Dog Food Confusion?!?

Cherry Blossom

Hi lads, I've a new puppy arriving on Monday and I'm up to my eyes in dog food ingredients lists at the moment, just looking for some opinions/advice

Firstly does anyone have any clue what the ingredients are in Red Mills Leader Puppy? All I can find on-line is the nutritional value but not a list of the actual ingredients.

Secondly is there any point in mixing two different brands? Is there any reason it would not be recommended? I was thinking of feeding half Orijen (or another cereal free brand) and half either James Wellbeloved, Royal Cainin, Arden Grange or Red Mills (dep. on whats in it)

Thought I'd start with the Orijen and after a few weeks start to add in the other so I can see if I notice any difference in the puppy. The first thing will be to get her off the supermarket rubbish the breeder is feeding :rolleyes:

paultf

Used to feed Red Mills. Here are the RM puppy ingredients:

Cereals, meat and animal derivatives, derivatives of vegetable origin, oils and fats, fish and fish derivatives, vegetable protein extracts, milk and milk derivatives, egg and egg derivatives, minerals, fruto-oligo-saccharides. Preserved with propionic acid, contains natural antioxidants.

RM is an OK feed but there are better.

Not sure about mxing foods. People normally only do that if they are switching from one brand to another, say over a week, not long term. Maybe someone else can shed light on that query.

Cherry Blossom

Ta much for that info! It's the 'animal derivatives' I'm not keen on, I'm in the unfortunate position that I know too much about what's in them having worked in the equine industry so the red mills is out then

mymo

Find out what the pup is on at the mo and get a small bag, then mix in your preferred food after few days, gradually adding more until its all the new food.
I feed Royal Canin as older dog was on it when I got him, and they do great on it, tried James Wellbeloved, they weren't keen, and arden grange they didn't do great on(hair loss and runny eyes)but thats just my two. Every dog is different.
Burns is said to be very good, thinking of trying it.
It does them no harm mixing in another food sometimes, just keep the regular food the highest proportion, start with a little and work up to 50/50 over a week or so.

tk123

Whatever you do get SMALL bags of whatever you're trying - one brand may look good on paper but it mightn't agree with your puppy. Most vets will give you little puppy sample packs of whatever they stock too btw
We tried :
Hills - lots of runny poops
James Wellbeloved - lots of runny poops and stinky farts
Royal Canin - he was on this about 5/6 months but was always getting upset tummies every other week and poops were hit and miss - sometimes really soft, sometimes ok also stinky farts.
Burns - the best so far for him - much calmer, shiny coat and nice firm poops also no bouts of the runs since he's been on it- long may it last!

Cherry Blossom

She's on Brandy original adult food at the minute which they are putting boiling water into and letting it cool and then adding milk to. My mum has a small bag that she got recently as the regular food our elderly golden labrador was on was out of stock and she'd run out while waiting for it to come back in stock so I thought i'd rob that and forget about the milk!! and possibly add lukewarm water although I am aware that there's probably not much nutritional value there in the first place to destroy with boiling water!:p

I don't really want to be chopping and changing too much when she is so young so will stick with the first thing that seems to work ok and maybe try out a few 3 months apart or something when changing to adult food.

The new puppy is a Westie and Royal Canin do an adult breed specific food so I was taking that into consideration as possibly being a bit easier on the gut when changing from the Royal Canin puppy food to that when the time comes being the same brand and that. The Arden Grange supposedly boosts the immune system and is highly digestable reducing waste which may be convienient in the pre-house trained period;) And James Wellbeloved is supposedly hypo-allergenic, puppy shows no signs of any skin conditions at the minute but 1 or 2 of her littermates are lacking a bit on fur near the bottom of their front legs which I thought might indicate they were chewing at their paws, keeping in mind of course that they are on a very cheap diet.

Burns - Wanted something higher in meat meal, it's the 3rd ingredient listed in this food, will try it though if she doesnt do so good on the others

I am quite remote so it may come down to just trying which ever they have in stock in a small bag, they have a fairly good range of high quality foods in my local pet shop but may not have them all in puppy foods.

Also the Donkey Sanctuary over the road is having an official opening next Sunday, with a dog show (no idea why they want a load of strange dogs running round a donkey sanctuary but anyway . . . ) Would that be too soon/too big an event for a first outing? It's close enough that the donkey's wake me up at 5am if I forget to close my bedroom window at night, so I can always just arrive and go straight home if there's any problem!:pac: Also my 3 yr old niece loves having her picture in the paper and what newspaper photographer could resist the combination of small child + small puppy:p

Here's the picture I took on my fone when we went to pick her out and paid the deposit. They all wanted to be in the picture lol!



Needs a good grooming!

Bookkeeper09

Started feeding my 7 month old Golden Retriever Red Mills Leader Puppy(Large Breed) about 3 weeks ago after changing from James Well Beloved.
Ingredients are: Dehydrated Chicken(25%), Maize, Rice, Pearked Barley, Oats, Poultry Fat, Linseed, Salmon Oil, Fishmeal, Savoury Chicken Gravy and Beef Pulp.
So far she is doing great on it.
Poo was very runny on JWB and there has been a definite iimprovement since putting her on to Red Mills.
Also she seems to be enjoying her food.
Good luck with the puppy!

Cherry Blossom

Thanks for that info, I did wonder if the first post was refering to one of the cheaper ones otherwise it would be massively over priced. I may have a look at the regular bag when I'm in the store, don't think they do a small breed though is the only thing!

paultf

adrenalinjunkie wrote: »

Thanks for that info, I did wonder if the first post was refering to one of the cheaper ones otherwise it would be massively over priced. I may have a look at the regular bag when I'm in the store, don't think they do a small breed though is the only thing!

The ingredients I gave in the earlier post were for Red Mills Leader puppy (not large breed).

Red Mills introduced new products to their Leader range like large breed, junior, sensitive, small breed, etc.

The last time I used Red Mills Leader puppy was about 2 years ago. I still have a cut-out from the bag of the ingredients. So unless Red Mills have changed their ingredients in the mean-time.

But Red Mills Leader was always a bit pricey for what it is - around €36/38 for a 15kg bag.

Also when you look at their website they don't list their ingredients or the percentages of each ingredient. Some of the other dog food websites do.

paultf

adrenalinjunkie wrote: »

Also the Donkey Sanctuary over the road is having an official opening next Sunday, with a dog show (no idea why they want a load of strange dogs running round a donkey sanctuary but anyway . . . ) Would that be too soon/too big an event for a first outing?

How old is your pup? As you probably know you can't take your pup outside your house/garden until he/she has all their vaccs. If you collect the pup at 8 weeks, you might have to wait till the pup is 12/13 weeks old before taking out.

mymo

I found there was more waste from the Arden grange than the Royal Canin, and Royal Canin do small dog puppy food its called mini Junior, very small nuts, had my Lhasa(similar to westie size) on it up until few months ago now she's on the mini adult.
The bigger dog is on Medium adult, and they both do great on it, lovely coats and very healthy, just keep an eye on the feeding guide I think its a bit generous, I had to reduce the amount of food to keep them trim and they're quite active.

Cherry Blossom

paultf wrote: »

How old is your pup? As you probably know you can't take your pup outside your house/garden until he/she has all their vaccs. If you collect the pup at 8 weeks, you might have to wait till the pup is 12/13 weeks old before taking out.

She's 9 weeks, need to ask about vaccs when I collect her. Will be taking her to get micro-chipped anyway so will double check with my vet on this one. I may just go in n have a look at the red mills bags, seems like a crazy difference in the ingredients just between large breed puppy and regular sized puppy! Maybe they have up-graded their ingredients since you had it Any idea what the reason for keeping them in is? Crazy amount of cross-breed/no-breed dogs around here that most likely never saw a vet in their life :rolleyes:

Think I might start off with the Royal Canin and see how it goes, thanks all for the advice/experiences

wopper10

Hi I feed my dogs Orijen and I cannot reccommend it enough it is a fantastic food!One of my dogs is a show dog and shes always getting told by the judges how good quality and nice a coat she had! Its really good grain free food, not fillers and no crappy ingredients.

In regards to mixing foods its only really done to make an expensive bag of food last longer while style getting the benefits its only really done with large breeds as they would consume a lot more food than smaller breeds. I don't think it would have any negative effects. But if your dog had an allergy to a food or got the runs from one its harder to identify which food causes it. Hope thats helps.....

andreac

You wont be able to bring your pup out yet as its too young. It needs to be well voer its vaccs which wont be until around 12 weeks or so, so no walks in public til then as you are at risk of the pup catching fatal diseases such as Parvo, lepto etc.

Is your dog registered with the IKC? If so it will already be microchipped as they have to be to be IKC reg.
Another thing to add, dogs should not be fed milk so its not a good idea to add it to the food, just use water.

Brandy wouldnt be a good food really so try and get something a bit better quality like the ones alreay mentioned.

Bookkeeper09

Dont think your puppy will have had all its injections. It might have had the first set but wouldnt imagine it will have had the second set. You've to wait approx 2 weeks after the 2nd set before you can bring the puppy out or it will not be properly vaccinated against numerous diseases.

Cherry Blossom

No she's not registered. Both parents were bought as family pets, dam is reg., sire had papers but they didn't bother sending them on as both dogs are just farm dogs and allegedly the plan was to neuter the boy as they had no intention of breeding. Apparantly they had been wrongly advised on how old he would be before he could breed and they had an accident . Sire has now been neutered

paultf

adrenalinjunkie wrote: »

Any idea what the reason for keeping them in is? Crazy amount of cross-breed/no-breed dogs around here that most likely never saw a vet in their life :rolleyes:

I got a new pup recently. She is IKC registered so the breeder had to take her to a vets for her first vacc and to get micro-chipped. If a pup is IKC registered the breeder has to do this.

After I got the pup home I toke her to my local vet where she got 2 more additional vaccs over a period of time. My vet said she couldn't be let outside my house/garden until a week or so after her last vacc - this would be around 12/13 weeks.

"All dogs should be routinely vaccinated against Distemper, Hepatitis, Leptospirosis, Parainfluenza and Parvovirus. In addition, dogs can be vaccinated against Kennel Cough. This vaccine is especially important for those dogs attending regular shows or going into boarding kennels."

Check out this link www.ispca.ie/Vaccination.aspx

If you bring your pup outside before he/she gets all their vaccs they can pick up infections/disease.

paultf

adrenalinjunkie wrote: »

I may just go in n have a look at the red mills bags, seems like a crazy difference in the ingredients just between large breed puppy and regular sized puppy! Maybe they have up-graded their ingredients since you had it

Just had a quick look at the Red Mills website - looks like they upgraded the website. You can download a brochure for all their products. They seemed to have changed the ingedients for RM puppy since I used it 2 years ago:-

Ingredients: Dehydrated Chicken Meat (30% min.), Maize, Rice, Poultry
Fat, Fishmeal, Prairie Meal, Salmon Oil, Linseed, Dried Whole Eggs, Skim
Milk Powder, Minerals and Vitamins, Savoury Chicken Gravy, Chicory

Extract, Yeast Extract.

Cherry Blossom

Ah. ok. I got the Royal Canin so I'll see how I get on with that first anyway. Have started today just giving her a bit as treats/rewards. Will mix a small bit in with the other stuff in the morning which she doesn't actually seem to like very much, she's fat enough anyway and won't be on it much longer anyway so not too worried about that. Didn't cry at all last night but had left a bit of a mess for me in the morning . Is being carried around a LOT by the kids and starting to loose my temper a bit but hopefully the novelty will wear off soon !

EdgarAllenPoo

wopper10 wrote: »

Hi I feed my dogs Orijen and I cannot reccommend it enough it is a fantastic food!One of my dogs is a show dog and shes always getting told by the judges how good quality and nice a coat she had! Its really good grain free food, not fillers and no crappy ingredients.

How are you managing with that, my two 5 month old gsd's are on orijen large breed puppy and are leaving nothing but GIANT mud puddles behind them. Also farting like skunks.

I want to keep them on that food as it's seems to be the best quality other than a raw diet but if this poodicament keeps up I'll have to switch them to something else and searching round for another food as good has been a pain.

Cherry Blossom

EdgarAllenPoo wrote: »

How are you managing with that, my two 5 month old gsd's are on orijen large breed puppy and are leaving nothing but GIANT mud puddles behind them. Also farting like skunks.

I want to keep them on that food as it's seems to be the best quality other than a raw diet but if this poodicament keeps up I'll have to switch them to something else and searching round for another food as good has been a pain.

Poos are good about half the size they were and good firm consistancy, however I must refer you to my new thread - Hyperactive 10 week old puppy :rolleyes: I imagine the protein levels in Orijen are more than RC though so if they are doing ok energy level wise you probably won't have the hyperactive problem on RC