just a quick question ...................will I be able to give a raw bone to Fenris? .........he will be 12 weeks on Monday coming

A little bit of a decision here.
I can either go with CSJ Lamb with rice (wheat & gluten free) £19

INGREDIENTS
Lamb Meal (min 26%), Maize, Oats, Rice (min 6%), De-hulled Soya Bean, Chicken Fat, Unmolassed Beet Pulp, Minerals, Alfalfa, Salmon Oil, Yeast, Minerals & Vitamins - stabilised with EEC permitted anti-oxidants, Mixed Tocopherols, Vitamin C and Rosemary Extract.

Or I could go with Skinners Lamb & Rice £25.95

INGREDIENTS
Whole rice (40%), lamb meat meal (25%), barley, chicken fat, linseed, vitamins and minerals, rosemary oil, culinary herb mix.

Which is the better food between them?

I'm currently paying £26.49 for Beta Adult, and would I be able to feed Milo on adult food yet? He's coming up for 6 months

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- Zeus a 4 year old Boxer cross.
- Milo a 2 year old Labrador.

Out of those 2 id go with the skinners, I do know a lot of people that use CSJ and say its very good, i just dont like the maize in it. Rice and Barley is much better digested

I feed 3 of my 4 on Wagg original compete i get 2 x 15 kg bags for less than £20 out of asdas, they were only wagg puppy when younger so have always been on it and i havent had any problems with it lol
Though 1 of our 4 is fussy and he prefers tin and mixer

Yes raw chicken bones are sharp. BUT a dogs gut has different digestive juices which are able to break down bone. My sister fed raw meaty bone from a year old to her dog - just grunched up chicken bone quite happily so did my grey'd when i tried. There was never a problem but as a previous poster said it is possible to get intestinal perforation if a dog hasn't got used to bone. Bit like a human deciding to not wear shoes, it would take sometime for your feed to harden - whereas in Africa they have always used bare feet. Start raw off on a young dog and they'll be fine. One never feeds cooked bone as they are brittle and splinter.

The claim that raw meaty bone will help avoid periodental and related disease isn't quite true which is the claim in Tom Lonsdale's book.

The real requirement is to get your dog to gnaw on a bone [raw marrow bone about the size of their head is a reasonable guide]. That will keep their teeth healthy from the front to rear - that is natural instinct.

One of my dogs won't touch bone; giving a plate bone and getting him to tear off the meat didn't help his teeth [and can't have chicken as he seems to have an allergy to it]. The other loves bones and so isn't a problem - but she's on dry complete now as well.

I liked feeding mine meat and mixer but i've changed to dry complete due to the one not liking bone. All dogs vary on dental health like humans. A friends whippet has always been fed on dry complete and doesn't go near bone and her teeth are perfectly clean.

The larger the kibble the more action the jaw does which i think helps - smaller kibble can almost be gulped down. I chose skinners Ruff & Ready as they kindly delivered free a 3 kg to try - helps only living 5 miles from them but very generous all the same. It is virtually the same as their Muesli mix and has kibble of varying size which helps crunching.

Thanks for the advice. At what age can marrow bones be started? I seem to remember diarrhoea when my last dog had one though. Do they make the bowels loose?

With all our guide dog pups we started them on bones as soon as they wanted to gnaw. I have heard some say that one shouldn't give bone to dogs as their teeth can break - i can't believe that more likely as they are losing puppy teeth they shed them. I have never heard of any problems feeding dogs a good sized knuckle bone - if they had an allergy to marrow one could just scrap the majority out. As a dog gnaws on a bone a little is bitten off and swallowed and comes out white in #2... usually makes them a little too hard which helps the anal glands. Ideally one doesn't give them a bone for much longer than an hour and it is necessary to check that they are not getting over enthusiastic.

With a knuckle bone they should start on the cartiledge which is softer and once chewed off the knuckle is a rough surface which is what is used to clean the plaque off teeth.

Try a bone again scrapping out the marrow in the end.

Thanks for the advice. Will pop to butcher to see if he can sort me something soon.

Also a big thanks to whoever recommended PERO. He loves it. I tried mixing it in with his other food which he would only eat a bit of and then I had to soak it. When I gave him Pero in the mix he ate all the pero, left the pets at home puppy food and looked round for more pero. His bowels were a little loose this morning, no doubt due to the changeover, but nothing major, not runny really. Hope he will firm up soon because its nice to see him eat it all up and enjoy it. The kibbles are just the right size for him too. I was surprised that the first ingredient was extruded cereal though, and not meat, I didnt remember this from the website.

hi

dry food is not really good, because in the past with cats it caused kidney, the best is wet food, i.e pet mince plus wholemeal mixer adult dogs 1lb a day, some butchers do pet mince which has a mixture of offal and other bits, you then pop it in the microwave 14mins as raw can cause worms

Is there any evidence it causes kidney problems in dogs? Its so widely used that surely it shouldnt?