Best quality dog food for healthy dogs

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happihorse

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I want to make sure my little terroriser lives until she is an old lady so I'm trying to find the very best dog food for her.

I've read all about the BARF/BARK diets and I'm not sure that is the best route to take but would like to find a product that you can buy off the shelf (be it dry, tinned, pouches or whatever) so was wondering what everyone would recommend.
 
have done the whole BARF thing and dogs were amazing on it - but simply not got time for it.By far the best we have found is Arden Grange, pricey,but worth it.
 
Raw bones and meat all the way for me - no surprise there then - but if you are looking at commercial feeds look at the ingredient list closely, if the meat content is low down the ingredient list, then all the nutrients are coming from inferior plant sources. Avoid a high content of complex carbs especially cereals, grains and potatoes, they are cheap bulk and unnecessary for dogs as a source of nutrition.

Be aware that labels are not as strict as with human food and many foods like Chicken and Maize should be Maize and a bit of chicken!

Quality foods with meat proteins are expensive, raw is much cheaper in comparison and optimum for health so maybe like CC a mixture of the two would be more beneficial?

A couple of people on here have tried Orijen which sounds a good alternative and is not over cooked, but there was a feedback that the dogs were hungry as only a small amount is fed?

Well done for doing your homework BTW
 
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We've been using natural instinct recently - a barf food. One of ours guys really doesn't do the little bone pieces that you sometimes get in these products so we've put them on the tripe mixture (luckily the cheaper option). The sudden change in energy levels and their attitude towards just enjoying life has been a joy to watch.

We do use pre soaked kibble to go with it. Arden grange isn't too bad but the main ingredient we have there is the natural instinct food. They do have a website somewhere and next day delivery - comes frozen.
 
i rate skinners but now use Dr Johns which is a working dog food - VAT free too - and i also really rate it. it comes in 3 levels of protein - silver, gold, plaitnum - i use plaitnum for the working season and gold all other times. i have a lab, cocker and springer on it and it doesn't send any of them loopy ;)
 
I feed Wainwrights which is a Pets at Home brand. Not too expensive and good labelling, good levels of protein and is also hypoallergenic.

He also gets tinned fish (Sardines), raw eggs, Wainwrights wet food and I'm about to introduce raw a couple of times a week (though not with the dry food).

He looks really well, good but manageable energy levels (he's a border collie) and a healthy shiny coat. The only downside is fishy burps if he's just eaten sardines :-)
 
Mine are fed on CSJ feeds. There is a range of different feeds and they're designed for working and pet dogs. The ingredients are all natural. Its top quality food without the hefty price tag (cost kept low due to not advertising).
 
I don't think that you can get more convenient (or cheaper!) than raw meaty bones. I buy raw chicken necks at 50p a kilo from the local chicken processors factory shop supplemented with any bargains that they have (sometimes they over-produce for a supermarket, so you can get real bargains for humans as well as dogs!), plus beef/lamb bones from the butcher when I can get them. I freeze them in tupperware containers and take a container out of the freezer and put it into the fridge as needed. I've got a Beauceron (big!) and a labrador (hungry!), and it only costs around 50-60p a day to feed the pair of them.

The raw meaty bones diet also cured my labrador - he had some sort of immune problem (I think he originally had Lyme disease, since he was sporadically lame in front, but with no arthritis or soft tissue damage that could be discerned. 6 weeks of the recommended Lyme antibiotic "cured" him but he still was periodically lame in front unless he received an immune system moderator/herbal anti-microbial). Within a week of the raw meaty bones diet he was off all medication, and had turned back into the naughty pup that has to do agility to keep him out of mischief!

No matter how "scientifically proven" any processed food diet is, I would never feed any dog (modified wolf!) anything other than meat, bones, fish, eggs (plus a few table scraps - we like to share!) and certainly never any foods based on cereals, which they just can't digest.

Benefits all round - nice teeth, no dog breath, tiny, firm easy to pick up non-smelly poos....
and really shiny healthy, sort of "hard" looking dogs - I think because they have better muscle development on this diet.
 
Ours are fed on Skinner's Maintenance as they are now getting older.
Vet always complements us on the weight and condition of our dogs (he too has working dogs).
Made the mistake of buying Wagg when it was snowing and deliveries hadn't got through. Never again, the amount of waste that came out doubled :eek:.
 
Mine get raw bones (BIG ones) every day which keeps them occupied and is good for their teeth/coat etc. They then get a small tea of biscuits. I feed Dr John's working dog food as it is low in protein and high protein food sends mine crazy!

The benefit of feeding bones (as well as it being mentally stimulating for the dog) is you can usually get them free from the butchers. I used to spend 50-60 a month on dog food, now I spend £12. And they are happier and healthier for it :)
 
quirky said:
Made the mistake of buying Wagg when it was snowing and deliveries hadn't got through. Never again, the amount of waste that came out doubled :eek:.
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I can vouch for this - I left Dax in the care of my grandfather for twenty minutes yesterday while I took my nan out on an errand. Despite telling him not to feed her anything by the time I got back she'd eaten half a tin of Pedigree, an unspecified amount of Wagg kibble and was just finishing up a pig's ear. She has spent the past 12 hours producing an alarming amount of bright orange mister whippee-style offerings... :rolleyes: God knows how often their own dog poops!

At home I feed Royal Canin in the morning and a raw meal at night - various combinations of beef mince, chicken on the bone, tinned fish in oil, eggs, offal, vegetables and other leftovers. She came to us on Royal Canin so I stuck with it (except to change her from large breed to medium breed puppy kibble, not sure what the previous owner was thinking!), and if I were to change I'd probably go for Skinners or similar from what I've read on here previously. Can't afford the likes of Orijen and would doubt the benefits seeing as she gets half raw anyway.
 
Skinners for Henry too:) I get lots of compliments on his great condition too!

You have to experiment a bit and find what suits your dog, my trainer is not keen on Skinners but it suits Henry well.
 
Am interested to hear your opinions on Wagg as we feed it and are constantly clearly **** out of the garden :rolleyes:

The spangles behaviour wise are better on that then they were on Pedigree (old owners, we took them of it) wouldn't eat chudleys and OH is a tight wad so Arden grange etc are ruled out :(

Might look into skinners for them......
 
Another recommendation for Skinners

Feed my rather sensitive tummy BC on the field and trial Maintenance and he looks great on it. Its only 18% protein so does not blow his mind.

Used to feed him on a Pets at Home own brand but his condition has improved so much on the skinners - both muscel tone and coat.

Went to a Dogs Trust event where there were loads of stands. A lady on one of the well known good quality pet food stands (which is alot more expensive) was trying to sell me their food saying 'look how great the coat on this dog is' etc - had my dog with me and there was no comparison, mine looked alot better!
 
Skinners is a great mid price brand, it didn't work for my lad, which was a shame, but he is a speyshul boy, his sister looked great on it, but what I liked about it is that it actually smelled like what it was supposed to be made of!
 
I have fed Orijen had good results with it, also my dogs love to have the odd piltchard, meat off the bone from the local butchers.

Also what are peoples opinions on feeding the brand Burns?

?:rolleyes:
 
Another vote for Skinners, mine are on the Field & Trial Duck and Rice and look really well on it, good weight, good coats and minimal poop! I know a few shepherd people who feed Burns with good results, but it is twice the price of Skinners and their dogs do not look any better than mine imho.
 
I used to feed Orijen. Absolutely love everything the feed stands for but have had to make the decision to remove Harvey from it. Sadly he was just constantly hungry and was getting quite naughty about trying to get at our food and was chewing everything.

It cannot be a coincidence that within 24 hours of being fed Arden Grange the chewing around the house was dramatically reduced and his behaviour around feed times (for us and him) improved.

Such a shame but it's such a small quantity of feed that he never felt satisfied even though he gained weight very well on it.

He is generally much quieter and happier...I guess I mean content...now he's on Arden Grange.
 
I know Burns has been slated on here for it's cereal content, but it is the food I have found suited my dog best. She is on the Fish and Rice (or should that be Rice and Fish;)) her digestion is so much better on it, and her poops are small and firm. Most other feeds seem to give her the squits. I did try Skinners on her as it is cheaper than Burns but that upset her tum, so back to the Burns again.
 
Patches said:
I used to feed Orijen. Absolutely love everything the feed stands for but have had to make the decision to remove Harvey from it. Sadly he was just constantly hungry and was getting quite naughty about trying to get at our food and was chewing everything.

It cannot be a coincidence that within 24 hours of being fed Arden Grange the chewing around the house was dramatically reduced and his behaviour around feed times (for us and him) improved.

Such a shame but it's such a small quantity of feed that he never felt satisfied even though he gained weight very well on it.

He is generally much quieter and happier...I guess I mean content...now he's on Arden Grange.
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We feed Orijen too. My GWPs look fantastic on it but I agree with them being hungry ALL the time. The older one has never had a good appetite and she loves the Orijen but she is always looking for titbits now. I think we will change to something else sometime but bit worried about the change from little carbohydrate to considerably more and the effect on their digestion.
Did you have any problems Patches?
 
My boy is on Burns. He was on Hills Narures Best when I got him and he stayed on it until he was 14 weeks.

He's a German Pointer and has much better coverage over his ribs, his coat is fantastically shiney and the number of poos he does, and the size of them has dramatically reduced and they are always nice and firm!

Burn do do one food which only has a tiny amount of Maize in it? Salmon and Potatoe I think?

When I researched it (and I did for HOURS!!!), Burns rated really well on the quality of the ingredients and the amount of meat it in (it also uses brown rice, which is more digestible than white). The only food I considered against it was Orijen, in that it has no grains in it, which I would prefer, but I couldn't justify the price.

I wish I could feed him raw, but I just can't.

(if anyone does feed Burns, have a look on the internet, you can get it so much cheaper! (the one I feed is £45.bag RRP and I get it for £38 off the internet)
 
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