I would like some advice please on my small dog's diet.?

Question

I'm shocked at the very small meat content of tinned dog foods. The rest appears to be vegetable protein and water at 80%! Has anyone any advice to give me on how I can prepare my dog's food by using, say, fresh meat, vegetables and a source of carbohydrate perhaps brown rice and pasta. I will supplement this with Pedigree Small Bite Mixer which contains minerals, vitamins, roughage and calcium. I should add that she is 14 years old, in good health and gets plenty of exercise.

Answer 1

I feed my dog all raw food, I find this best.

A majority of my dogs diet is meat, bones offal and any whole carcass I can find and I add vegies 3 times a week, eggs, sardines, kelp and raw bait fish.

I avoid grains. Dogs dont need carbs. Grains can contribute to allergies (grains have a heating effect on a dogs body, resulting in hot spots) and arthritis.

Organ meats are important; kidneys/livers/heart/brain. I aim for 2 or 3 times a week.

I have put two 13 year old ex working dogs on this diet. One who was riddled with arthritis showed a huge improvement, bouncing around like a pup again.

You dont need to 'supplement' with dry food. Dogs dont need or can really use artificial vitamins that are added in dry food. My advice is to stick to one type of food or another. Real food has everything a dog needs without any supplementation.

Raw chicken pieces are packed full minerals and have natural glucosamine contained within the bone. That would be great for a senior dog.

I blend my vegies. Dogs are unable to digest many vegies so they are better blended or lightly steamed. I go for highly nutritious vegies and add 3 times a week, I like greens, parsley, beans etc, seaweed and any peel or cores I have saved. In the blender with an organic egg and shell and dollop on meat.

I like chewy meaty bones. Shanks, necks, tails etc  whatever you think will suit your dog and that has meat on it.

I too am shocked at the ingredients on most commercial convienience foods for dogs. wouldnt go near it in a million years.

Good Luck.

Answer 2

If you want to feed a tinned/wet dog food, I would recommend either Burns Tinned Food, Arden Grange Tinned Food or Nature's Diet.

All these brands have at least 58% meat in them.  For example, Burns tinned food only has lamb (58%), rice, carrots & peas.

There are lots of good dry foods too which mostly contain more than 25% meat eg Burns, Arden Grange, James Wellbeloved.

I get my Burns tinned food from Mutley & Mog who deliver to you.

Answer 3

Only poor quality tinned dog foods have low meat content. High quality foods will have meat as the first ingredients. I would not supplement with Pedigree /anything/ as Pedigree is a very low quality dog food.

You can try a higher quality dog food, or a raw diet.

Not all pet food is made equally. A lot of it is full of corn, by-products, dyes, unhealthy preservatives, filler grains and all sorts of nasty stuff. A lot of pet food companies are perfectly happy to dump cheap leftovers in. Will it kill your dog? No, it has to be nutritionally complete and safe to even be marketed. Is it healthy? Not by a long shot.

Corn is a low quality ingredient you never want to see in your pet food. Corn and low quality grains are two of the biggest culprits when it comes to food allergies in our pets.

Thankfully, there are some excellent dog foods being made these days that include organic, human grade ingredients rather than trash not fit for human consumption.

Examples of low quality foods to avoid: Anything you can find in a grocery store will be low end, Purina, Iams, Eukanuba, Science Diet, Royal Canin, Pedigree, Kibbles n' Bits, Beneful, Ol'Roy.

Examples of high quality foods to look for: Innova, Wellness, Solid Gold, Canidae All Life Stages, Fromm Four Star, Merrick, GO Natural, Nature's Variety Prairie, Nature's Logic, Artemis Fresh Mix.

Although the high quality foods are more expensive, you're getting what you're paying for. Less filler material means more concentrated nutrients... this means you typically need to feed far less of the high quality food than you would of the low quality one. Which also means less p**p!

A great option is to go with an entirely grainless diet. Many of the high quality foods now put out grainless formulas. Some good grainless diet's include: Innova EVO, Wellness CORE, Blue Wilderness, Nature's Variety Instinct, Orijen, Fromm Surf & Turf, Now! and Sold Gold Barking At The Moon, Taste of the Wild.

Some of the high end foods can be found in common pet stores. Petsmart carries Blue Buffalo products (such as the excellent grain free diet Blue Wilderness). Petco carries Wellness and Solid Gold. If you can't find a food, most of the high quality food brands have websites with store locators on them.

Remember that foods should be switched gradually, especially when switching to a higher quality one, so as not to upset tummies.

Another option for feeding dogs is to feed raw. This is something that should be thoroughly researched before being attempted:

http://www.barfworld.com/

http://www.rawfed.com/

http://www.rawlearning.com/

http://www.wysong.net/controversies/rawm...

More on dog food:

http://www.dogfoodproject.com/index.php?...  (Learn how to determine the quality of your dog's food.)

http://www.dogfoodanalysis.com/dog_food_... (Dog food reviews. Anything with five or six stars is a great food.)

Answer 4

majestic frozen raw medallions  would be a much better food

paws-tively purr-fect nutrition  i believe is the website

Answer 5

You've already gotten some good answers on preparing food yourself and raw diet. So I'll talk about tinned food.

There are some good ones out there. I use EVO and Instinct when I feed my dog wet food, both are 95% meat.

EVO comes in duck, chicken  & turkey, rabbit, beef, and venison.

http://www.evopet.com/search/

Instinct comes in chicken, beef, lamb, rabbit, duck, venison.

http://www.naturesvariety.com/instinct_d...

Or you can check the 4, 5, and 6 star canned foods here:

http://www.dogfoodanalysis.com/dog_food_...

(Note, some of the 100% and 95% meat foods don't have the added vitamins and minerals to make them nutritionally complete and are for supplemental feeding only. The ones I listed above have the added vitamins and minerals and are nutritionally complete.)

.

Answer 6

I completely agree! I was horrified when I looked at many leading brands of wet dog food!

Our dog is at the other end of the scale to yours, she is only 14 weeks old. However, if you don't want the hassle of preparing a whole raw food diet, then there is a really good wet food you could use.

This brand is called natures:menu and we give our puppy the junior version mixed in with her usual dried food. She loves it, and the meat content is unbelievably high! They also do a senior version and the website is in the 'sources'. I think it is great and I would seriously recommend.

Also I honestly wouldn't recommend any food by Pedigree, even the mixer...natures:menu also do dry biscuits (found on the website) which have a very high meat content. Also Arden Grange, Burns and James Wellbeloved I would recommend. I think they are all hypoallergenic and good for dogs with sensitive stomachs and old dogs.

I hope you find a great food for your dog, it's great to hear she is such good health at 14 years old!

Answer 7

I have to chihuahua's and both of them have always eaten Iams small bites. Then they LOVE green beans & peas so I usually fix them those 2 or 3 times a week and add to their food.

Answer 8

you should find a raw diet website...also find better wet food than Pedigree, thats not good food at all.

http://www.rawlearning.com/

http://www.minden.com/nowhereelse/raw.ht...

http://www.shirleys-wellness-cafe.com/sa...

Answer 9

Pedigree and Bakers do a range of dried foods which has all the meats,veg, carbs and vitamins that your dog will need so you don't have to worry about  cooking. Tinned food is not really recommended as there is mainly water in it.

Answer 10

im so happy to hear ur dog is good and healthy at 14. i feed my dogs canned meat that has extra meat cuts in them and they also have dishes of dry food when they want to snack. i also feed them whatever i cook at supper time and they get meat and veggis,eggs,cheese peanut butter etc pretty much everyday.u can cook up lean skinless chichen or hamb and add rice and frozen veggis then feed ur dog a little every day and she will get her vitamins.i also add drops in their water to keep their teeth and breahte clean along with dental bones to help get the tartar off their teeth. my dogs are nice and shiny and healthy so with the extra people food everyday they are full and satisfied.chopped up raw cabbage is a good fiber and u can add a 1/2 tsp of olive oil in the food to keep her arteries flowing. a baby asperin a day will alo help her heart. cut back ti 1/2 or 1 asa every second day so she can get use to it. good luck