will also supply minces chicken/duck necks and offal if you wanted to go the fit route and make it up yourself. Ideally you feed 2-3% of their ideal body weight a day. The lower end if they may be prone to putting on weight, they higher end if they maintain their weight or are more active but you can adjust this percentage as you go along based on how they look.
Buying in bulk is the cheaper option so you would need freezer space for this.
We were feeding Acana prior to changing to raw and there really wasn't a whole lot in the difference cost wise, mainly because it's smaller dogs we're feeding. So ours that weighs 7kg is being fed at 2% of her body weight which means she's getting 140g a day split between two meals. You'll notice after a while their loops are much firmer and there's less of them. I've also noticed a difference in their coat condition.
If you're on Facebook there are a couple of pages which offer great advice, raw feeders in Ireland being one and BARF UK the two I use most often.
Ours so far have had venison, rabbit, duck, oily fish, beef, lamb, chicken, pheasant.
Hope that gives you a little insight.

Edit: the dogs first website run by Dr. Conor Brady is also a great source of advice.

Jayop

Brilliant! Thanks for talking the time out to write that. I'll certainly look more into it.

dubjay

Just got a bag of new Origen. They have upped there game again with there new recipie. the percentages it's now 85/15 split. I felt like eating it myself.

coddlesangers

Our fella is raw fed, it's a bit of work at the start but once you get into the swing of it it's great. Fabulous coat now (he was on RC for the first year) . Added bonus- smaller poos that turn white, 1970's style..