Puppy Dog Food Wet Or Dry

[Marble]

i know this topic has been discussed several times and can go on with many variations. But i need some advice please...

i have a matlese puppy which is now around 4months old. I took her home at 8 weeks and fed her dry eukanuba. Then i slowly introduced chicken necks as part of her diet.

I find that she is not extremely fond of eukanuba.. because she does not eat her full daily intake. But when i treat her chicken breast for training purposes she loves it and can eat that in no time

The vet had said it is fine if she does not eat her full daily intake because she is healthy and happy and still playing.

I can understand just dry eukanuba day and night can get a little dry and boring so i want to introduce wet food to her diet but unsure if it is just as nutritious as eukanuba.

i bought a can of optiumum puppy formula yesterday and mixed it with 50% euk and 50% wet. She ate that in a flash!! but now i am worried if it healthy for her.

I have considered barf patties rather than dog canned food but is that better or optimum canned dog food? If i go with barf patties should i mix euk in it or 100% barf for one day and other day 100% euk.

please help!

[Cavandra]

I raise my pups of BARF, occassionally when I have a lot going to pet homes who dont want to feed BARF, I then use "Advance" rehydrateable with the raw diet, so all pups have the least amount of stress in converting to commercial or to total raw..........

Eukanuba always used Ethoxyquin as a preservative, this substance is used to make rubber, and was linked to auto immune disorders in dogs (going back 10 years or so )..........It would always be my last choice of product for this reason, whether or not they use it now I dont know, but it was a hidden (not on the lable) ingredient back then, so I personally would always have "trust" issues with that brand .........

As always only my opinion, I am sure lots of people will come on & say the complete opposite, and you will be left trying to decide for yourself anyway LOL

[laffi]

First of all wet food is 80% water so it doesn't have a lot of nutritional value. I would not feed my dogs wet food.

I think you can find better dry foods than Eukanuba. I would recommend: Eagle Pack Holostic, Nutro, Innova, Evo, NB, Orijen, Artemis.

I would especially recommend grainless foods (Evo, Orijen, Artemis).

I also think that raw diets like BARF or pray model diets are great if you know what you are doing. There are excellent threads about them if you want to learn more.

Also, there is no such a thing as "full daily intake". I never look at the recommended ratios because they are way too large. I just look at my dogs and if I see that they are putting on too much weight I just feed less. I think I feed about half of the recommended "full daily intake" and my dogs definitely are not starving LOL.

I think BARF patties are better than any wet you can get. But if you want to add meat, why don't you add raw meaty bones (RMB) like chicken necks, wings, turkey etc. Very healthy and great for their teeth!

[Gayle.]

I have a 9 week old Australian Shepherd puppy. I am feeding her Eagle Pack Holistic puppy kibble as well as raw chicken pieces, cut up with bones still attached, as well as a mix of raw mince, veges, eggs, cheese, flaxseed oil, oats...the same stuff I feed my older dogs. This is very similar to what the breeder was giving her and she's adapted beautifully to her new diet.

At the moment, she is getting the raw mince mixture in the morning, the kibble down all day and the chicken pieces at night. She also gets the occasional lamb brisket bones to chew on but I doubt this has much nutritional value yet as not much goes down the hatch.

[cazxxz]

I personally wouldn't feed my dog Eukanuba. There are better dry foods available, as laffi suggested.

Dogs don't need variety in their diets to stay interested, so don't feel bad for feeding exactly the same meals every day.

However, if you choose to feed raw, variety is very important! Good luck.

[ShesaLikeableBiBear]

We feed Nutro puppy mini to both our 5 month and 6 week old puppy and they both wolf it.

[Marble]

hm.. it sounds like barf meat patties are much better than wet canned dog food.

i am no expert at making my own barf and i don't have much freezer space.

therefore it seems like barf patties are the way to go. I will try 50% barf and 50% euk for the beginning to see how she goes with it.

in the meantime.. i will need to finish off the optimum canned dog food first

[Poodle wrangler]

I think if your dog is a healthy weight, looks good and has energy, pat yourself on the back and don't worry about changing things.

Dogs are not people and don't crave variety the way we do. It's fine to feed similar boring things day in, day out.

It's very normal for a dog to turn their nose up at dry food in preference to canned or raw foods. The canned variety normally have more sugar to make them more palatable.

A hungry dog will eat dry food. Here it's food of last resort :D. Even with some extra freezer space, we feed only about 30-40% raw foods. For a small dog like a maltese, some chicken necks and brisket bones are easy to have in the freezer.

[poodlemum]

PW - there is NO WAY I would give a puppy Eukanuba - I think it is a really crap food that Vets promote because they make so much money out of it. I would give her Royal Canin or even Purina One Puppy - Eukanuba promotes too-rapid for a puppy!

[Marble]

PW.. thank you for the support. I am just so worried i am not giving her enough nutrition. I don't want to end up with a big vet bill cause of poor nutrition.

i am going to finish off the optimum canned food. And will only give that 50% at night only. Day time i will giver her 100% dry food. And of course the chicken necks to keep her teeth nice and clean.

After that i will need to decide what to do.

thanks heaps

[Gayle.]

If you want to try a good canned food, give Natures Gift a go. It's supposed to be much higher quality than other supermarket brands, and the breeder I bought one of my dogs from reccomended it as a good stand-by to have on hand for raw-fed dogs. Just for those times when you've run out of everything and can't get to a butcher or supermarket.