Following on from thread below - what to feed Stan??

bex1984

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Stan is nearly 11 months now so it's about time for him to come off his puppy food I think. He has always been on Purina ProPlan Puppy (it was what his breeder fed him) and has done really well on it.

So, we want a dry food, and basically we want it to be available to buy from our (local, brand new, massive) Pets at Home, in small-ish bags. We currently feed him ad-lib and want to carry on with this.

The options seem to be carrying on with the adult Purina ProPlan, or moving to: James Wellbeloved (expensive!!), Wainwrights Small Breed (seems the most cost-effective), some sort of fish concoction (salmon and potato I think, in a blue and white bag...) and there's also some massively expensive organic type things.

Stan is a JRT x Border Terrier if that makes any difference!

Thoughts?
 
Please keep him away from anything purina. There food is god awful stuff.

James wellbelloved is probably the best for him out of your list other than maybe the fish one if i could see the ingredents.

Are you not interested in mail ordering?
 
Hi!
My parents' Border Terrier is on James Wellbeloved and seems very well on it. I feed my lurcher girl Arden Grange with some meat or sardines mixed in. Couldn't really offer that ad lib though!
 
Mail order would be great if we could actually coordinate being in for the deliveries!! But it would just end up being really inconvenient, where as I drive past PaH 4 times a day!

Is the james wellbeloved significantly better than the wainwrights? worth the extra money? (happy to pay the extra, just want to know it's worth it!) I can't find the salmon and potato online anywhere, it was just a very simple blue and white striped bag.
 
Give me a minute and i will search out the ingredients.

When we ordered from fish4dogs we put a delivery message to just leave the bags at the side of the house and they happily did!
 
Thanks, I did read through all the thread about dry foods and my brain melts in confusion at all the ingredients. Anything left outside my house would definitely be 'liberated' by the time I got home!
 
Yeah thats not good.

JWB had around 20% rice which i still think is to much (but then i am not comfortable with feeding any grains)

But JWB is the much better option for you if you are buying from PAH :D
 
without wanting to sound like a complete gypsy, ive found that WAG, is actually pretty brilliant. Beta is also good. my mum put ours on it when she had them for a little while and we havent looked back since.

none of the dogs will eat JW (thank feck) but through the years WAG worker seems to tick all the boxes, shiny coat=tick, clean teeth/gums=tick, maintaining condition=tick, no hyper spazzy moments=tick, good not to smelly poo=tick.

over the years our dogs have been tried on everything, literally, and WAG has triumphed every time i can say. it puts the puppies into condition and ive even converted a few mates onto it. its also fairly cheap, PetsAtHome sell a 12.5 kg bag of the puppy food for a tenner at the moment (thats not the deciding factor with our dogs, we could get it for free if we so wish through work, but the stuff they give you is pap)
 
without wanting to sound like a complete gypsy, ive found that WAG, is actually pretty brilliant. Beta is also good. my mum put ours on it when she had them for a little while and we havent looked back since.

none of the dogs will eat JW (thank feck) but through the years WAG worker seems to tick all the boxes, shiny coat=tick, clean teeth/gums=tick, maintaining condition=tick, no hyper spazzy moments=tick, good not to smelly poo=tick.

over the years our dogs have been tried on everything, literally, and WAG has triumphed every time i can say. it puts the puppies into condition and ive even converted a few mates onto it. its also fairly cheap, PetsAtHome sell a 12.5 kg bag of the puppy food for a tenner at the moment (thats not the deciding factor with our dogs, we could get it for free if we so wish through work, but the stuff they give you is pap)

Wag may work for you but its full of crap and not something i would recommend anyone feed a dog.
 
I might pop in tomorrow and see if I can find a brand name on it. I have some memory that it had '60%' something in it...if 60% fish I'm guessing that's good, if '60% fish and potato' I'm guessing that's not so good?!
 
have you read the ingredients or are you literally just one of those 'i know best because i want to sound the cleverest' if you are a canaine dietitian then pardon me, but i know so many owners who go- no thats absolute ***** dont touch it use this because it has loads of scientific sounding word on the packet' without actually knowing what they are going on about. (im not being *****ty with you or anything, but its something i get a bit sick of after working with people like this for years)

As far as im concerned, what you are feeding your dog shows in your dog, its what they are made of after all, and i think working dogs are testament to that. read the labels and be sensible, a dog is built to eat all kinds of crap, they are naturally omnivorous. If you are that worried, as with your children, only buy raw ingredients and make it yourself. (without being totally cliche, my old vet used to feed his dogs WAG and animal health is his carrer)

p.s, i know there are alot of JW fans out there, and dont get me wrong, the ferret food is second to none, but its overpriced for what it is and i know a whole horde of canine proffesionals who'll tell you that.
 
Im not a dietitian but i have done years and years of research into dog food.

Also vets are not pet nutritionists. I am in vetinary school now and you get given all kinds of stuff by the food companies to say their food is best without any knowledge of whats actually in it.

I feed my dog raw. Not a hope in hell i would feed kibble.

Dogs are not built to eat a whole bunch of crap. They are not built to eat grains. They are built to eat real meat (which wag contains none of).

The reason we have so many health issue with dogs now such as diabetes ect is because we insist on feeding cheap crap.
 
I might pop in tomorrow and see if I can find a brand name on it. I have some memory that it had '60%' something in it...if 60% fish I'm guessing that's good, if '60% fish and potato' I'm guessing that's not so good?!

Check the label and if the first 2 ingredients are fish and potato your not doing badly. As long as its not 10% fish and 60% potato :D
 
Im not a dietitian but i have done years and years of research into dog food.

Also vets are not pet nutritionists. I am in vetinary school now and you get given all kinds of stuff by the food companies to say their food is best without any knowledge of whats actually in it.

I feed my dog raw. Not a hope in hell i would feed kibble.

Dogs are not built to eat a whole bunch of crap. They are not built to eat grains. They are built to eat real meat (which wag contains none of).

The reason we have so many health issue with dogs now such as diabetes ect is because we insist on feeding cheap crap.

i think youll find a dog left to its own devices will eat any kinds of crap (natural not man made of course) and do quite well with it (like decomposing pheasant which seems to be a favourite *rolls eyes*)

i do agree with you to an extent, and i would love to feed raw to ours, but unless it is said decomposing pheasant one wont touch it, one doesnt eat anything wet???, and the others lose condition rapidly when they are at their busiest on BARF, i did a season with them on it and they would have turned into skeletons. They have pheasant breast when they are at their busiest, and if there was ever an issue they would be off of it, but i refuse to feed for feedings sake iykwim, like 'a mate' of my ohs that feeds a proper expensive top of the range feed i cant remember the name for the life of me, whose dogs look like strays copared to our boys.

no you are right, my old vet wasnt a dietitian, but he works his dogs at every opportunity and needs them on the right stuff (his surgery sells science plan, and fair play to him, he tells you not to touch it).

i go by how the dogs are, their coat, their condition, moods, energy levels and dumps, and so far wag has done no end of good, and it surprised me too, im wary of the cheap also, but cost does mean nothing to us concerning the dogs, dog for every job and no job without the dogs and all that jazz.
 
But a pheasant is meat??

Mine ate 2 decomposing salmon the other day. Thats meat.

They do not eat wheat, rice, corn ect naturally which is what cheap food are full of.

Like i have said before humans do just fine eating at McDonald's everyday. Does it mean its good for them even though they look fine on it? No.

I'm not telling you you should change foods i am just saying that with a little research you will find out that just because they look good on it it doesn't mean its the best for them.
 
Been to PaH, the fishy one is Fishmongers, seems to be a Pets at Home own brand. It's top ingredients are salmon meal, salmon, potato, salmon oil... in total it's 60% salmon, including the salmon meal (30%) and actual salmon (30%) so we're giving that a go - Stan tried a bit and he likes it so we'll try gardually moving him on to it and see how he goes.

Met a lady in there who was staring at all the foods and said she had no idea what to buy, had a chat to her (she was already anti-bakers!) and she is now trying the Fishmongers too!
 
I would say Arden Grange, I think it's a fab food. The only reason I took my boy off of it is because he is a hyperactive loon and only seems to do well on the local feed merchants own brand working dog food. Finally I have managed to stop people calling the RSPCA on me! :rolleyes:
 
Left to his own devices, my dog cheerfully eats beet straight from the field:eek:

Skinners is a food that suits my dog very well. RAW is not for everyone. (Awaits post saying she is a dreadful owner for feeding a diet that is shock! horror! 40% rice...:rolleyes:)
 
Hi

I'm feeding my JRT on the 'DUCK' raw diet - i think its a happy medium and she absoultely loves it! would recommend it to anyone.
 
Been to PaH, the fishy one is Fishmongers, seems to be a Pets at Home own brand. It's top ingredients are salmon meal, salmon, potato, salmon oil... in total it's 60% salmon, including the salmon meal (30%) and actual salmon (30%) so we're giving that a go - Stan tried a bit and he likes it so we'll try gardually moving him on to it and see how he goes.

Met a lady in there who was staring at all the foods and said she had no idea what to buy, had a chat to her (she was already anti-bakers!) and she is now trying the Fishmongers too!

Doesn't seem that bad at all. Is it good price wise?
 
Price wise it's sort of mid-range, works out at £3 a kg if I remember correctly, so not too bad :) Very no-frills packaging, smells good (smells like salmon!). We'll see how the little monster gets on with it...

Thank you for all your help :)
 
Nowt wrong with good quality kibble. What I wouldn't touch is commercial crap ie what you can buy in supermarkets. I've recently out big dog back on Orijen although pups are on raw still and will stay on it. Brig was looking at the raw and not eating it. The only reasons we decided raw and not JWB or similar was dentition and price. I do feel it's the best I can do for my dogs, especially after research and chats with the man who runs the dog cemetery and what food people who have been there are giving.
 
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