Do we really know what dog food is best for our dogs.

Assassins Creed

With all the rucus about ingredients in certain foods i.e animal derivatives, cereal as the first ingredient, cheap brands and the constant recommendations what dog food should and should not contain. Im wondering what these people fed there dogs years ago when pedigree chum and some other brands were held as the best dog food.
Did your dog suffer or have numerous ailments and have a short life. What were the forerunners of our pedigrees fed on, how on earth did they survive.
Funny i remember the dogs on my road lasting to old age. Including my dogs which were fed on scraps and tinned food .

Makes one wonder! market leaders have a lot of influence, lots of advertising, sponsoring dog shows, deals for pet shops. Bit like the way it was with the market leaders then, pedigree chum which are superceeded by the current market leaders, are they any better.

So i ask again, what did you feed your dogs on years ago.

bfocusd

Assassins Creed wrote: »

So i ask again, what did you feed your dogs on years ago.

When I was a kid we had a German Shepard, she was fed scraps and tinned food, there was 8 in the house and only one working, we weren't deprived or anything but in the late 80s the mention of spending the equivalent of €50 on dog food would of been seen as madness, that dog was a dote, she had 7 puppies (a dog scaled the wall) and lived to be 16 years old, she was 2 when I was born and I was devastated when she passed. But she had a great healthy life even without all the 'necessary nutritional' food.

My grandpa had loads of dogs in his time, mostly Mongerals, all fed the same as the GS and each one lived 15+ years. He insists Mongerals are hardy because their is no excessive breeding lines.

At the moment I've two dogs, one is ten and up until recently, she was fed tinned food, mixed with kibble, and scrap meat.

My pup, 6 months old, is a different story, she's got a sensitive tummy and is on a diet if barking heads puppy days, we've never had a dog with such a sensitive tummy, so it took a while to figure out which food suits her, shes fine now though.

Now my older dog eats barking heads golden years, she was slightly overweight, she still gets the scrap meat though, I don't think it's fair to take that away from her after 10 years of it.

I dog sat a 4 year old BF and her owners fed her scraps, but the problem is, they were feeding her big als burgers and all sorts of processed food, she even ate pizza! I refused to feed her that and had a bowl of barking heads and tin mix food twice a day ready for her, on the third day she ate the entire bowl, after that she knew it was all she was getting so she ate it. The poor dog was so bloated, she would lay around with a soar tummy and couldn't go to the toilet.

I had her for a month and when she was going home she had lost 3kg and was almost the normal weight for her size.

She did get scraps in her food too, but I only feed them proper meat, nothing processed, I think that's one of the things thats different the amount of processed food people consume and then it's passed onto the dog, processed food is good for nothing other than the bin.

Binka

Assassins Creed wrote: »

So i ask again, what did you feed your dogs on years ago.

When I was growing up, our family dog was a dalmation and we fed her on tinned dog food (usually PAL) and Winalot mixer. That was in the 60's and 70's and it was about the best on the market. But it was still just supermarket stuff and there were no fancy expensive foods and certainly dry food didn't come onto the market till the 80's.
She was overweight all her life but lived to 16.

Coincidentally, in 2003 when my OH and I got together a male dalmation came as part of the package. He was 7 yo then and we fed him on Pedigree dry food. After a few years with him he started to suffer from constant urinary tract infections. It was awful watching him straining to pee. Very expensive on antibiotics at €50 a go. Our vet kept telling us that he must be drinking stagnant water, which was a bit of a mystery to us. One day he got caught short in the living room, he was about 13 by then, and these little cream coloured balls the size of a very small peppercorn came flying out of his penis. I scooped them up and took them to the vet who immediately recognised them as kidney stones. I watched him pee for days after and he passed another 60 or so. He was put on a Urinary s/o diet (€90 per bag).

Anyway the point of my story is that we, and our vet it seems, were completely unaware that 90% of dalmations are 'prolific stoners' and it's very important what you feed them and how much water they take in. (Dry food isn't a dood idea). All of this could have been avoided had I done a bit of research and put him on the correct diet. The poor lad must have been in agony most of the time and I still feel bad to this day. You only have to put dalmation and kidney stones into google and hundreds of very informative sites come up.
So if you have a breed, it is very important that you check for breed dietary problems and not take any old advice. In the case of dalmations you have to avoid a certain type of protein (purines) and stick to a low protein diet of veg, rice, fruit etc. Eggs are ok. Avoid beef. No organ meat as it is very high in purines. Table scraps are a real no no.
So, we learned our lesson at great cost to our dog. Sadly he passed away 2 years ago. He got to the fine old age of 14, but a lot of the damage had been done and he spent the last 3-4 years of his life dealing with stones and infections.

Cherry Blossom

Post WWII the West Highland White Terrier was practically wiped out in the UK due to rationing and meat simply not being available to feed to dogs. I doubt very much that this problem was confined to this one breed. Many, many Westies were sent to the states in order to save specific blood lines so that dogs that were fit to breed from could be sent back when rationing was over.

I don't know about anyone else but my nan's dogs were generally fed a diet of boiled tripe, leftover and unwanted cuts of meat, game, fish-heads, eggs and leftover veg from the dinner (if there was any).

Now couple that with massive irresponsible over-breeding, in-breeding and 'designer' cross-breeding of pedigree dogs that has taken place in the last 30 years which caused a major upsurge in genetic health problems in pretty much every single breed, which includes hundreds of conditions that are massively affected by the diet the dog is fed and it's not really that hard to grasp why an appropriate diet is so important.

Another factor that needs to be taken into account is the sheer number of breeds that have been introduced to the country in the same time frame. Breeds which have thrived on food types they have been traditionally fed in their country of origin.

Both my dogs thrive on a fish based diet, my Westie would likely not survive on a diet of tinned pedigree and at best would have major digestive problems and temperament problems. It costs less than €10 a month to feed them both on super high-quality fish based dog food. The veterinary costs for treating the symptoms of the problems that would occur otherwise would be astronomical and the problem would continue for as long as the dog was being fed rubbish.

Binka

adrenalinjunkie wrote: »

It costs less than €10 a month to feed them both on super high-quality fish based dog food. The veterinary costs for treating the symptoms of the problems that would occur otherwise would be astronomical and the problem would continue for as long as the dog was being fed rubbish.

You hit the nail on the head. The right food for the right dog can save you a fortune in vet bills and avoid misery for your dog. It's really worth spending some time doing the research and a bit of trial and error.