A while a go I made a clicker training guide of all the things my dogs knew (collectively) and how I trained them. Since then it has developed and now has common puppy and dog behaviour problems in and how I solved the ones my dogs had and also how to solve the others (that my dogs didn't have but dogs I knew did have) so it's becoming quite a guide. Now I started writing up everything I knew about raw feeding from things I'd read, questions I'd had answered and also a bit of cheeky copy and pasting..

So now I would like your help.

I would like to know some of the Benefits and Problems of feeding Dry foods and Wet foods, the only benefit of both that I know of is that it is easier to feed.

Oh and also stockists of the above - I will be kindly borrowing the list for raw from Pogo's list (If of course she doesn't mind)

Please and thank you

Please note - this is just a guide for MY future reference or family/friend reference should they need the help. All work that is not mine (that I haven't written myself) has been noted as "original by so and so" nothing that isn't mine hasn't been claimed as mine. All sources of information have been acknowledged (for if I lend it to my family/friends and they have questions - they can find the answer and if I forget )

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Kibble is easier to feed like you said as its got everything alrady in the right proportion (some may disagree) and it doesnt take up a lot of space. e.g. freezer space for raw. It is also easier to get hold of wherever you happen to be. So if you go on doggy holiday, chances are they sell the same kibble or similar if you run out. Ive also knon of 1 ot 2dogs that just didnt take to raw and some that it didnt agree with them.

Well for me - kibble wasnt terribly successful. Looking back I think it was a bad upset that left Heidi's tum v sensitive. Even soaked kibble failed once I got to 50/50 kibble/fish and rice toward her usual diet of 100% kibble. Because kibble is harder to digest perhaps. At that time, I believed kibble to be the best. Hadnt heard of raw and wrongly assumed that wet was mostly water and rubbish. Tried various brands of kibble but the only way forward was wet food.

After a bit of research, I found wet is more natural, water or not!! Dried is totally alien and I fear over processed. We started off with ND sensitive and then the other varieties. Tried other brands - WW wet trays were much cheaper and seemed to really agree. ND had packaging probs so we continued with WW. Next she became constipated (prob due to the high fibre content) so I tried some Zooplus brands with great success. Albeit a tad concerned re the high offal content (compared to the recommended amount when feeding raw). ZP contacted the manufacturers and were able to comfirm the foods are balanced and the calc/phos ratio ok. Still unsure of the offal content, I looked for something to alternate with ZP brands.

I'm not keen on P@H customer service nor happy with their answers so tried ND again and failed twice. This time I tackled it differently and had success. Reading the info on ND website, plus queries to their customer service leaves me happy that this is the way forward. I wanted to believe that all trayed food was processed the same but the difficulty in getting Heidi back onto ND makes me feel theirs is a different process. Steam sterilised raw!!

In my mind a properly balanced lightly processed wet comes first. As few cereals as possible. I will gladly forfeit the 100% meat ZP brands for a bit of carb and veg in ND with a better knowledge of the food and the improvement I see in Heidi.
Finally kibble for me is out -reasons above. If pushed I would use as high a meat content and least cereals I could possibly afford.

Hope this helps a bit - not quite sure if it's what you're after

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

I was afraid there'd be more disadvantages to advantages - although I knew it myself..

I know what you mean about space - although I only have a small chest and it takes up the same amount as the dry dog food barrel (always good to keep a store!)

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Can't help on the dry/wet food but you can steal my list

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Harvey - staffy
Chance - american bulldog (rescue)

19 snakes, 5 geckos, phibs, T's, inverts, fluffies and hedgehog.

Thank you - I'm going to do it the hard way and do it with all the addresses, phone numbers and websites.. - I like to make things difficult..

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