The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Pets & Working Animals => Dogs => Topic started by: in the hills on February 24, 2013, 06:38:56 pm
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Following on from my previous thread this week about feeding border collies. :dog:
Have gradually changed Meg's diet to half pup food and half adult over the course of this week. Her behaviour has noticeably changed :o . I've noticed it, OH, even the children!!!! Much calmer and responsive. Playing of course and having her mad moments but much, much calmer.
Just coincidence or down to diet??? ???
To be honest I did wonder if different protein levels could make much difference to a dog. Can it have such an effect in such a short time????
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Yes. I can tell that Dot has had high protein complete dog food after two nights. I can give it to her once with impunity, after that I have a very very energetic hyper collie :)
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OMG.
To be honest Sally, I was following advice but did doubt that mere protein content could have much effect.
There is a vast difference in Meg. We have been pondering whether it was just another "puppy phase" but thought it odd that it coincided with the change in diet.
Her play was at times "frenzied" and yet my 11 year old has sat with her this evening and taught her to roll a ball back and forth and she is watching us constantly and listening to commands.
I wonder if all breeds would respond in this way. Our Flattie is 7 and still "hyper" at times. Three different lots of people came over to speak to us about Alf last summer and all of them said they had owned Flat-Coats but had to give them up as they found them too boisterous and difficult to handle. Going to try Alf on a lower protein food and see what happens.
I wasn't aware of the difference it could make ..... sure many aren't.
Thanks folks :thumbsup:
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There is a known link between aggression and very high protein diets.
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There is also a well-established link between high protein diets and kidney problems in later life.
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I've said this time and again - if my Brits get anything more than 20% they just don't listen, they are selectively deaf anyway but it makes them unliveable with.
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I have mine on 18 which works well. When teaching I always knew if a dog was on Bakers dog food, they were off the wall. When I bred Irish Setters a high protein diet would make them itichy.
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Not just a collie thing then.
Odd, been around "doggy" people .... showing and working gundogs .... all my life and yet never heard anyone mention about high protein diets and related problems. ???
Good job I've got TAS people to talk to ;D
Meg's off to puppy school tonight (I've only ever done gundog classes so bit nervous) ...... hope she stays calm and chilled. ::) ;D
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Don't worry, if the trainer is any good s/he will know how to keep the pups happy and not too mad ;)
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It's great to hear that a change of diet seems to be working! :thumbsup:
Can anyone recommend a good but reasonably priced brand of low protein adult dog food?
We have a 5 yo golden retriever who bounces off the walls! I hate taking her for a walk as once you put the lead on her she jumps all over place and she has pulled me over in the past. She also suffers from bad skin which our vet said was an allergic reaction to something, probably her food. First time round we were using bakers but her skin improved considerably when we took her off it so I wouldn't go back there. Recently though her skin is starting to get bad again. I am now wondering whether its worth trying her on a low protein diet to see if it calms her down and also maybe improves her skin condition.
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Try her on a proper wholebake biscuit (Laughing Dog Terrier Meal for instance) and Chappie. That'll take the protein right down, lose the additives, and still be a perfectly nutritious diet for an adult companion dog.
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I like Chappie. Have had great success getting dogs to loose weight on it (actually they seem to do better than the weight loss branded food).
I have the opposite problem, trying to find a higher protein diet for my collie x who loses muscle mass easily. he has food allergies so most diets are no go for him. I tried CSJ That'll Do, he did well on it. I like the CSJ diets- they might do a lower protein one?[size=78%] [/size]
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Their senior/light is 17% protein and 8% fat, which is low.
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Funky fish, try Lilly's kitchen food if he's got allergies, it's proper ingredients, it's also seriously expensive!
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Meg's off to puppy school tonight (I've only ever done gundog classes so bit nervous) ...... hope she stays calm and chilled. ::) ;D
ITH, there is a GSD puppy at our puppy school and she was very hyper last week. The trainer asked them what they were feeding her as they were struggling to get her to respond (can't remember what they said) but he asked them to reduce the protein in her diet.
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95% of Border Collies in rescue would not be there if they had been fed appropriately IMO. You just found out why ;D
Well done for changing the food :thumbsup:
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Can't feed Odie most things as he is allergic to everything except pork, chicken, white fish and salmon. He can have wheat but not soya or potato, so that rules out most of the hypo-allergy foods as they tend to be soya or potato based!
Chappie is perfect for him except he needs more protein so add extra egg etc to his diet.
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Check labels for maize starch, seems to cause problem in pets as well as people.
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Clarebelle - the Skinners recommended on this thread seems a reasonable price and low protein. I am going to try my retriever on this when Meg is a bit older.
It is amazing how strong they can be. When I did agility classes with my Flattie, the instructor asked if he could demonstrate something using Alf. Alf pulled him right over :o . He said he never thought he would be that strong a dog. He doesn't pull me but only because I did loads of heel work with him and even now he needs a sharp reminder of his manners if he is in a very exciting environment. He is taking advantage at the moment because I'm having to walk him and our pup together at times. He knows I can't be fully on top of him while pups pulling about ::) . Have you tried lots of heeling exercises?
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Yes, she is very strong and she is big, even for a retriever. The things is she is VERY obiedient MOST of the time, she follows many commands to the letter and is an extremely good dog, she just gets so excited when its time for a walk. We take her to a large open space where she can get off the lead and as soon as it comes off she is away and will leg it round, once she has had this little burst she is fine once she goes back on the lead. So on the way home shes fine but the walk from the house to the field is a nightmare, she just jumps all over the place! I have tried getting her to heel and have also tried various coller/lead/harness combination without success. Do you have a heeling exercise you would recommend for an older dog?
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One exercise that works with them all iff you can be robust enough to do it religiously is this. Whenever the dog is not at your side, you stop. You don't reprimand, you just stop. You don't move forward again until there is slack in the lead. As soon as the slack is gone, you stop. You must do this every time there is no slack so that the dogs learns that s/he makes no forward progress if s/he can feel the collar on her/his neck.
First day you may not get to the end of your driveway. :D But they're clever things; by the end of a week, they'll have got the message.
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One exercise that works with them all iff you can be robust enough to do it religiously is this. Whenever the dog is not at your side, you stop. You don't reprimand, you just stop. You don't move forward again until there is slack in the lead. As soon as the slack is gone, you stop. You must do this every time there is no slack so that the dogs learns that s/he makes no forward progress if s/he can feel the collar on her/his neck.
First day you may not get to the end of your driveway. :D But they're clever things; by the end of a week, they'll have got the message.
Really similar to what I do, I however have a loop of lead in my hand, if that gets any pull I drop the loop and stop, this gives a gentle jerk every time, they soon get the hang of it, the other thing you could try is walking around very randomly, change direction every thirty seconds so the dog has no idea what's going on and can't anticipate things, so they end up following you cos there's not much else they can do.
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Thanks guys, I'm going to try that method and see how we go! Although I'm not sure if that will solve the jumping all over the place when I first put her lead on, I hope it does. My hubby thinks I'm mad to even try!
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Clarebelle - :wave: have sent you a pm