Hills Science Plan?

cocobubbles

Hi all,

I've recently switched my dogs to Hills Science Plan and they loved it for the first few days and now they'll barely touch it. Is it really as good as it's made out to be? I want to feed them good quality food so then I went in to another pet shop and the girl working there praised Royal Canin for 20 minutes saying that the food was made to a human standard etc etc. I know I posted a similar thread before but I'm still confused. I can't afford to be buying all these expensive foods for my silly dogs to turn their noses up at them. Are there any pet shops that do samples of food??

tk123

Hills and RC are pretty much the same and are imo crap foods to feed - take a look at the ingredients. There's plenty of better alternatives for around the same price. I feed raw but use dry food for treats - using Barking Heads atm and no problems.

aonb

I agree that buying various bags of dry food that your fussy :P dogs may/may not like is a total pain. RC used to do samples (free at vet) I bought a sample size of James Wellbeloved in Pet Warehouse recently for my sensitive-tummy-oldie. Anyway the point I was going to make is, buy the smallest bag in the range you can get, to try it, then if they dont like it, you can keep it as a treat - its funny how dogs will eat what they think is a treat not their dinner Alternatively, you can give the unused leftovers to your local rescue/charity - not much consolation I know...

Pumpkinseeds

Opinions vary wildly on Hills, we had our cats on it for ages and took them off it eventually as one was piling on weight and the other threw up a lot after eating it. There have been a few recalls of it for various reasons over the years. I wouldn't even consider buying it nowadays and from what I've seen there are far better dry foods on the market. Places like zooplus do smaller trial size bags of pet foods as well which are very handy.

I buy from Pet World Uk as it's zooplus under a different name, but cheaper than zooplus.ie.

lorebringer

IMO - Hills is not as fantastic as many people harp on about. I would feed it to my guys, if there was nothing else available and with a push... RC is a little better (again IMO!) and I would feed it to my guys but I find it way overpriced to the food you are getting (both Hills and RC are very overpriced).

Better brands include Jame Wellbeloved, Burns, Select Gold, Real Nature, Acana, Best For My Dog, Orijen, Pro Pac, Clinivet, Taste Of The Wild, Red Milld Leader... there are loads out there! James Wellbeloved would be my choice (and my dogs quite like it too!) - it is a bit cheaper than RC but a much higher quality food. The vast majority of dogs will wolf it down too (particularly the fish version).

Most large pet store will have an ok selection of foods, your best bet is to do the research before you walk into the store (look up ingredients online etc.) so that you aren't swayed by the sales person in the store. A good way to save a few euro on food is to buy online - there are quite a number of sites out there (www.zooplus.ie, www.zooplus.co.uk and www.zooplus.de are essentially all the same site (it's the same company) but have different offers at different times so worth comparing). Buying a small bag to start and then buying a bigger bag, if they like it, would be a good idea too if your dogs can be a bit fussy.