Dog Food

[cossie]

We have a 7 month old Cavalier King Charles who is currently fed Royal Canine as she was from birth with her breeder.  She is our first dog having previously only had cats.  My question is to those experienced dog owners and lovers out there!

Are the likes of Royal Canine better for your pet or are they just an expensive brand name?  At the supermarket I see many people buying various dog foods, pedigree, friskies etc....I want to stick to dry food for her and if the best dry food for her is Royal Canine then I will continue, but I was just after any knowledge or advice others could pass on.  I've read a few bits on the internet about animals being like children and the better the stuff you put in them the better the stuff you get out of them!!

I understand that with any change over of food it must be done gradually in order to allow the dog to adjust....she is fed twice aday and you can set your clock by her toilet times!  I'd hate to mess all that up!

Finally, happy new year to all and thanks in advance of any help you can offer.

Debs

[woolybanana]

I have swapped mine to Pedigree dry stuff from Royal Canin without any problems. And it stopped them f a r ting under my nose all evening[6]

[woolybanana]

I have swapped mine to Pedigree dry stuff from Royal Canin without any problems. And it stopped them f a r ting under my nose all evening[6]

[woolybanana]

Auww deed Aie doo zat? [6]

[Christine Animal]

We still find, supermarketwise, Brekkies Excel Multicroc to be the best, the green bag, with the German shepherd over a girl's shoulder.  It used to be Royal Canin, but now has Affinity Petcare on the bags.  What comes out at the other end is far better quality than with any of the other supermarket brands !

 

[mossie]

As all dog owners know, this is a complex and emotive subject which I am still wrestling with years after getting my first dog.  At present my two adult dogs are fed on Royal Canin Club Performance.  The protein level seems to suit them, although for years I had my deerhound on a special large breed food, which provided the extra stuff he needed for his large joints.   However, I have had to re-visit this issue all over again with my springer pup.  He is currently on Arden Grange dry food, an extremely high quality english food which I buy mail order from an english-run company in France.  However, I worry constantly about what is put in these foods.  I don't eat processed food myself, and I don't really want my dogs eating it.  The best food is a home-made diet although after some investigation, I came to the conclusion that this was a bit complicated and I was worried that they wouldn't be getting all the nutrients that they needed.  I have recently found something called 'Nature Diet' which I am thinking of changing the pup to and putting some in with the two adult's biscuits as a mixer rather than tinned food.  This seems to be the closest thing to a home-made diet that I have found.  It is however expensive but I want him to have the best start possible.  Given that you only have one dog, you might consider this.  I take the attitude that I don't eat cheap food so why should my dogs.

I suppose at the bottom of this, what worries me is the long term implications of a commercial diet.  There seems to be so much cancer in dogs and cats nowadays and I have always wondered how much the diet is implicated (I have lost two cats already to cancer).  Having said that, my two adult dogs (6 and 8 years) look in fantastic condition and are generally very healthy.  I tend to think that what I spend on food, I am not spending at the vets!

The best advice really is feed them on the best food you can afford.  Although a lot of this debate I think hinges around one's attitude to food generally.  If it is of any use to you, the mail order company I use is called Seulement Naturel.  They have a website www.seulementnaturel.fr.  Sue Lynam who runs it has always been very helpful and informative when I ring, having had serious problems with the diet of one of her labradors in the past.

[Christine Animal]

We do lose a lot of dogs to all different types of cancer, but what the cause is, who knows.  They are usually elderly.

 

 

[mossie]

My first encounter with cancer in pets was quite heartbreaking.  I had an absolutely stunning siamese who I had been given because the owner was allergic to him.  His fur always looked in shiny condition.  When he was ten (ie quite young) his behaviour changed and he wouldn't eat, although he still looked in great condition.  The vet couldn't find anything wrong with him and so put him on a course of antibiotics.  When these had no effect, he said he would just have him in, open him up and see if this revealed anything.  I went off to work and just waited to hear from the vet.  He rang at lunchtime, asking if he could put my beloved cat to sleep as he had advanced cancer.  Being determined that I would never leave my animals to suffer I agreed, but it was a terrible shock and I didn't get to say goodbye either.  Having to make this decision over the phone was just so hard and I think because of the circumstances, it took me years to get over this.  This experience has made me think very carefully about what my pets are exposed to.  I know we don't know what causes cancer in our pets but so many human cancers seem to be linked to diet, and it would be logical to think the same for our pets, hence my concerns.

[Weedon]

[quote user="mossie"] This experience has made me think very carefully about what my pets are exposed to.  I know we don't know what causes cancer in our pets but so many human cancers seem to be linked to diet, and it would be logical to think the same for our pets, hence my concerns.[/quote]

If by diet you mean the type of things that are eaten, I don't believe that is true.  What I do think is, that it is more what processed food manufacturers put into the food in an effort to preserve it or to make it look more attractive that is a contributory cause.  Only the clever scientists know exactly what garbage is being put into the food, animal or human.  You only have to go back to the CJD scandal and to what they were putting into cattle feed.  I wouldn't mind betting that something equally as awful is still being used.  Isn't it time for genetically modified foods to be discussed again or has big business managed to suppress that particular irritation?

[Renaud]

Our lurcher has a take-it-or-leave-it attitude towards food. he is happy to ignore what is offered and not eat for up to three days if he feels that the proffered grub is not for him.

Today however was no problem. My OH just gave him a chunk of meat and he finished it in one go.

[Kitty]

Oh dear.  Most of our dogs have died from cancer (and we've had a lot because we have rescued elderly dogs).  I haven't ever connected it to the food that we give them - a sort of dried food melange, mixed with water.

 

[mossie]

If you rescue elderly dogs, the damage is probably already done before you get them and I don't doubt that you give them a lot of good stuff that they need at the end of their lives.  I suspect cancer is the result of long term exposure to all the additives that is put in dog food.  I think I feel like many do, that we often don't know what to do for the best.  This is why I am thinking about the 'nature diet', it is just meat, veg and rice with nothing else added but I don't have the worry of making it myself and wondering if they are getting all the required nutrients, which is especially worrying in the large breeds as the bones and joints are under so much more pressure.

[Weedon]

Sadly Mossie, it's not as straight forward as that.  Sorry to be such a blithering pessimist, but the subject has become a bit of "thing" with me.

Even giving meat that you have cooked, with veg and rice, may not be the solution as the additives may already exist in the slaughtered animal that your best bit of steak came from.  And the veg, who knows what chemicals have gone into making them grow big, fat and fast.

So the answer is......rear the slaughtered animal yourself and grow your own veg.  Oh if only it could be like that.  I read somewhere, years ago, that the water that comes out of the tap has been through the human system 7 times.  If that is true then with the amount of narcotics (and other stuff) being flushed down the big white telephone to God, is it any wonder that certain diseases are on the increase.  We used to have a saying in our house when the children were small and would ask for a glass of water, "Have a glass of Mrs Reece."  She was a fat old lady who lived down the road, she had a wart on her nose and tufty hairs on her chin and the kids were terrified of her.  So you see, out of such pessimism it is still possible to have a laugh about it. 

When all is said and done, if you or your dog's number comes up in life's big lottery, there is nothing you can do about it.  Happy new year[:)]

[chesnelay]

These days it isnt just cancer which troubles dogs, its the condition of their teeth and gums - many more dogs are going to the vets to have dentals but unless the diet gets changed there will need to be another dental at a later stage as the majority of these processed foods aren't 'chewed' by the dogs, they just get 'woofed' down whole and then swell up in the stomache over a few hours.  Since changing my dogs onto a more natural diet - i.e meaty bones, raw chicken, raw vegetables, egg yolks, offal once or twice a week, their teeth (particularly the back molars) have lost a lot of plaque.  If a dog finds it painful to chew, then it will lose condition and it will be more suseptible to other illnesses.  There is more information on natural diets for dogs on the internet and at the end of the day, its all about what feels right for an individual.