Please what is the story with FOOD??

[Mia]

Hey guys,

So confused - i just read an article about what to feed your dog!

The article said that most dog branded dog foods including dry food are not good for your dog!

It says that you should feed your dog human food and this is the best for them - I have downloaded a book by this lady called Michele Welton and plan on reading it up and finding out more but what is the position on what to feed your dog!

The vet and the breeder told me to give Bailey only dried dog food as human food is too rich and will make him fat?!
This new information goes against this completely - what do we do????

[Kingofthehouse86]

What I would say is try to find a food that ur dogs loves that is also easy for u to buy...A lot of ppl have different views on what foods are good for dogs, I would think that if the dog food was bad then it wouldn't b made...but if u wanna feed ur dog the best find a food with little to no by-products...Also ask ur breeder, ur Vet, or ur local petstore on what they think is the best to feed ur kid

[Heritage Cavaliers]

While I think most would agree that the Raw/BARF diet is the best to feed many people find that it is just not practical for one reason or another.

While there are some very bad commercial dog foods available – there are some very good ones available as well. It seems like more and more manufactures are using human grade products and less byproducts.

I personally feed the Natural Balance line of food and have been very pleased with the results – my adults eat the Sweet Potatoes and Fish Formula - but there are a lot of opinions out there and each dog is different.

[Karlin]

I'd have to politely disagree on raw/BARF being the best option, though it is *one* option . I increasingly feel raw is too risky as a fulltime feeding choice as far as I am concerned, but as I've said before, everyone has their own risk/benefit threshold for such things as diet, healthcare and so on.

But after a year of feeding raw and talking to a lot of people (and having a dog nearly have a serious problem after eating a raw chicken wing) I feel the risks are too high, and certainly don't feel that raw is better or indeed, the safest thing for most to feed. Nor am I convinced it is, even in evolutionary terms, an ideal way to feed, any more than it is for us to only eat raw food (the same argument should hold -- because humans and the domesticated dog have a very closely entwined history that is quite different from the evolution and eating habits of other primates and canids). We've been cooking for about as long as dogs have hung around human encampments. And we do very well on a mix of veg and meat, raw and cooked.

The history of the domesticated dog would have seen it surviving on castoffs from human encampments, meaning a lot of cooked food, scraps, and generally scavenging so they are clearly well able for a wide range of food, all of which can provide a balanced and healthy and ideal diet as long as nutrition is balanced.

So, what to feed? I think feeding nothing but dry is a rather grim life for a dog and people have only been feeding dry foods since post WWII. Clearly dogs did very well on table scraps, butcher's left overs, a bit of offal, whatever was around the place, for hundreds of years. Most people's grandparents will have fed their dogs in this way.

Dry or canned food is very convenient but a lot of it is not of great quality and overall, eating kibble is the equivalent of us surviving entirely on weetabix. We could do so because it is vitamin-fortified but what a depressing thought! Most people will note how much more interested dogs are in table scraps -- with good reason, it is REAL food!

The options for a more interesting and healthy diet are wideranging (dry food is processed food -- and eating nothing but processed food is not, we all know, the best way to get one's nutitional requirements). Most table scraps make a nice supplement but not IN ADDITION to the full meal you already fed but as part of a daily calorie intake so maybe is better left for the next regular feeding, not as a big treat. There are few things that shouldn't be fed, like cooked bones, chocolate, raisins, grapes -- there's a list of dangerous foods in the Library section.

Or you can prepare cooked meals. I do this -- I make big stews -- and either feed that on its own or mixed with some quality commercial kibble klike Royal Canin or James Wellbeloved or Burns (in Ireland). the well known dog nutritionist Monica Segal is a big proponent of cooked diets. There are recipes in the Library for cooked meal suggestions. I make a lot up and freeze into containers that give about three days of meals in each.

We don't get any of the premade raw foods here which makes feeding raw very cumbersome, though I do give the dogs occasional raw bones or chicken necks (never cooked).

I think it is always good to add something to plain old dry -- a bit of boiled chicken, some vegetables, a sppon of live yoghurt -- there's lots that can be added.

The library also has a list of healthy things to give as treats.

[Karlin]

More info on dry foods. Not that many that are available in Ireland are listed.

http://www.dogfoodanalysis.com/

Those I like of Irish dry foods:

Burns
Clinivet
James Wellbeloved
Royal Canin for small breeds

I fed RC for a long time but have rotated over to James Wellbeloved.

[Mia]

Thank you so much Karlin and everybody for the advice! Bailey of course loves REAL food and i agree that it makes sense to vary his diet and include some of it in his meals!! He does get some scraps and in general is relectant to eat the dry food on its own - so i do incorporate cooked food that we are having for dinner - he really loves all food!!

The vet just mentioned that it is better for them to keep it dry and then their poo with be hard and this will in turn help the anal glands to not fill up too much!

So many opinions i just want the best for Bailey and sometimes real food gives him diarhorea - maybe it is a case of trial and error just don't want him to feel unnessicarily miserable!

[Karlin]

Check out the suggested treats link -- raw carrots are also great for keeping anal glands clear, or the stems from broccoli when you are trimming them off (all my dogs love these!).