Gentle Dog food and other meats

[Lottie]

Hello some of you may remember a few weeks back I was trying out Cold pressed food (CobbyDog) with not a lot of success due to the volume of pooh they were producing.
About 3 weeks ago as I had quite a bit of food left I decided to have another try and this time it has been much better, except for one of mine who does not like CobbyDog Fish supper. I decided to then get some samples of Gentle to see if she liked that better and glad to say she does.
One reason I think is that the CobbyDog fish supper has 49% fish and seems to be a little harder to crunch. With Gentle Fish variety it has only 34% Fish so maybe that is the difference and a bit softer. Unfortunately it was the fish one I really wanted for her to stop her itching.
Anyway with that in mind I want send for a large bag 5kg and do Gentle morning and raw the evening meal.

Does anyone feeding Cold pressed add a small amount of meat or even raw with the dry food? Just to give a bit of variety. I see that Gentle do a roll called Gentle Pure containing Buffalo meat has anyone tried this or any other meat like forthglade or Nature Diet.?
If this diet is a success I may take them off raw altogether as it is getting harder to find space in my freezer for our food and don't have room for another one.
 Any help or advice would be very appreciated thank you. Apologies for going on a bit but just wanted to set the scene as it were.

[Dottie]

Gentle is manufactured by Markus Muhle (Germany) who have been selling cold pressed food for some years.  Cobbydog has come into the market more recently and I believe their product is made in the UK.  I use a brown rice branded version of the former and weigh the food to prevent overfeeding. To provide variety, I give cooked toppers with cold pressed food eg chicken, sardines, white fish, scrambled egg. Why Fresh "Human Food" is so Important for Dogs (Rodney Habib). 

In a dog that has previously been raw fed, it will seem that there is a lot of poo. As long as it is formed and easy to pick up it should be ok.

Regarding the itching, food often gets the blame but sometimes there are other causes. It might be possible to discern whether the dog has intolerance of a particular ingredient but a controlled elimination diet is worth considering if the owner has been unable to identify causative ingredients.

[Lottie]

Thank you so much Dottie that is really helpful. I think I may buy the chicken and brown rice variety  as I am not sure if my older dog would eat the fish. The younger of my two dogs will eat anything.

[Dottie]

I stick with the brown rice version because one of my dogs has a skin problem (it is like a dry eczema) and it seems to suit her. The one she has contains four types of oil so that ought to help. In addition I give her Yumega Itchy Dog.

She’s had two courses of antibiotics and Apoquel with good effect but she will need to be watched.  I am not convinced that her problem is intolerance to some foods. However, I feel (but can’t prove) that she might have issues with legumes and white potato so I steer clear of grain free products.

[Lottie]

Thank you for that Dottie. I have placed an order for the Small Bites version which has brown rice in. My dogs are only small 5&9 kg, so I think the small bites one would be better for them. I also give Yumega Itchy Dog for the older one which seems to be helping. I have also ordered the Buffalo meat. They also have grated carrot which they enjoy.
Not sure when it will arrive but will update you when they have had a chance to try it.
Thank you so much for your help.

[ChrisUberpet]

Hello, I noticed that you mention adding some raw to your dog's prexisting food. Can I ask, have you tried feeding your dog a raw diet on its own? Providing it is made up using fresh ingredients and does not contain any grains or alternative fillers, these should be much better for your dogs digestion and in the long run will reduce the amount of poo. Hope this helps and you would like any further information then please see the web link in my profile summary.

[Lottie]

Hello and welcome to the forum. I have fed my dogs totally raw for the past 7/8years.  For various reasons I wanted to try Cold pressed food and just wondering if anyone gave other meat such as Forthglade or Nature Diet added to their dogs meals and if anyone did give a bit of raw, only because I spoke to someone who does do that without knowing you shouldn’t. I know that raw is about the best diet but not always possible for everyone ie freezer space, biggish outlay, thawing out in time. And not everyone  feels comfortable handling raw.