Wet Or Dry Food

[gillyb3]

sorry if ive put this in the wrong place, i can see a feeding topic anywhere.

 

Views on feeding wet tin feed or dry food.

 

When we got our dog he was on adren grange dry food with abit of water. BUt he want eatting it up very well and picking through it, so we changed him to tin wet food slowly into three meals and he loves it. He does have two hand fuls of bakers senior as well. Ive always feed tin wet food with our old dogs but really like to know they are getting what they need from it.

So any views, wet or dry?

 

Gillian

[celeste]

I don't think it matters really, as long as it's a good brand, if your going to use wet, then Natures Menu or Nature Diet are about as good as you'll get anywhere, with dry food it tends to be a bit more economical to feed as you aren't paying for the water content,I would steer clear of Bakers, quite possibly the worst dog food you could buy, I know dogs like it, but the ingredients are very low quality and are full of unnecessary and potentially harmful additives.

[cycas]

I agree with celeste, it's not about wet or dry, so much as what is in the wet or dry food that you choose.

 

I wouldn't feed Baker's either: in fact foster Tara arrived with two bags of Bakers and a bag of some brightly coloured Tesco own brand food, and I've chucked them. She is getting Chappy instead: it's not what I feed my own hounds, but it's a cheap but decent unfancy food that any prospective adopter should be able to get hold of easily.

 

If your dog doesn't like a good quality food such as Arden Grange with water, what I would do is buy a good quality wet food and mash a couple of spoonfuls into the water you put over the dried food. That seems to make dried foods much more palatable. You can add stuff like grated carrot, mince, mashed potato, sardines or whatever to give it a bit of variety too, mine love that!

[Wendbert]

Another one here who steers well clear of Bakers. Far too many additives and colours in it.

 

My boys are fed on Autarky complete with a 1/4 of a tin of meat mixed in for each of them, each meal. Wiggle would eat dry food on it's own but Sir H won't

[merledogs]

I second what everyone says about Bakers - IIRC it has 13 different E numbers in it.

 

Another one here who feeds a mix of good quality all natural kibble, mixed with wet food (although I make my own)

I also find pouring boiling water over it makes it more yummy for some reason.

[gillyb3]

Thankyou all

 

I will change his bakers dry food then, so what do you think i could change it to?, he only has about 100gram aday of this. I have to admit i dont no much about dry food.

As for wet food he has 600gram of winalot or butchers, any advice here much welcome.

I did change his food over very slowly.

He does eat very well on this and his tip bits .

Im sure it cost more to feed him than us ha ha .

 

Gillian

[lil_angel]

I feed Louie James Wellbeloved dry which is a good food and hes in fab condition. Very shiny Its an easily accessible dog food they sell it at pets@home.

[celeste]

You should be able to get a much better quality wet food for the about the same price as the Winalot and Butchers, I think Wainrights is reasonably good, comes in plastic trays and is available at P@H, or the brands previously mentioned,dry food, James Wellbeloved is good, as is Autarky which is a bit cheaper I think, I feed mine on Orijen dry and am now twiddling with BARF.

[merledogs]

I feed mine either Autarky or else one of the CSJ Champ range (they also send Autarky but it's cheaper at Costco if you have a card), which is good quality and reasonably priced (and all natural). If you email Ceri ([email protected]) at CSJ she will send you some samples so you can see which one he prefers Postage is quite hefty but you can get two bags posted for the same price.

[Wendbert]

I've not bought dogfood at Pets at Home but buy Autarky at Jollyes. Not sure where you are, but their store locater is here:

 

Jollyes

 

 

I did try Jamesw Wellbeloved which the dogs liked, but found it expensive in comparison to the Autarky. Currently pay £18 for a 15kg sack of Autarky

[merledogs]

Do you have a Costco anywhere near you Wendy? If you know someone with a card then it's £10.99 for Autarky

[Wendbert]

Nearest one is Bristol but I don't know anyone with a card I *think* they sell it at Batleys and the lady who does Wiggle's training classes goes there so I'll ask her how much. Hadn't thought of that before now

[mole]

As celeste said ... Wainwrights dry kibble has more or less the same ingredients as James Wellbeloved but a lot cheaper.

 

Personally I don't like feeding dogs dry food ... too heavily processed ... too much grain .... and unappetising.

 

I feed raw but if you don't want to do that the two I would use would be either Naturediet (don't have to freeze it) but it's expensive or Butchers tinned ... just meat and veg (not high quality meat but it will be as good as in the expensive dry brands) no additives ...

[Ian]

I give a both - chicken added to complete dog food.

 

Adding gravy / meat stock, water, the mash, carrots etc cycas may also help him eat it if need be

 

I have used Butchers in the past (due to liking the higher chicken & tripe content than most - if you pick the right one today) & thought that was about the best of the tinned foods, though chappie, as mentioned by Cycas, is also fairly well thought of (& easily available) for dogs with sensitive tummies etc.

 

There’s a thread about Bakers additives on here somewhere if you do a search & some food reviews & ingredient analysis in the link below. I’ve never seen it locally but Arden Grange also apparently offer a wet food with a higher meat & tripe content than the Butchers plus glucosamine & chrondroitin (for joints), yucca (supposed to reduce flatulence)

 

http://www.pet-food-choice.co.uk/Review_Arden_Grange_pet_food.htm

[cycas]

I'd try Wainwrights if I could get it, but we don't have a Pets At home near here and anyway, they sell small animals and I'm not entirely comfortable about shopping there for that reason.

 

Tara Banana is doing just fine on Chappie dry, but when I tried my sighthounds on it the poos were just appalling, I gave up on it for them. Anything with maize or rice in seems to result in sloppy poos for my hounds, though I'm sure that doesn't apply to most dogs.

 

The hounds get James Wellbeloved lamb and veg, which is JWB's grainfree formulation: after much experimentation, I have found gives them the smallest, hardest least offensive poos, even if the price suggests that it is mostly made of minced gold... They seem healthy enough on it, but to be honest, most of my concern with their diet is purely selfish : what will be least hassle and give the least nasty poo.

 

I don't have the storage space to do raw or wet food, and my house isn't organised so I can safely feed my dogs raw meat and be sure of clearing the resulting bacteria. Storage is also an issue for wet food and I can't be bothered with lugging that many tins about given how many steps I'd have to carry it up to get it into the house.

 

All of them get Naturediet or Forthglade as a mashed gravy/topping tho.