Hi,

Apologies if this is a topic that has been posted many times, but I did have a brief search and couldn't find anything.

We have a 16.5kg 9 year old female crossbreed (we think collie and lab) called Mishka who we feed Tesco Premium Complete Dry Dog Food. We've always fed her this and she's never had any health problems, but lately I am starting to wonder if there are better foods that we could be feeding her as she enters her more senior years and to giver her a bit of a change (she must get bored eating the same food). What are people's opinions of Tesco's dog food and am I correct in assuming that it isn't very good for her? What are the 'good' dry dog foods?

I've toyed with the idea of perhaps switching to a wet food or maybe even raw (although freezer space is very limited). Is raw or wet considered much better for dogs than dry food (I know for cats dry food is not regarded as being good).

Any help/advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks

Tom.

No tescos isn't a great food, the general rule is if it can be found in the supermarket it's not good(some exceptions such as waitrose stocking some decent food).

Depending on your budget theres loads of better foods. Pets at home have wainwrights (can only be found in pets at home), james wellbeloved. Theres also some foods like fish4dogs, orijen, arden grange. All those foods are grain free, but if your dog is ok with grains then theres plenty of food going. I use CSJ, it is cheap but it's good, my dogs been on it since November(2010) and he's doing brilliantly They have a huge range of foods including ones for senior dogs too

Old Champ! - CSJ Champ! - CSJK9 Ltd.
CP18 (Less Active) - CSJ Command Performance - CSJK9 Ltd. (grain free)
Lamb Senior/Lite - CSJ Original Dog Food - CSJK9 Ltd.
Natural Herbie Nuts - CSJ Original Dog Food - CSJK9 Ltd.

Also, dry, wet and raw are all good diets, each one has it's pro's and con's. I use a mix of all 3(kibble as the main food but he gets a few meals or raw and some wet food during the week too) and you can add things like raw egg, a tin of sardines/mackeral in oil, cooked chicken to the kibble or some dog gravy to make your dogs dinner more interesting during the week and then give a raw meal during the weekend(i used to do this but now i use raw more often) as a nice treat.

Hi Tom,

Mishka sounds delightful - I had a collie x lab so I'm a bit biased

Your best bet would probably be a trip to Pets at Home because they will refund/exchange anything you buy if Mishka doesnt like it, no matter how much you've used.

The best rule of thumb is to avoid supermarket brands, anything with artificial colours, preservatives. I prefer low or no cereal and go for as high a meat content as your wallet can manage.

As mentioned, Pets at Home Wainwrights is v good and some branches sell "fishmongers" which is v similar to fish4dogs. Their own brand "advance" sensitive which is fish again, is ok too but I wouldnt go for anything else that range (they contain maize which isnt great).

I feed mainly wet and use Wainwrights trays from P@H along with a few from Zooplus online. (they do some v good kibbles too). Naturediet, Naturesharvest, natures menu, arden grange partners are all good wets as well.

After much research/trial and error getting my puppy sorted I realised my poor cats were on supermarket cr@p. They are old timers and when I first swopped them to Zooplus wet food they didnt do too well (far too well adjusted to the rubbish). I persevered and just as I was about to give up, they adapted and now look better than they ever did. (It didnt make them poorly just v lack lustre.)

Pick our brains all you like and hopefully you will avoid any pitfalls we've stumbled upon
Hope you find something that Mishka likes.

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"Life is mostly froth and bubble, Two things stand like stone,
Kindness in another’s trouble, Courage in your own”

Thanks for the responses so far, we're lucky in the fact Mishka is the least fussy eater I've ever known....she will eat any food (even lettuce etc) so I don't forsee any problem with whatever we switch her too...she even ate a raw chicken breast yesterday without any issues having never eaten raw in her life.

I've had a look on the Zooplus website and I am tending towards the Arden Grange Dry Food for Seniors as her main food during the week with Animonda as a wet food one day at the weekend and maybe raw food on the other day (some weeks offal, other weeks RMB's).

That will certainly give her a bit of variety and AG is an excellent food to base it around.

As long as Mishka is ok with beef then Animonda should be fine. If I remember correctly, animonda is a mix of proteins i.e. beef with another meat added. Mine has issues with beef yet Rocco goes down a treat and that's the same - beef with everything
Rinti and lukullus from ZP went down well too. Terra Canis and Hermanns are also highly recommended but my purse hasnt stretched to them yet.

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"Life is mostly froth and bubble, Two things stand like stone,
Kindness in another’s trouble, Courage in your own”

Thanks, at the last minute I had another look and have worked out that NatureDiet is only slightly more expensive so am going to opt for that instead of Animonda.

Thanks for your help on this....what a great forum!

Tom.

My experience of dry food is with Fish4Dogs and am completely for it. Others have already mentioned it here and generally speaking, you'll usually only find good comments about the stuff. It is a little more expensive than other foods, although you can get it cheaper at places like here and here, than if you was to buy directly from them.

There are other high quality alternatives around, but I've only ever used f4d so can only offer an opinion on that.

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I've had a look on the Zooplus website and I am tending towards the Arden Grange Dry Food for Seniors as her main food during the week with Animonda as a wet food one day at the weekend and maybe raw food on the other day (some weeks offal, other weeks RMB's).[/QUOTE]

My collies do well on AG and I've recently started my 13 yr old on the AG senior.

Excellent!!
ND are very helpful if you have any probs or want advice as is AG.
Mine was on ND but I've recently struggled to get her back onto it. (upset tum) I emailed ND and they said that because their food is made differently to most, persevere unless tum is v bad) Bearing that in mind, it may be an idea to start Mishka on the sensitive and once she's settle on that one, gradually try out the others - just a thought but as I say, ND are the best to ask.

It's a pleasure to help great people like you who want the best for their doggies
I'm sure Mishka will love you even more

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"Life is mostly froth and bubble, Two things stand like stone,
Kindness in another’s trouble, Courage in your own”

Excellent food Arden Grange, they also do a wet food, which IMO is a little better than nature diet, because of the higher meat content, but i'm splitting hairs, Nature diet is an excellent food. My personal favourite wet is Wainwrights from pets at home, little more meat and a tiny bit less rice, and cheaper too. But Zoo plus has a load of excellent wet foods. And you wont go wrong with any you've mentioned.

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