Both mine are raw fed. I mix up pre-bought for convenience (Paleo Ridge & Natural instinct) and DIY usually from Morrisons butcher counter. DIY is super cheap once you are confident in getting the meat/bone/offal ratio right.
Does he eat the tray of Harringtons? If he's eating that and a little kibble, I really wouldn't worry unless he's really thin or losing weight. One tray a day and some kibble should be enough for a cocker depending on his lifestyle and body condition obviously.
Dogs are far better off being underweight than over. I have been told mine is too thin by a couple of people with fat dogs. Mentioned it to the vet who said people are used to seeing fat dogs now so a dog who is the right weight looks thin. Same with people I guess.
If you think he needs more, try splitting the meals into two or more. And mix a little kibble in with the wet food. You don't say what kibble you've tried but something with a high meat content like Orijen or Eden might tempt him. Add some fish - sardines, cooked salmon, a bit of cooked meat. Jellified bone broth with the fat removed might tempt him too, easy to make especially if you've got a slow cooker and bones from butchers tend to be free. Salmon oil on top is tasty for dogs and good for joints. Mine likes a bit of kefir mixed in and it's a good probiotic.
Barf diets make a lot of sense to me but only if your dog gets on with it. Mine doesn't sadly. She was ok on it but not now so she's fed wet dog food, cooked fish, a little sweet potato or pumpkin when I can get it, kefir, natural chews (bits of identifiable animal type chews), a little kibble and supplements. No fruit or veg as she doesn't get on with it. And no bone broth as it's too rich for her.
As someone said above, make it into a game. Mine gets fed 4 times a day (for a variety of reasons, I'm not particularly advocating it). One of those times the wet food is cut into pieces and we go into the garden and she had to do things for a chunk of meat (sit, stay, basic training) or other chunks she has to go to find. 'Tis very exciting for her and more fun than eating from a bowl. She also has a treat dispenser (it's a cardboard tube that a bottle of whisky came in that I have cut holes in) and she has to push that round to get the treats out. Again, very exciting. She doesn't need tempting but it's fun for her but it might tempt your dog if it's fun.
About a third of kibble from each meal is fed via one of these, helps stop her eating it too quickly too.
Nature's Menu Raw Complete for both of ours (7yo Staff X Boxer and 6mo Staff X Boxer X Lab). Both have seemingly endless energy but not manic with it IYSWIM. Well, the pup is, but he's 6 months old so they're all crazy at that age!
I used to have a boxer with IBS and wasted an absolute fortune for most of her life because she was a 'fussy eater', once she stopped eating something I would stop feeding that variety and the entire rest of the bag would be wasted in an effort to swap her over to something she would eat. I'm now older and wiser and very much in the club of 'if they're hungry they will eat' camp. Stick it down and if it's not gone in half an hour lift it up and put more down when the next feeding time is due. Adjust portion size according to activity level and hunger level and judge based on ribs as well. My boxer was a right pain because the IBS meant that more often than not she looked skinny as anything but it was hard to keep any weight on her! Thankfully my Ridgeback was an absolute gannet and would eat anything, it was a hard job to get her to slow down and not make herself ill!
We feed Millie's Wolfheart, mixed with a bit of wet food, liver pate, sweet potato, egg, sardines etc. depending on day of the week. She's not hugely enthusiastic about food (must be faulty considering she's a lab) especially straight out the bowl but she looks in good condition on it so we're sticking with it for now.
[url= https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51766626030_92b7c8c99d_3k.jp g" target="_blank">https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51766626030_92b7c8c99d_3k.jp g"/> [/img][/url]
[url= https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51765755921_623d2c86a6_4k.jp g" target="_blank">https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51765755921_623d2c86a6_4k.jp g"/> [/img][/url]
Our two dogs have James wellbeloved dry food mixed with which we is on offer 50/50, I change the flavours and mix every order. In a bowl and it's out 24/7 and always full. Oh and one dried raw chicken chew each morning or sometimes fishskin chews.
Never had an issue with over feeding, steeling or begging around food or the dogs fighting over food - they share a single bowl.
Hedgehogs
My Teckel has a thing for them.
I feed mine Barking Heads, but I’m going to try that Essential Foods stuff next time.
We give our Dalmatian 1 bowl of dry in the morning and a can of wet in the afternoon. Currently James wellbeloved grain free dry which she does seem to like a lot and butchers wet, which she gobbles up. I was thinking about replacing a little dry with a can of sardines topper.
She's a greedy bugger though. I doubt she'd stop eating if unlimited supply!
She’s not hugely enthusiastic about food
Definitely broken!
We're about to start down the food change route as Bodie has a bad rash after a year of Skinners food of various types.
Orijen dried food here.
Toby also has quite a sensitive stomach, but this has proven to be brilliant and is really good quality.
Part of our business is involved with pet products and I work with probably 50 distributors of pet products across the world. All of what I would consider to be our best 10 distributor also happen to distribute Orijen, which was kind of what led us to the brand.
Not cheap, but you don't need as much, so actually value for money is pretty good.
I fed my lab on raw for a year but she lost too much weight and it didn't seem to help her arthritis, was a faff and expensive. She has always been super healthy on processed food so she is back on dried grain free wolf of wilderness for breakfast and wet for dinner. Flavours are wild boar, venison, duck etc with herbs and berries. Great marketing but it's meant to mimic the wolf diet. Good value ordered from zooplus. Poos are very firm and dark but not quite as small as on the raw. She's 12 and full of life so raw is not the only answer.
Hedgehogs
I've taken many maimed HHs to by euthanased because dogs have attacked them and left them alive but fatally wounded, quite a few with just a leg torn off. Horrible way to go.
I should clarify I was only being silly, I don't have a dog and I'm a fan of hedgehogs!
Unfortunately I never see them where I live, but I have seen a couple of urban badgers which makes up for it.
My two GSPs are raw fed, changed over from dry as the oldest isn’t food driven and wouldn’t eat dry food. We made the change when he was 9 months old and now scoffs every meal down straight away. The youngest was fed raw after a couple of days of coming from the breeder. Both on paleo ridge completes and in good condition. It isn’t cheap and ~I should really look at doing DIY.
Both our Cockers are on Harringtons lamb or Salmon dry food.
Mix in some roast chicken for them in the morning as the older one can be a bit fussy.
In the evening supplement the dry food with half a tray each of Fishmonger's finest wet food.
Our two greyhounds are on Butternut Box topped up with Akela kibble. They bloody love the butternut box! We tried them on raw for a while. My wife put a lot of effort into making sure they got all they needed nutrition wise. They both went off it after a few months, and their coats looked dull. Put them back on the butternut box and they were sorted within a couple of meals. But we do know folk with greys who get on really well on a raw diet.
I do miss the raw fed poos though!
Our Beagle currently has Acana dried mixed with either Butchers tinned or sardines, gets fed twice a day. If we have any leftover cooked veg that goes in too.
We are trying to change to Akela (because its British and hopefully has a smaller carbon footprint) but it's not so easy to get locally and we have to think ahead and order it in.
He clears the bowl in about a minute so he must think it's good!
Our Karelian Bear Dog had food poisoning from raw despite our best efforts at defrosting and keeping his food bowls clean.
Been on nature's menu tins and lily kitchen dry ever since with additional boiled eggs, cheese, sardines, steak etc.
Abandoned cats.
Standard rice based kibble rehydrated with a little boiling water as I make the morning tea. By dinner he’s hungry enough to eat anything. 220g goes in and about 185g comes out of our 7 month old male show cocker every day.
220g goes in and about 185g comes out
I'm impressed that you measure it. My wife doesn't even like me weighing bike parts on the kitchen scales
Covid bonus. Can’t smell it. Also when I collect multiple at a time from the back garden I get a reasonable average. He does about three to four per day.
Doesn’t anyone else weigh themselves before and after number twos? For the dog, I know I know precisely what goes in. Not so for me (only so much kibble one can manage)
Acorn fed organic vegans - the highest quilaity lean meat 😀
In all seriousness I dont have the freezer space for a raw diet, and we tried several 'good quality' dog food brands.
He seemed to settle on Wainrights wet and kibble, and despite it not being the crappest or poshest food, he seems to do well on it. Supplimented with treats of chicken and cheese, cheese being in strict moderation due to the fat content.
Raw. She gets a variety of minced beef, lamb, chicken, salmon, tripe, lamb flat ribs, whole chicken wings or legs/backs, duck or chicken necks, venison, rabbit, beef heart, beast liver, with the occasional tin of sardines or mackerel. She gets any leftover green veg.
Coat is spectacular, she’s fit as the proverbial, never suffers from anal gland issues, and turds are small, firm and easily picked or flicked.
Get my supplies in bulk, delivered from Yorkshire Raw Feeds
We fed our gsd royal canin for years. She's has been reacting to something recently, which may or may not be food related. we have gone for a locally supplied grain free food now. 50% Salmon/trout and no legumes.
Two portions a day.
If I had one, it would be allowed to feed on the cats that shit all over my garden.
The reality is I would never have a dog, I have neither time nor patience to have one, and being away from the house for twelve hours a day it would be cruel to the animal.
11 year old Lab, always followed the only 'Fish or fowl' rule. Has a cup of Burns chicken & rice first thing and then another at 5, couple of Bonios middle of the day. Devours all ever single time(he is a lab!), and crap is exactly as it should be.
2 weeks into using this. Dogs go mental for it and solid stools all round 🙂
Free range chicken kibble (McAdams), luckily he’s a small-medium dog otherise it would be prohibitively expensive for us. Very good food though. Also some fresh (cooked) meat and the odd plate of microwaved frozen pollock to add variety/change. Began as juve on Royal Canin but things went downhill at some point.
He also likes a few veg snax now and again. Especially baby tomatoes, sweet pepper chunk or boiled pumpkin with rice to calm an upset stomach. We got a ‘lucky’ dog (a runt with IBD+allergies) so have to be careful. He doesn’t fare well at all on tinned dog-foods hence finding McAdams. Still a battle as stated he has IBS/IBD so ym(hopefully should)mv
The (especially cheap end of the scale) pet food industry is vile by the way. although things may change for the better
Amazing - you get paleo/keto zealots for dogs now! LOL
I shouldn't be surprised - my Rabbits are totally raw/vegan - they don't shut up about the benefits.
Their stools are like firm little bullets too - maybe you should try your dogs on a predominately Kale/carrot/banana based diet.
Mine are on Harringtons dry food, if either of them are off their food for any reason a bit or warm water in the food helps.
Amazing – you get paleo/keto zealots for dogs now! LOL
I’ll bite (SWIDT)!
What would you think to be the best and most natural (biologically appropriate) food for ‘normal’ dogs to eat? And why is one diet more ‘zealous’ than another? ie raw vs highly processed?
I’m not aware of anyone recommending keto diets on the thread BTW (I may have missed it?) I have read that keto diet can help control seizures in epileptic dogs (and in humans). Our dog has developed epilepsy in the second half of his life (much increased in last year) and would like to find a natural way to control it, as the anti-seizure drugs are difficult for his liver to manage)
feed our lab raw, we get deer carcasses from a local culler and butcher it ourselves and top it up with stuff from the local raw food place. the dog is in absolutely prime condition, his coat glows. absolutely no chicken or grain
Probably shouldn’t own a dog if you think feeding it on dry food is the right thing…
Our vet friend thinks the same of people who feed raw.... granted they will see mostly the worst outcomes, i.e. food poisoning.
my Rabbits are totally raw/vegan – they don’t shut up about the benefits.
Their stools are like firm little bullets too – maybe you should try your dogs on a predominately Kale/carrot/banana based diet.
If it’s still inside the rabbit my dog would love it! 😂
@porter_jamie why no chicken?
because he gets the itches like crazy. we think it might be the grain they feed the chickens
Thanks, was concerned there was a general issue with chicken as that what mine gets the most of.
Some dogs are pre-disposed to skin conditions, chicken made my daughter's Staffie a smelly, scratchy beast. (This is Geneva Convention Breach level smells).
We have just switched the Bodie dog over to breed specific Royal Canin. A remarkably non-smelly event, previous food changes have been accompanied by noxious emissions even with a tapered switch.
So far he's lost a bit of weight on maximum recommended amount per day and looks a bit too skinny. His skin also appears improved after Skinners Field & Trial. Early days though and complicated by the attack last month.
Interested in peoples views.
Our old Boxer was on a 'fresh' diet of mince, chicken, barley, veg, fruit etc and was as healthy as could be and lived to an old age.
Our current Boxer is now 3 and she has always suffered from upset stomachs. We made the decision when we got her to feed her on tinned for simplicity sake (Lilys Kitchen) however from an early age she has had really bad trumps and runny poo. We put it down to her drinking from streams/eating sheep poo whilst out with the dog walker.
Recently she got really bad and had the squits for a week. Vet just said some dogs are like that, slowly she got better. The last couple of weeks we have moved to using frozen raw food.
Her stomach has certainly improved dramatically! However that is a big swing going from food with veg etc to now no veg
My wife is concerned about the consequences of food poisoning from this raw food (lets face it this frozen stuff isnt regulated in any way) has any one heard of bad consequences from the frozen raw food route?
My wife is concerned about the consequences of food poisoning from this raw food (lets face it this frozen stuff isnt regulated in any way) has any one heard of bad consequences from the frozen raw food route?
The place I buy mine is DEFRA compliant. https://yorkshirerawfeeds.co.uk/ The owner once told me that they had to make the food fit for human consumption because some people were known to buy their chicken portions for the family.
We buy in bulk (about three months' worth at a time) and keep it in a chest freezer in the garage. We defrost a 1300g tube of mince at a time, and keep it in a separate compartment of the fridge inside plastic bags, weighing out a portion at a time. 28kg labrador, has 200g per meal twice a day, which will comprise of a mix of chicken wings or thighs, beef and tripe, chicken and tripe, lamb and salmon, beef heart chunks, beef esophagus, lamb ribs, liver, occasionally tinned fish, any leftover green veg, venison, various bits of leftover gamebirds, duck necks. My son's Cocker and Labrador eat a very similar diet, albeit from a different supplier.
Neither the dog, not any member of my family has ever suffered from food-poisoning. It is essential to keep any utensils and work surfaces clean and thoroughly washed, but that isn't any different to any other cooking and handling of raw meat in the kitchen.
I've been using 'Natural Instinct' raw food for years and haven't had any health issues arising from the storage or use of the food.
I buy it from a local outlet, store it in the freezer and allow it to defrost in the fridge. Always feed the dog in the utility room rather than the kitchen. I started using raw food after my dog developed a poorly tummy and a resultant stay at the vets, he's been good ever since. I also feed him 'Arden Grange sensitive' kibble.
I recently discovered that pets such as dogs and cats consume approximately a fifth of the worlds meat and fish, and therefore imprint a significant carbon footprint on the planet.
Interesting eh?
We've got our Old English on raw food from Naturaw. 500g trays that are completely compostable buying it in monthly batches, they are also B-Corp rated so the only raw food dog company in the world to have this award. She has 0 health issues, barely poos which dont stink like they've breached the Geneva Convention and no one in the family has ever had food poisoning. The meat is human grade so if you fancy throwing it in a curry...be my guest.