[xnbacon]

Has anyone used or is using Dr Johns silver medal complete working dog food?
Basically is it any good?

[RUSTYME]

I have used it in the past , and it was good , I had no complaints about it at all . The dogs liked it and looked good on it , plus it was a good price .
  No transport now days , so I get other food delivered . I also used to get Wagg's complete, and until recently Gusto ,Tesco stopped selling it !! (both were fine ), so now I get Brunos chicken and rice . All the dogs like it and they seem very well on it, plus it is only £7.96 for 10 kilos ( actually I get it in 2.5 kilo bags at £1.99 each).

cheers

Russ

[knightquest]

It's basically made from old bread and the ingredients are extremely suspect.........derivatives etc. I've done a lot of research in to dog food so will stay off my high horse 'cos I get very intense about what goes in to the food that I feed to my dogs and what I sell in my shop.

Ian

[robert waddell]

knightquest what is your recommendation for dog food

[RUSTYME]

don't worry about being on your high horse mate .... I'm always on one !!! ...so go on spill the beans ,as it were , ...derivatives included !!!
  I know that a lot of dog feeds contain absolute crap ... but,  I am on a very , very tight budget, and needs must and all that ... as it happens most human food isn't that much better either , which is why I am trying to set my own food production ...for the dogs too.

cheers

Russ

[doganjo]

And what prices are they?  And if this cheaper food is rubbish as you suggest why do dogs do well on it?   Mine are on Purina Breederpack mostly (around £10 for 15kgs) and have shiny coats, are neither too fat nor too thin, very energetic, full of life, rarely ill (touch wood), and stools are normal.  Have been on this more or less for two years, and range in ages from 1 year to 13.5 years, 2 different breeds.  I would love to be able to afford more and probably could if it was worth it, but it has yet to be proved to me since I took two lots of an expensive brand (£27.50 a 15kg bag) last year and my dogs went downhill.

[knightquest]

The best branded food in my humble opinion is Arden Grange. It ain't cheap but they do a huge bag of food for breeders I think but I can't get hold of that size bag....

With dogs, and all creatures, food is only part of the equation. If dogs are exercised properly and kept warm etc and properly looked after, then they can get away with having lower grade food. I can guarantee that you monitor your dogs and adjust your dogs intake doganjo. We all should do this by the way. To be honest, if you pay £10 a bag or less, then you expect them to use derivatives of food or more specifically, the stuff no one else can use. If you do swap to a different brand of food, then the dogs body takes time to adjust so there is almost always a noticable change in the dogs condition (sometimes good and sometimes bad).
My argument is mainly with Bakers and Pedigree but especially Bakers. Up until recently, they had a disclaimer on their bags to say that their food cannot even be stored near farm animals food let alone fed to them !!**$$££%%**

When you look at dog food, look for food with meat meal in the ingredients and check the amount of meat in the food. Usually there is about 4% meat in the cheaper food with the rest made up of who knows what and wheat. As far as I know, dogs aren't made to have high volumes of wheat in their diets so that bothers me too.

Personally, I feed raw food to my dogs and always will. It's just more natural.


Happy to carry on if you have any other questions...

Ian

[scattybiker1972]

bakers also had a huge list of artificial additives but now says permitted eec additives  there well known because the money is spent on advertising but not on the food if  i see a customer with problems in theur dogs health its usually fed on bakers.its pumped full of chemicals.specially ther meaty morsels....think about how long meat lasts for if exposed to air ..grr

[faith0504]

i feed my dogs raw meat, i started with it when my doberman cross (now 11) was diagosed with a digestive problem as a puppy as she was fed wrong by the breeder, the only food she can digest is raw food, and all my dogs have been fed on it ever since, as ian said its more natural, nearer to there natural diet, in my opinion

[RUSTYME]

don't think I would fancy the more natural diet of raw steak and sliced potatoes and raw peas ...yuk ... but my dogs get the odd rabbit here and there , they also catch birds too and eat them ... dirty sods ...Millie , my Weimaraner, catches and plays with, and then kills moles ... but never eats them ....same with frogs....I must teach her to leave Frenchmen alone !!!

cheers

Russ

[faith0504]

i have spent four years trying to teach my jack russell to catch moles with no luck!!!!!!!!! i will end up having to tunnel down after one myself soon, god bless her

[little blue]

Ian ... and other raw feeders!   Can I trouble you a moment?

I give our german shepherd raw bones when I can get them from the butchers.   much better poo & great for her teeth (and keep her busy for ages!)   the rest of the time she has a combination of  terrier meal & tinned (chappie chicken and rice or Bruno.)

do you advocate freezing stuff first (to kill germs?) and does it then have to defrost completely?   Sheba much prefers to grab her bones straight from the freezer - these are eaten immediately whereas fresh ones she often leaves "hanging around"   which isnt very hygenic.

and do you give your dog carcases?  with fur / feathers?  (will this make my dog decide she can eat the chickens?  though actually, she would if she got anyway. and the cats)
and again, do you freeze first?
how much should she have per meal/per day?
  (She came to us from rescue extremely underweight. we fed her up then reduced the number of meals, then the amount.  she is presently on the lean side. she was firstly starved, then in the rescue was so stressed by the other dogs she refused to eat or stole.   Now, she will eat pretty much anything, and steals if she can, whether or not she is hungry.  I call her "dustbin dog" - that distracts her!!)

anyone feed road kill?

And lastly (for now!) if she had a totally raw meat diet - just how much/how often should she have cereal/veg etc??  And what sort?!

theres so much information about BARF & raw diets, I get all bogged down with the different opinions.
but still, tell me yours!

[knightquest]

It's no trouble at all little blue. We feed frozen mince because that's how we store it. Mostly we thaw it out but especially in the summer, we take the plastic wrapper off and give the 450g (1lb) blocks frozen. It acts as an iced lolly.

We have a very dated website at www.knightpetsupplies.co.uk which outlines the ethos of our raw feeding.

Some dogs don't seem to know about raw food to start with but pick it up eventually. I would NEVER, EVER feed tinned food!

We feed chicken carcasses that have been frozen for transporting etc but I would have no qualms about giving our dogs a carcass unprepared so to speak but as I said, they may not know what to do with them as this type of thing is not widely available in the middle of Birmingham 

Don't worry either about bones that have been around for a while. Sometimes bones buried for a couple of months seem very palatable. If you are worried, wash them, put 'em in a plastic bag in the fridge and give 'em back a couple of days later.

We feed very little veg to be honest and no cereal. If you analyse a rabbit for instance as a meal. You would get bones, meat, organs etc and only the stomach would contain any veg so we replicate that percentage breakdown in our dogs diet.

I think that dogs generally will kill feathered and furred creatures if they are allowed to especially when the predator instinct kicks in by the movement of the prey. It is inevitable so we need to stop this by controlling the exposure to this stimulus.

By the way Russ me old mate. When you said that your dogs did well on Dr Johns, you never said that they were having all this live food too. It does make a difference you know 

pm me if anyone wants specific guidelines for your dog. I'll need the dogs weight, target weight, age and breed to start with. I would be happy to then recommend how to swap from the current diet to the raw diet etc.

Hope this helps,

Ian

[little blue]

it does, thanks Ian.

now ... how to get Sheba on the scales??!!  She's blooming heavy when she wants to be "loved", I know that!!

She has huge anxiety & behaviour issues stemming from her pre-rescue puppyhood, so popping to the vets for a quick weigh in is not my first choice of an evening out!

[doganjo]

Like little blue I don't feed raw because I would worry about not getting the balance right.  I know what is in Breederpack from the label- although not right this minute because the bag is out in the garage lol  But I will look tomorrow for the percentage of meat.  I have to watch the protein as these get pretty 'hot' with excess percentages.  We had a pup back a couple of weeks ago because he was so hyper they couldn't control him - 4months old and on 29% protein, new owners report he is doing just fine, reasonably calm for a pup, love him to bits, responding to training extremely well and now on Burns Puppy 21% protein.