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What Food do you feed your bc?


adadrian
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im a butcher so i feed my bc a lot of meat i bring home from the shop,

 

but when i cant bring home meat i try and feed my bc a mix of orijen and call of the wild with some tinned food. 

 

i've heard ppl swear on their lives by feeding their dogs raw. but im more a 50/50 person 50 percent kibble/50percent raw or tinned food

 

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I feed 4Health currently. They have gotten raw before, premade raw, homemade food, grain free kibble, totw, Fromm, Victors, and I have currently settled with 4Health. 
- I hate how messy raw is, it doesn’t travel well, and the price is wayyy out of budget for me. I was always concern they weren’t getting all their nutritional needs with just raw and a LOT of people I know who feed raw also do supplements(Oils, vitamins, digestive enzymes, etc...).
- I loved homemade but it’s time consuming and doesn’t travel well.

I would like to feed victors again. I like that it was “made/sourced in America”

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I take advice from The Dog Food Advisor online and use the info and analysis found there to guide what dog food I buy. Currently I am feeding Wellness, but I have fed others as well, and like to switch each time I get a new bag, or every other time, so they have a little variety and in case one food is missing something I may get it in another. I don't feed grain free, and I read the labels carefully.

They get a topper on every breakfast, and sometimes on dinner. This is either canned dog food (limited ingredient type, mostly meat) when we are travelling or I forgot to thaw out the homemade. The home made topper is meat (currently venison) cooked with some vegetables and then put through the food processer and frozen in small containers. I have also used hard boiled egg, cottage cheese, raw meat, and other things for a topper.

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First dog I've had in a while but now I have time for one!  I'm going with raw.  There are some local companies  here (Alberta) that sell pre packaged raw...eg 1lb tubes of ground meat containing 80% muscle meat, 10% bone and 10% organ. Lots of variety, either chicken, turkey, beef etc. There are some that include a  % of veggies too.  I may add whatever meat is on sale at the supermarket.  I am basically retired so I have time!

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I feed raw, for years I fed quality dry food and a couple of years ago I decided to give raw ago because we have a local supplier who makes their own "menus" that are really good quality. I gave it a month and now I think I would have canine mutiny if I switched back.

Before both my boys were picky eaters, often left food and I used to add interesting things to make their kibble more interesting. Now they gobble their food and demand dinner. 

My oldest has had no skin issues since we switched, before in winter he got dandruff

Picking up after them is much more pleasant

They always had nice coats but you could see the change.

They have nice clean teeth.

I have a system when we travel, I have an electric cooler in the car, and can keep up to 10 days food if we start out with the packs frozen. I had the supplier pre package the food into the correct serving sizes for longer trips. normally I split a 1kg bag between them using a scale. On the return I bought 500gr packs and so one got a little more and one a little less but a few days it was fine. For weekend competitions the cooler keeps the food cool enough to be safe.

 

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I feed NomNomNow. If you aren't familiar it is fresh food cooked and delivered straight to your door. It's human grade and smells great!  My dogs and cats (cat formula) do great on it and get so excited about mealtime! Do a search and check it out. 

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  • 3 weeks later...

I'm late to the party but I'll chime in to say I've been a dedicated raw feeder for over 20 years now.

I honestly don't think it's any more expensive than a higher end kibble, especially if you have the time to DIY, and a freezer. Having some local raw feeders to split wholesale purchases with helps a lot too.

It's only anecdotal of course but with 1 exception my dogs' average life spans have increased since I've been feeding raw (the exception to that was a vet misdiagnosis and resulting inappropriate treatment) and I've never had to have a dental cleaning (and have even reversed some serious calculus buildups that vets wanted to clean yesterday in adult dogs I've adopted), which offsets the cost. The last dog I adopted had horrible gut issues that the foster home had been trying unsuccessfully to clear up for months and I had her on raw and off metronidazole in about 3 weeks.

I'll keep doing what I'm doing (as even some non-raw friendly vets have advised me to do) as long as I'm physically able to. If the day comes I can't manage the DIY I'll find a good premix. ;)

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 10/28/2020 at 11:13 AM, D'Elle said:

I take advice from The Dog Food Advisor online and use the info and analysis found there to guide what dog food I buy. Currently I am feeding Wellness, but I have fed others as well, and like to switch each time I get a new bag, or every other time, so they have a little variety and in case one food is missing something I may get it in another.

 

Hi D'Elle

So I am curious.  I have always tried to keep my dogs on the same feed and hated when I had to switch -- I would do the gradual mixing of feeds so that we would have little or no intestinal upset from switching food.  But if I am reading this correctly, you switch food periodically?  And do you do it gradually?  And if so, or even if not, do you have any stool issues when you switch?  Maybe I've been worrying about changing foods too much.  I've often thought of shelters, who rely on food donations and how they must switch foods a lot -- and wondered the same about them.  Perhaps I've been looking at this the wrong way.

thanks

Bonnie

 

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11 hours ago, beachdogz said:

Hi D'Elle

So I am curious.  I have always tried to keep my dogs on the same feed and hated when I had to switch -- I would do the gradual mixing of feeds so that we would have little or no intestinal upset from switching food.  But if I am reading this correctly, you switch food periodically?  And do you do it gradually?  And if so, or even if not, do you have any stool issues when you switch?  Maybe I've been worrying about changing foods too much.  I've often thought of shelters, who rely on food donations and how they must switch foods a lot -- and wondered the same about them.  Perhaps I've been looking at this the wrong way.

thanks

Bonnie

 

I think the gradually changing advice is a good idea. I just have never used it. I have had many foster dogs, and never knew what they were being fed before they came to me, and never had a problem just giving them what I fed my dogs. Stray dogs, same thing. 

I don't change my dogs' food drastically; usually I feed one of two or three brands of foods, all of which I know they like. I read ingredient labels as well as consulting Dog Food Advisor, and tend to give them food with similar basic ingredients but from different brands. It takes my dogs about a month to go through a bag, so it never changes more often than that, or  I go 2 months on one food and then switch. 

I do this because one type of food may possibly be missing something that another may have, and my understanding is that it's good not to get stuck in the same food rut, so to speak. I think it's nice to give them variety as well. Never have had any problem with changing the food, and I daily keep a close eye on the dogs' poop ;).  Of course, if I ever thought a food was causing problems, even if it had not before, I would not feed that again.

I always give them a topper for their food once a day, made of meat and veges I have cooked in advance and frozen in small containers. They really like that, and the meat varies by what I can get. All this year it was venison but unfortunately the pandemic made me cancel my hunting trip this fall so next year it will be beef and chicken -- not as good.

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  • 4 weeks later...

at the moment im feeding taste of the wild topped off with high quality tinned food and of course butcher scraps 

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