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Wednesday 11 April 2012

Is there a food with all the nasty bits left out?

I have just read the ingredients of my dog's food and I have spent a hair-raising 30 minutes on the Internet googling all the weird things that are in her current diet!
Can anyone point out a food that doesn't have loads of preservatives, colourings, grains or chemical additives? What’s the choice out there? Surely someone is doing something that leaves all that nasty stuff out without me having to cook for my dog myself?
Dawn Morley, Wales

21 comments:

  1. My dog was on a Burns Pet Nutrition Diet (which I had no issue with, however, I have just switched her to a holistic diet, she is on Luath's by Land of Holistic Pets.. no dodgy ingredients at all :) They also do Robbies which is a dehydrated food, you add water...

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  2. Orijen, Taste of the Wild and Applaws are 3 that come to mind that dont have nasty additives or cereal fillers

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  3. I have fed mine on Naturediet for years and have never had a problem. Their customer service is great too.

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  4. Burns, Luath, Naturediet, Naturesmenu, Lilly's Kitchen, Barking Heads are all good foods with, as far as I know, no nasties in them.

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  5. "Without me having to cook." Why not raw?

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    1. ITA with John. I buy and feed raw meat for my dog. No cooking, no additives, faeces are small and hardly smell, my dog keeps clean teeth from eating bone. The only "work" I do might be to cut up a whole chicken or rabbit into quarters if it is a big one, and keep the feeding place clean afterwards.

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  6. I feed Prize Choice raw minced of various flavours plus raw meaty bones and tripe rom my butcher. I lob in the occasional can of sardines and raw eggs with the shell. No cooking required.

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  7. Mine are on Wainwrights complete, mixed with either the Wainwrights Senior pouches or, sadly, Butchers Tripe Mix - I've recently had them on James Wellbeloved mixed with Naturediet or a premium wet food but they've both had really bad diahorrhea with it, so switched back to what I know isn't wonderful, but seems to suit them best.

    Can it be that some of the best foods are actually too rich? I know each dog varies, like we do, but with mine being 8 and 10, maybe their digestion can't cope with it? I do feel guilty giving them tinned rubbish, but mixed with the better quality complete, it seems to suit them...

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  8. For trouble free raw feeding try Natural Instinct. Great company, very helpful, good delivery, easy to feed, lots of choices.
    Lynn H

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  9. Mine are on a raw food diet made by Natural Instinct. They love it, they look good on it and It's all natural. The factory shop is just down the road from me, but They do online orders as well.

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  10. Strangely enough I was not happy with the dog foods available because of the additives when I came back from Spain, so I made my own dog food, www.salterspetfood.com I wanted only the best ingredients that I would eat myself so the only way to get that was to make it myself.
    Stephen Salter.

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  11. We use Acana, with Lamb and Apple. Our dogs get upset by the slightest thing in their diet and with this we have had no problems at all, their breath is sweet too (maybe the apple.) We have read the contents and there doesn't appear to be anything too bad in their, mostly natural stuff. Also, they don't need a lot and they both seem satisfied. I now need to stop my Borzoi eating desicated rabbit he finds on the baranco's (dried water gullies) as these can upset the apple cart (so to speak) - we live in Tenerife so not all products are available, but we are glad to find Acana here, albeit a bit expensive, but all things doggie are over here. Pauline Wallace.

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  12. Acana, it works really well for my dogs, lamb and apple. No nasties in there from what I can see. Pauline Wallace.

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  13. I've recently switched Inka onto one of CSJ's rations and am so pleased with how he's doing on it. Due to his allergy, he's on the grain-free ration, which is more expensive than the rest of the range, but it still beats most other manufacturers at £35 for a 15Kg sack.

    CSJ work closely with breeders, dog sport competitors, trainers, kennel owners, and show dogs; there's no GM ingredients; real meat; no artificial colours, additives or preservatives; and no animal testing carried out in laboratories either, and it's a definite winner in this house.

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  14. Applaws is excellent - all natural ingredients with no cereals, and as an added extra they use no intensively produced meat. I found that I need to feed much less Applaws than other foods I have tried (one handful a day for my 16-17kg collie x)so it is not as expensive at it might at first appear, and it is also the first food, wet or dry, which she has happily eaten for more than a month before going off it - Pip has now been on it for six months, still loves it and is looking great.

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  15. I applaud you for taking the time to research the ingredients in dog food - I like to think that if my dogs were choosing food for ME, they would not just buy the cheapest rubbish off the supermarket shelves just because it is easier and cheaper.

    If you are going to feed raw you need to do some research - unfortunately you can't just give some mince and raw bones and expect it to be a balanced diet. Dogs [and their relatives] in the wild DO eat the stomach contents of their prey which would include partially digested vegetable matter. They have also been seen eating berries, herbs and fruits. My own dogs raid the raspberries, blackberries, grasses and herbs in the garden. They also love veg and fruits as treats [no onions or citrus]

    If you are not able to do the research, it would be better to go a preprepared raw such as http://honeysrealdogfood.com/index.php [I have no connection with this company] Although it looks expensive, it works out cheaper than sourcing and buying good quality ingredients yourself. I have been really pleased with this food, the ingredients are locally sourced and also come from higher welfare animals - I do not want my dogs eating animals that have been cruelly farmed - and killed. Also the quality of the meat is superior to most of the minces available - often they are mostly tubes and vessels.

    If you are feeding raw and need to go away, http://www.k9natural.co.uk/ freeze dried raw is really easy to use and store.

    There are some high quality dried foods available but you do need to research the ingredients. There is a guide to grading your dog food on our Cavalier Talk forum here http://www.cavaliertalk.com/forums/showthread.php?41323-Grading-your-dog-food

    I think you have to set a budget of the maximum you are prepared to spend on dog food, and then find something that suits you and your dog. There is no point trying to force them to eat something they don't like either. Although be aware that dogs can be very manipulative and quickly train you to keep trying different things and give them something nicer by refusing to eat!

    Wishing you the best for your dog.

    Nicki, Scotland

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  16. I highly recommend Nature's Harvest wet dog food. The ingredients and supplements it contains are fantastic with a high meat/fish content. Each pack smells fresh and yummy... like a real home made dinner. My dogs love it.

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  18. Some good advice in the previous answers most of which I would agree with. One thing to look for on the ingredients list are the vitamins. If a vitamin is listed on the ingredients list then it means it has been added to the mixture. In the majority of cases these added vitamins are not natural and are chemically produced (the same as the ones in human food), they are also added in massive doses. Vitamin A for example is often added to wet and dry foods and you will see numbers as high as 20000 IU/kg (IU = International Units), the average sized dog requires around 500 IU/kg per day!

    From around September last year manufacturers of petfood had to declare exactly what is in the tin/pouch/bag, this was supposed to be earlier last year but the bigger producers squealed saying this was unachievable. So if it has fur and feathers in it it must say fur and feathers, this was in the past allowed under the phrase animal by-products. Another popular phrase is animal derivatives, which is essentially any part of the animal that hasn't gone into the food chain.

    Dry food is an interesting one - the recomendation if feeding dry food is that water should be available at all times, the reason being that a dog/cat should be consuming water at a ratio of 9:1 so if they are having 300g of dry food a day then they should be drinking about 2.7 litres of water a day as well. Without this their bodies cannot process and flush out the chemicals and extra vitamins they are taking in which can cause problems particularly in the liver and kidneys.

    (Shameless plug alert) - Here at PetFit we have a full declaration on all of our sizes of tin and defnitely no nasties. Just meat (upto 70%), some pasta, rice or potato and some vegetables.

    At first you might think that our products are expensive but a quick example, which I saw last week, was a can of Hills Science plan adult dog chicken, 370g at £1.89. Next to it the recommended feeding amount per day of 2.3 tins or around 860g, that takes it up to £4.42 per day. Check out our website (link above) to see how we compare! Even better is the fact that we can offer discounts of upto 30%!

    So Beverley (or anybody else for that matter!) if you would like a FREE sample then head to the website (just click on my name), fill in the contact us form and hit send.

    Rgds

    Jon http://www.pet-fit.co.uk/

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  19. I agree that some dog foods are really quite scary, and I believe that if they don't put it in during the manufacture but thier supplier does it doesn't have to be on the packet. For instance an ingredient bought in contains a colouring but the maker doesn't add a colouring they can say they haven't added colours! (This is just something I have heard at seminars of rival companies)

    If you don't want to cook for your dog and don't like the idea of feeding raw food, look in the freezers at the pet shop, they do minces and chunks that are thaw and feed. You could also add in raw fruit and veggies at the ratio of 75-80% meat - 20-25% veg.

    There are a lot of great suggestions on here and the top brands really are worth the extra money

    Olwen Turns
    MAPDT 1093
    www.olwenturns.co.uk

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  20. Yvonne Collins1 May 2012 at 04:39

    Symply is a brilliant food

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