When I went and picked up my eldest dog we didnt get told anything about what he was brought up so just went to the nearest supermarket and gave him Bakers. Luckily the trainer at the puppy classes we went to is well into her nutrition and advised us to try Burns. We then got JC and he came to us vitalin cereal crap so we immediately put him on Burns. I got more into nutrition and we did swop and try a couple of other brands until we ended up on arden grange. Got my girlie 4 years ago and she had been brought up on arden grange but wouldnt entertain it here, would starve herself for days happily. We tried her on naturediet and that was an immediate hit so we swopped them all on wet food. I then researched alot into nutrition and got rather obsessed and made the natural progression to raw about a year ago.

Its amazing what you learn in the period of 9 years!

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I knew I wanted to feed RAW before I even got my Wispa, but I was too scared that I didn't know enough about it and I didn't want to make her unwell by feeding her the incorrect ammounts of muscle/bone/organs. Not to mention I didn't have enough money, and being only 14 it was very hard to find a job.

As she was growing up we always noticed she was quite an itchy dog, but as she got older it seemed to get worse. Turns out it was wheat-intolerence, which we found out just after she turned 3, the same time I found work as a laundry maid on the weekends (not much, but enough) and I decided to make the switch.

She is SO much better for it. No scratching, calmer, smaller poos, better body condition, and she's so relaxed when eating it amazed my mother, lol! I had to convince my mum to let me switch because she thought she would become agressive, but wow. She's really glad I switched her now.

I actually really enjoy preparing her meals, especially rabbit - it's like doing a dissection, which I find really interesting. It's good fun not only knowing but seeing where all the organs connect up inside the animal... It might sound a little macabr but I love it! It's for a good cause, afterall.

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When we got Lexi she was on Wagg, i knew that was a bad food so put her on JWB, she did ok but then at 6 months got a bad stomach infection and we could not get her back onto kibble. In the end we tried chappie and she could eat it but was pooping up to 13 times a day. 18 months of trying I finally read up on raw, switched in March 2011 and have never looked back, Bos arrived in May 2011 and both of mine are raw fed, are soft coated and shiney dogs.

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.....and Bosley too!

My other dogs were fed supermarket food or cooked chicken.
It was only when I was getting Moll that I wanted to make sure she was getting a good food- so I got some Royal Canin
I know some people like it- but it turned her in to pycho dog. Repeating myself but I'm sure a lot of dogs in rescue are there because they're fed food that affects their behaviour and owners cant cope.
At the end of my tether I did lots of research and changed to Raw- I've never looked back.

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When Charlie was a puppy the breeder had him on Hills science plan puppy chicken flavoured kibble. Everyone on here said it was an awful food but comparing the ingredients list to other half-decent foods I couldn't see why there was such a bad rep.

Anyway, Charlie had an iffy tummy as a pup - i think the move to our house was quite stressful for him, and I decided to use the chance to change him to a dry food that had less irritants. He was fed fish/chicken and rice for a week whilst his tummy cleared up, then I introduced the new food. Went to P@H and from what they had I thought Wainwrights Turkey and Rice looked like the best ingredients list. My family dogs had always had dry food so never considered anything else.

After a while (around 6 months old) I noticed he was starting to leave food in his bowl and started eating poo. So I reduced his kibble and went and bought some Butchers Puppy tins till I could get hold of WW tins to give his food some soft texture. It stopped the poo eating but something never sat right with me with the tins.

After asking on here about the tins, I decided to switch to the trays which I hadn't seen when I went shopping in person.

Now Charlie's meal is 1/2 wet 1/2 dry, as the trays have better ingredients % but would be too expensive for me to feed 100%. He eats a few carrots and apples a week, he gets probiotic yogurt and if its very cold and he's noticeable hungry he gets a hot scrambled egg for breakfast. And because of this forum he gets healthier treats too - antos or hollings. His eyes are bright, his coat is glossy and soft, he's got a normal amount of energy and his teeth look amazing. He doesn't have any tummy issues, and smelly gas is a once in a blue moon thing.

I've looked into raw but not having a big food budget, only having a tiny freezer, having a healthy looking and acting dog on the food he's already on, not liking to handle raw meat anyway and being a bit lazy I've decided Raws not for us.

As a side, because of this forum I add garlic to Charlie's dinner 5 times a week, organic cider vinegar to his filtered water every morning, and plaque-off powder to his meal every day. He now has stag bars to chew on and as I've already said, doesn't really get junk treats anymore.



Overall I think this forum has helped me most working out a good diet for Charlie - his regular food, his treats, and all the little extras I now add in. I know what he gets isn't the ideal doggy diet - but its working for us. The vets very happy with the condition Charlie is in, and so am I

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We fed our two (Foxhound and Lurcher) on dry kibble to start with, went through a few different brands...WW, Skinners, Fishmongers, JWB...none seemed to really suit them. So began to try mixing some wet food in with it, used WW wet for a while.

However, the combination of a wet complete and a dry complete was too rich for their stomachs, and the resulting output wasn't pleasant!

Tried all wet for a while, they seemed to be always hungry.

Eventually tried a mixture of wet food and mixer, and this is great for them. We use Rocco wet as it seems the best value, good quality wet food we can get and the Foxhound especially eats a lot. Supermarket mixers are full of rubbish, so we use Burns Mixer, which is a good cereal free mixer. Seems expensive but the pieces are so light that one 7.5kg bag lasts both dogs a month and costs just over twenty quid.

Can't see us moving away from this now as they like it so much and are doing great on it. Just the other morning on our walk a stranger commented that they looked a picture of perfect health.

Only other things they get are daily Plaque Off, some cereal free treats and cows ears.

I came on here looking for advice on crate training initially and had my eyes opened to a world of advice/knowledge.

At the time Roo was on tins of Butchers chunks in jelly and Bakers kibble.

After looking on here, and going to Pets at Home, he went onto Wainwrights trays and their kibble. However, soon went off the kibble, and then the wet and so began my long running battle to find something he would eat!

We had Natures Menu, (which gave him the runs) Royal Canin whcih was by far his fave, and we stuck with this and raw until Harvey came along, and ended up with the squits!

Long story short, I went to my friends shop (she's my friend now, I didn't know her at the time) and got a sack full of samples to try. We settled on Skinners puppy for them both (for ease at the time) along with raw minces and WW trays.

After that I moved them onto Skinners F&T Duck and Rice, and now the Museli mix.

So, its been a loooong process of trial and error! But now they are fed a kibble I like, that agrees with them and agrees with my purse strings! Its supplemented with raw minces, chiken wings/bones and Butchers Tripe.

They are happy, their tums are happy, so I'm happy!

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