What food to feed?

[Gillila]

Hi, I am looking for some advice on feeding. My dog is a boxer/bull mastiff cross, i have always fed her dry food wainwrights or James well beloved, however she started to turn her nose up, she is in great general health.  I was advised to try chappie wet food, she loves this but I am very dubious as have read lots of bad reviews! So, is chappie ok? Should I give her a combo of dry and wet food? Any help/recommendations would be greatly received!

[Dottie]

Hello and welcome to the forum.  It is not unusual for dogs to become bored of dry food so you are certainly not alone with this.  I think that the answer might be to continue with your usual food if your dog does well on it but to give him a topper.  Obviously you would need to reduce the dry food to compensate for this.  Chappie does not score well on the Dog Food Directory.  You could do one of two things - look for a good quality wet dog food or provide your own suitable, home cooked topper.  Tinned fish such as sardines is usually welcomed.   There is a section on the forum about home cooked food that might be of interest.  I top up with home cooked chicken, white fish, sardines and  scrambled egg with plain yoghurt so it is not very time consuming but gives the dogs good protein.  Remember that dogs like food that smells good to them so a little bit of warm water poured over the kibble immediately prior to serving will bring out the aroma and might tempt him.

By using the Dog Food Directory you can easily source a wet food that would fit in nicely with the dry food that you are already giving.  Using these filters: Wet food, Rating 3.5 to 5.0, natural/clearly labeled, no red ingredients, returns four pages of wet food products so there is plenty of choice. Possibly the easiest option would be to use Wainwright's wet food as you already give the that variety of kibble. 

Please ask if you need help with using the Directory or need to discuss particular products. As ever, we would be interested to hear what you decide to do and how things are going with your dog.

[Tinyplanets]

Hello and welcome to the forum,

As Dottie says, adding some extras can help make dinner interesting and the filter should help you find a decent food. I don't have many tips, as my dog will eat anything.
Personally, I wouldn't feed anything long term which has a low rating as I couldn't be sure of the quality of ingredients. good luck finding something.

[COASTER]

Tinned Chappie is an odd one......On paper it doesn't read well, however, speak to some vets, fellow owners or do a search online for forum discussions and amongst crticism you will find  good reports & stories of dogs making huge improvements to condition or living to respecful ages.

Never fed it......I believe it doesn't smelll wonderful & the ingerdients/ composition are allegedly less than appealing to many.

Yesetday we were out with dogs and unexpectedly away from home. Off all the tins in the local supermarket this was the only one I would feed......although in the end I bought 500g of beef mince (ours normally fed raw complete so will pretty much eat any uncooked meat).

[Gillila]

Hello, thank u so much for all the helpful hints and tips.  I made a mistake we where actually feeding Arden grange dry food which when I search in the dog food directory had quite a good score so had a look today and came across Arden grange wet food so going to go back to the dry food with a topper to see how she goes with that, thanks again

[RHEBDEN]

Chappie is usually a go to with vets as it is believed that there is so little in it that it won't upset the digestive tract. Wet food is more palatable than dry so solves fussy eating problems but as the transit for wet is faster. Additionally the ingredients tend to be unrecognisable except for the 83% water.

Good toppings for gut flora are natural yoghurt but a drop of fish oil or oil from a can of sardines, etc will improve the palatability and contain good fats.  Watch fat content as they contain more than double the energy level so double the calories.

Careful with the boxer side as they are prone to congenital heart problems, pancreatitis and colitis so a healthy digestive system should be high on the agenda. Good levels of fibre and very digestible ingredients.  Look at the feed rates and vitamin A levels to give you a steer on digestibility aim for 25k - 30k IU /kg of vitamin A.

Take the ratings as a guide as some good foods rate poorly due to analysis they give or understanding of the function of ingredients due to it being an algorithm. For example not everyone admits that there is salt/sodium in the food yet it is an essential ingredient that rates poorly, lignocellulose aids digestion but rates badly, digest/hydrolysed fat/gravy is a process to improve the palatability and isn't bad.

[COASTER]

Rhebden,

A lot of info there......thanks.
 
Curious as to your background I checked your profile which indicates you are a retailer. Perhaps create an intro/newbie thread if so motivated....I wpukd be interwted to know your industry background/position.

[RHEBDEN]

I have popped one on for you here.