Hmmmm...........

[Marble]

i have an 8week old maltese. I took her home 3 days ago and feeding her eukanuba puppy

i thought puppy food was more nutritous for puppies so they will grow without nutrition issues.

If i change her to 100% cooked chicken breast is that sufficient nutritions for a puppy? She loves the cooked chicken meat when i use it for training purposes.

or should i mix it with the eukanuba kibble.. if so.. do i still stick the eukanuba feeding instructions which is 85g per day for the size of the dog? That means a total of 85g which is part kibble and part chicken meat.

[westiemum]

Yep I'm with you Westielover - my guys including my new foster are doing fabulously on a barf diet - they love it, I love it and its cheap!!!.

I too fail to see how kibble/dry food - particularly on its own - can ever supply all the other goodies you list that doggies need. I understand even the premium brands have a lot of carb filler in them.

I haven't seen any literature/research on this but I also wonder about the moisture content in doggie diets - raw food diets contain plenty of moisture - dry food diets don't - and I have wondered whether there is a connection between a sole dry food diet and kidney disease in dogs who don't drink enough to compensate.

So flame suit donned but before all you dry feeders jump down my throat, this is just a thought and something I think is worth discussing - each to their own.

Cheers,

Westiemum

I feed my 3 dogs 100% raw and have for the past 7 years. I swear by the diet and refuse to feed them commercial food.

I will never, ever understand how people can think that a kibble diet is a well balanced diet. To me it's like eating a human equivalent diet of spam, cuppa soups and anything else which comes out of a packet - not good in my opinion. I much prefer a diet of meat, fish, veggies, fruit etc - as fresh as possible.

I see my dogs the same way - I feed them mostly raw meaty bones, raw meat, a variety of fish, a variety of organ meat, minimal veggies, minimal dairy (yogurt & cottage cheese). They are carnivores designed to eat meat and tear meat off a bone - so I really can't understand how a kibble diet caters for those needs.

It's not just about diet either - other things come into play - such as annual vaccines, heartworm medication, flea & tick medication, worming medication etc. I replaced annual injections with annual titre tests. I feed them garlic (in moderation) to fight off fleas and am looking into doing something about the amount of worming medication they receive.

It's all about the immune system. A healthy immune system = a healthy dog which can fight of diseases etc. Fleas, mites etc aren't attracted to dogs with healthy immune systems. To me it just doesn't seem right to bombard a dog with all sorts of chemicals so I am looking at alernatives.