Hi, I registered yesterday and sent a message to this board, but have not heard that it passed the moderator's test yet I found I could post to one of the other boards in the forum so maybe my message has been lost in the ether.

Anyway apologies if it crops up but I thought I would just send another one!

We have a collie, short haired, rescue dog, he is 2 and a half, weighs 20kg. He has been on Burns dry food, chicken & brown rice but he just doesn't seem to enjoy it.. eats every piece one by one and very reluctantly. Anyway he must have picked something up when out and developed a tummy upset last week; he absolutely loved the tinned sensitive food diet that the vet gave us... couldn't wait to eat it!

(Nothing wrong with his teeth, the vet checked them and said they were fine, if a little stained due to his poor start in life.)

We wish to change him on to Nature Diet so he will be getting a much healthier natural food - although we did think Burns was one of the better dry foods, if he enjoys the wet food better then so be it.

We have lots of Burns food left, we wondered whether we should mix half his ration of Burns in with half a 390g tray of ND both to introduce the new food gradually and also give him something to exercise his teeth on. It would use the Burns food up nicely too.

After the Burns has finished, are there any 'natural' mixer biscuits these days that we could add in to the ND, which aren't complete meals? We don't want to feed him good natural wet food and then serve up rubbishy mixer with it....

We have had dogs all our lives and always fed them on wet food with a mixer and they have lived long healthy lives; albeit in the past I bet the tinned foods did have unnatural ingredients in!

From what I have read about ND it seems very good and I am impressed by it.

Anyway if anyone has any advice re my queries I would be grateful.

I use natures menu in tins not nature diet as one of my dogs is very fussy and much prefers the tins of natures menu to any of the other good quality wet foods. I also buy arden grange mini lamb and rice kibble which I put in kongs for them to nibble at if they want but I don't mix it with the wet food as I know they would pick it out and leave it. The nature diet is a complete food like the natures menu so you don't have to mix it with anything if you don't want to.

I've gone round the block with food. Started on kibble but like you found it didnt go down to well. Then a phase of tum upsets and kibble being harder to digest didnt help so moved to wet. Initially Naturediet sensitive and all was well.

ND had issues with their packaging so I changed to Wainwrights from Pets at Home for a while, and recently been getting a selection of wet food from Zooplus.

Going back to Naturediet, found a local supplier so if their should be any probs with packaging, it will be easy to sort. It gets my vote along with Heidi's

Kibble doesnt really clean teeth, a couple of raw meaty bones a week does the trick for us.

Good luck with the change. I would do it v slowly to avoid any upsets

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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 am in the process myself of changing Henry onto ND ..... I've been using it for a couple of years, combined with dry food, currently Acana, but I'm going to try Henry on all-wet now. Just got to use the rest of the Acana up and then I'm phasing it out.

Naturediet is an excellent food - totally natural and easy to digest. I would maybe try feeding it on its own but if you want to add dry, I would use something like the Burns rather than a "mixer" which are often wheat-based. It is designed to be fed alone, though, so worth a try...... Having said that, I don't know why I've fed it with complete food all this time without trying it on its own, but hey ho - just about to do that now.

Let us know how you get on.

welcome to the forum.

Firstly naturediet is a complete food and does not need any mixer or complete adding to it. It is complete in its own right. I have 3 BCs and my young girl used to be like yours although used to starve herself for days on end, we swopped across to naturediet and then across to wainwrights wet (alot cheaper, easier to source and she preferred it) - she ate much better then.

We changed onto raw nearly a year ago now and havent looked back but that is another story.

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Thank you all for your replies - I appreciate that.

Yes I know that ND is a complete food, what was bothering us was the fact that without a mixer he wouldn't be getting anything that might do his teeth good.

May try the bones as Mum2Heidi said. Or maybe the lamb and rice kibble.

I will certainly let you know how we go on!

Just wanted to add that I feed my border collie nature diet too. He loves it and it works well with his sensitive stomach.

If you want something else good for teeth, the Fish4Dogs treats are really good - very crunchy and help to remove plaque, etc, from teeth, especially the Skinny Strips and the Fish bones (dried fish skins and all natural).

I feed a mixture of wet and dry foods. I mash up the wet with some warm water, and mix the kibble in so it's coated. Both dogs love it, and it makes sure they are getting enough water with the dry food. I use canned Bozita and Fish4Dogs, that's because one of my dogs is cereal intolerant.

I also think the variety is less likely to encounter any deficiencies in the foods. After all 'complete' means the dog can live on it for 3? months, which doesn't mean it has everything in, in the amounts required for optimum nutrition.

I feed some raw as well.

Thanks Burrowzig, la468 and Henry - wonderful help... thank you.