Vocal Voices

What do you feed your dogs, or in the case of Deb and Di, what did Millie and Minnie have before they went onto their special diets?

Billy's always had Arden Grange, Dog's Trust sent him home with a bag of that and we've stuck with it. It's not particularly easy to get though. There's an independant pet shop which we always used to get it from but for some reason they increased the price A LOT, Pets At Home started to stock it around that time so we started to get it from there - at about £8 a bag cheaper for the 12kg bag than at the small pet shop. PAH was a lot more convenient too as it's open at night (it was always a Saturday only job to get it from the pet shop) and also a store has opened near to John's office so he can always pick up a bag during his lunch hour.
But...I've just gone online to reserve a bag to collect this evening and it's now home delivery only which is okay but apart from the faff of waiting for delivery, what if we need a bag urgently, for example if the current bag gets spoiled (unlikely I know but this is us we're talking about)?

Ideally I'd like to switch him to something that's easily available, that I can get in the supermarket or Pets At Home, and also which isn't overly expensive but which isn't going to upset his tum though I suppose what suits one dog won't suit all so it's a matter of trial and error. We've been paying around £35 for 12kg of Arden Grange. As usual I'm reading all kinds of conflicting reviews and it gets confusing.

Millie used to just have bog standard dried complete dog food. No particular brand - we would buy it from one of the local animal feed stores and would usually just go for a relatively cheap working dog food. They were in big sacks and would cost around £12.

Occasionally if we ran out I would nip into Sainsburys and just get their own brand dried complete food. She really was a very unfussy dog who would eat anything put in front of her (still would, given the chance).

After the accident I switched to a wet food which we were getting from Pets at Home but that started to become a pain as we don't have one particular near us. So now she is on Sainsburys own brand meat loaf tins of food and she seems to like it.

The vet looked into different food for us after we said that we weren't prepared to keep her on the tins of ID as it was costing far too much. They recommended Pedigree Chum loaf but when I looked at the nutritional content of that against to Sainsburys own brand they were pretty identical. Just the price was different.

I think you will always get differing opinions. The vet told us Pedigree Chum as it would help her put on weight - my work colleague who breeds and shows dogs says that in the industry it is a well known fact that you put your dog on Pedigree Chum if you want them to lose weight!!!

Well... when we brought Jasper home as a new pup last year, his breeder had weaned him on to the raw food diet, which he actually enjoyed, but I wasn't keen on. After that I used home cooked mince and chicken etc, but I knew I wouldn't keep it up so I went through all the top end prepared foods. My vet wanted me to put him on a dry food diet, but I'm not a fan. For the past few months Jasper has been on Wainright's wet food from Pets at Home, which he enjoys and I use it with some James Wellbeloved dry food. He is a good weight and seems happy with it. It is a mine field though isn't it?

Wainwrights was the food that Millie was on Loz. She really likes it and we still get it when we are passing a Pets at Home.

Pepper is on Beta dried food ......she's very healthy (touch wood!) and seems to thrive on it. She has incredibly healthy white teeth too

James Wellbeloved is my recommendation

Originally Minnie had Bakers (dry food) then Tesco's own which had an identical ingredients list.
Then after the colitis we switched to this
http://judgeschoice.com/index.php?route ... duct_id=53

Berties, it's hypoallergenic; she's been on that ever since. I'm sure others would suit her but it's a bit of a nightmare when they have a sensitive stomach.

Well what do you know? John went to Pets At Home yesterday to get guinea pig nuggets and thought he'd have a look at the dog food while he was there and they still had the Arden Grange in store so he got a bag while he was there so he's good now for another couple of months. Probably just stock they had in store which they'd not been able to return to the warehouse.

Thanks for the recommendations though, I'll be needing them for when this bag runs down.

He used to wolf down his food until we left him with John's Mom when we went on holiday last year and since then he's been quite strange. Some days he'd eat it and others he wouldn't. I think he'd probably been given too many treats and too much human food - I know on the first day he was there and John phoned to check how he was, he was told that he'd just finished his steak. It's no wonder he didn't want dry dog food after that. It's only the last month or so that he's started eating it most days. He's certainly not starving though, has bags of energy and is in lovely condition so he obviously just eats it when he feels he needs to.

Jo Minnie's not a greedy dog either and when not on steroids doesn't eat a lot.

I had the excuse of Minnie's sensitive stomach which made it easier, but have always given strict instructions to anyone else who had her that they are absolutely not to give her anything but dog food, and that in measured meals.
Trouble is, apart from the dog getting used to it, if they're not properly clued up, even people who have/had dogs tend to give them things they really should not have (leftovers with onions/garlic in for instance).
They still did give her other things of course but it cuts it down a bit.

We had trouble with our Prince (my avatar) as he has a sensitive tummy.
We changed to James Wellbeloved Senior kibbles about a year ago and have had no trouble since.
And he loves it.