Prydenjoy

LOL, I was trying to work out what sort of kibble would give you less poop than Eagle Pack, but there you have it, no kibble at all :D Yes my guys love their "exotic" meats too, nothing beats roo in their eyes, they go mental for it!

Nutrience is a fairly good brand, from what is available where I live I would say it's the best. However, my dogs are on Eagle Pack (and BARF, but that's not relevant to the question), I order it online and it gets delivered. They have a sensitive range and I would recommend it highly. My sisters dog was on Nutrience once and she got a little constipated, so we switched her over to BARF and she's been thriving ever since. To be honest though, particularly with allergy dogs etc, nothing beats BARF :D

Just out of curiosity GreatDanz, what do you feed? My guys do fairly well on the Eagle Pack poop wise, not as good as when they are on 100% BARF of course, but better than they do on any other kibble.

Sounds great fifi, keep me posted on what they say when they get back to you They are probably being a bit overwhelmed at the moment with all the outside orders they are probably getting right now!

Fifi, my thoughts exactly - I was going to ask you the same thing

Good to hear you're having success. I've also had success with putting weight on my skinny pooches. I have put a stable weight on my Whippet by doubling the amount he eats each day - I thought what I was giving him was plenty (600g per day) for a dog his size, but it seems he just burns the energy, now I've doubled it he's looking great. I also feed him Eagle Pack Power formula which has helped a great deal. For the Boxer pup, I just give him 3 meals of 600g - 800g portions per day, one of them with Eagle Pack Large Breed Puppy formula, it's amazing how much they will eat. As for the Papillon, I find it hard keeping the weight off him! He only gets 100g once a day LOL

Thanks Holly!!! I just emailed them then

Oh it sounds great! Such a reasonable price! The billinghurst patties are closer to about $5kg I think... Is there any way they could transport them down this way? I could probably buy about 100kg at a time if I could get it here... Beats slaving away for hours in the kitchen making up patties...

Glad to hear you're impressed and enjoying the benefits Weimlover :D As for age to switch - on the back of the Large Breed Puppy Formula it recommends 18 months, but you can continue to feed that one anyway because it's not a "puppy" formula as such, but a formula for all ages of large breed dog

Did you post a while back concerned about Eagle Pack discolouring Weims coats? Glad you decided to give it a shot anyway and like it - so, has it made any difference to coat colour? Or just a myth as we thought?

White Shepherd Mum - their web site is here You can see all the ingredients and testimonials etc there.

Well, technically anything sold commercially is considered commercial pet food, but it is true that the quality of some is by far better than others. If you're interested in researching what pet food is the best you might as well research a properly made up BARF diet because I have tried researching both and discovering which BARF foods to feed in which portions is by far easier to research than trying to learn how to analyse the back of a pet food label!

I have heard nothing but good things about it. My dogs were on completely BARF but they get a bit of Eagle Pack each day now for their own reasons. I wouldn't let my dogs touch any other brand of food (with one or two exceptions) but as far as commercial food goes it is one of the best. They have done a lot of their own research on large breed dogs, particularly Danes, and even with a growing Boxer I certainly would not feed him any other brand of growth food. My Whippet is on the Power variety and is doing great, his muscles are filling out and he has a smooth, glossy coat that everybody comments on - the nicest coat they've ever touched apparently. But I would definately have to say that a lot of their health can be attributed to the BARF, nothing beats natures food

I bought a bag of Hills for the very same reason - the bag cost $21.60 and I got a $20 rebate. Don't know what happened to the bag, fed it a couple of times (cringed alot while I was doing it), then the bag of Eagle Pack came in and haven't fed the hills since. It is horrible stuff, I couldn't bare to feed it to my growing pup. With all those grains and by-products its no wonder it tastes like cardboard. I have a feeling my rats got the left over hills...

It can be hard keeping the weight on them with a strict BARF diet because they burn all the energy they consume - great for older dogs and non show dogs because it all turns into beautiful muscles, but for a young show dog you can feed as much as you can, but they will still not put on the weight they need for the show ring. I had the same problem with my Whippet boy, he ate like a horse and until I added kibble to his diet he looked like a skeleton! He now gets a cup of Eagle Pack Power in the mornings, and his BARF meal in the evenings. The kibble is always soaked and he stays in his crate for about an hour after he finishes it to prevent bloat. If bloat is what you are worried about then feeding oats is no better than feeding soaked kibble. However, for the first time in their lives my dogs now have a doggy odour! So as soon as it warms up again they'll be off the kibble, when it is cold again after that hopefully they'll be grown and wont need kibble! But if you don't want the doggy odour, just feed oats instead of kibble. Oats with eggs and lamb heart, possibly with goat or coconut milk (as trina suggested), and plenty of off-cuts. Also, feed chicken wings and thighs instead of frames, I've found that makes quite a difference also. Personally the Eagle Pack works for my dogs, but if you don't want the doggy odour and everything else that goes with kibble then try a few other things instead - or you could just do what I'm doing, get the weight on them with kibble then put them back onto BARF and see how they go

Is it pancreatis that Dalmations are prone to? I can't remember what it was, but a vet at the University here did a study on Dalmations and various diets to prevent whatever it was they got (I think it was panceatis, I hope so, otherwise none of this is relevant!!!). Well she basically said to feed a vegetarian diet with cheese and eggs for protein. There was an article in the paper about it which really ticked me off because it had her feeding a dally a bowl of veggies, with no mention of weather they should be cooked etc, why publish an article with only half the facts? I could just see a bunch of welling meaning people chopping up raw veggies and feeding their dogs whole, raw carrots in the believe that it was GOOD for them and that they could survive off that. Anyway, what I am basically getting to is - have you considered a mostly vegetarian diet with just a few sources of lean meat? About rice etc, I've heard that because dogs aren't made to digest grains it can actually cause panceatis, so I'd be wary of feeding any grains (although most vets probably wouldn't agree because the "pet food" they sell is full of the stuff!).

Roo is low in fat, would that be a good meat source? The best thing about BARF is that you can taylor it to practically any needs

I'd be sending Dr B an email saying that one of his suppliers is ill representing his product. The person you spoke to is in need of some serious education - what makes him think that dry biscuits would be any more nutritionally complete? If you ask me they are what needs supplementing with products such as Missing Link. Omega 3, 6 and 9 deplete over time in dry foods, so should be added to the diet - I'm not sure what goes into these patties but I'm sure they would contain everything that the dog wouldn't get from its RMB's. I've looked into getting these for my dogs, but it all seems so difficult (no local suppliers etc) and if you just want to order a small amount for yourself without becoming a supplier it is incredibly expensive

I was really asking for that wasn't I??? ;)

Hey!!! Not fair!!! I travel over an hour to our nearest Biada wholesalers and pay much more than that! They're not selling the damaged wings anymore either - so I asked how much it was for 6kg of human wings and was told $11.50. So I went and picked up a huge order and thought the price was a bit funny but left anyway as they were closing. I looked at the receipt later and they had charged me $15 for 3kg of wings!!! That was a bit obsurd, especially considering they were just for the dogs! Sorry about the rant But in answer to the original question, if you can find a poultry farm you may be able to get whole birds. Aside from that I would recommend a larger variety of RMB's, not just chicken. Depending on what you mean by "a small amount of liver" you might not be feeding enough for proper eye etc development. RE offal it should be 10% of the diet, half of that liver ie 5% liver.

Yes but I think if a dog ate that much unhealthy food it would get sick and not eat it again. People have lost most of their instincts I believe. It is interesting with rats, they will always have a nibble at everything and balance their own diets, so you can give them a plate full of healthy treats and a plate full of unhealthy, yummy foods and they will base their diet on the healthy stuff and have a nibble at the unhealthy stuff as a treat only, like we should do. Dogs are gutses though and will eat practically everything you put in front of them!

There is one way around that - feed a BARF diet and shoot you own bunnies and roos (if you have a licence) for them! That way you are not supporting the meat industry, or the pet food industry. As for health, well if you REALLY want what is healthy for your dog, you will feed it meat anyway. However, there have been quite a few dogs fed on a 100% vegetarian diet thier whole lives that lived to a ripe old age (probably more so because they weren't eating commercial food than the vegetarian diet itself). What you feed your own dog comes down to your own personal preference, but, for the dogs sake, I would recomend at least SOME meat (have you ever thought that the small amount of meat the you feed one dog probably doesn't even impact on the industry? And don't say "but if everyone did it..." because everyone is NOT going to do it).

Oh Jacqui, I'm so sorry to hear. Molly is free from pain now and you can know that she is still in your heart, only in a happier place where she can relax and look down on you, without hurting. You go and give Sarge a big cuddle and remember, as long as you are happy, Molly will be happy too. My Grandfather died the other day. Two weeks before he passed away he wrote out a speach to be read at his funeral. It mentioned something about wanting us all to celebrate the time we have together, and not to be sad that he is no longer here, he also said he didn't want anyone to cry at his funeral, which of course made me cry more but the point is that Molly wouldn't want you crying for her, Boxers have that love for life which is why we love the breed so much, all they ever want is for you to be happy. *Hugs* Jeanne

Maybe you could graciously accept it, and sneak it into animal rescue centres when he's not looking ;) I feed my dogs a BARF diet, with a bit of Eagle Pack in the mornings to fatten them up! They are doing great on this. Supercoat is probably the best supermarket brand, but the dogs do SO much better on Eagle Pack! What it really comes down to is how much you want to spend on feeding your dog, although I would not recommend anyone feed anything cheaper than supercoat (eg Pal etc), if you want to get that cheap you might as well not have a dog at all!

Thanks everyone for your replies. Adding hamburger meat to the kibble sounds like a great idea. The problem I have with satin balls is that they contain so many grains, in my opinion grains should NEVER be added to a diet based on kibble, because that has more than enough grains in it already, even the good quality stuff. On that note, I think it is sooo much easier to feed a balanced BARF diet than try to work out what kibble you should be feeding! At least then everything is in its natural state, and it is hard to over dose on something when you are getting it from REAL food! If he was my dog I'd probably be mixing Eagle Pack Power and Large Breed Formula half and half, giving him a cup or two of that in the morning, then a meal of lamb flaps, followed by a large evening meal of chicken wings and thighs, balanced out with the occasional meal of veggies and offal. The Power Formula probably does have too much protein, but mixed with all that other food in such a small portion it probably wouldn't hurt - I'd choose that one though because its so nutrient dense, on a skinny dog I wouldn't be feeding anything that wasn't nutrient dense.