Hypothetical: Dog Food Question

[Loving my Oldies]

I give my dogs mostly raw food and sometimes mix in rice (cooked in home made chicken stock) and vegetables and Royal Canin dry food. My dogs have always been difficult eaters and generally look at me as though I am trying to poison them. See this thread as proof - LOL

http://www.dolforums.com.au/index.php?show...=168141&hl=

They certainly aren't fading away and are playful, happy and enjoying their walks. However, Danny is the only one who has eaten a square meal for about the last 3-4 days.

I thought I would just get a couple of cans of food to see if I could tempt them. So, if you HAD to feed your dogs canned food, what would you choose. I tried All Natural when Rover was fading, but none of them liked that.

At my wit's end.

It was such a pleasure fostering Mundy and Lolly as they LOVED their food; Mundy would get so excited that he used to do a little drumming movement with his front legs . I hoped their enthusiasm would rub off on mine - but no such luck.

Edited September 21, 2009 by _Cynthia_

[Teebs]

Ok, ignoring everything I know.

If i had fussy eaters that wouldnt touch anything, i would feed whatever tinned food they liked. Even if it was chum!

I have a cat who is fussy, she will only eat two kinds of tinned food (and it has to be the right flavour or she wont go near it) one is a really cheap brand that stinks and is feral (the other 2 cats wont touch it! )

I like that Gift one? Cant think of the name now some dogs I am looking after now have it and it smells ok! Both dogs love it as well!

[Loving my Oldies]

But you can't feed dogs cat food all the time? Surely just as an occasional thing and to help tablets go down .

I don't know the "gift" one - but I'll have a look when I'm out grocery shopping today.

[CavsRcute]

Nature's Gift. They say it's one of the better tinned ones.

[Loving my Oldies]

Nature's Gift. They say it's one of the better tinned ones.

Where's the "slaps head" emoticon. That's the one I was thinking of when I bought All Natural by mistake. I couldn't understand why the dogs didn't like it as I have used Nature's Gift before. The cans must look similar.

[Sandra777]

Cat food is fine for dogs, dog food is not fine for cats ------ well as "fine" as any canned food can be

Try some of the more expensive cat ones, especially ones with fish in them.

Try warming the food slightly

Mix cheaper canned foods with sardines to make it a bit better. Quite often the cheaper foods have a stronger smell which attracts some dogs - but maybe not fussy little people :-)

[Rysup]

If I have to use tinned, it is Nature's Gift, or I would try the Eagle Pack tins too, never tried those.

[Loving my Oldies]

I always warm their food and if it needs to be a little bit moister, I always have on hand home made chicken stock. I'm thinking of giving PAL a go - LOL. Years ago I had a friend staying with me with a couple of her dogs and she fed them PAL. Unfortunately, she never went on a poop drive and I can't tell you what the back yard smelt like as I cleaned up after her dogs every morning and night.

[wuffles]

I use Nature's Gift sparingly in my house for Kong filling (we only go through one tin a week for a 40kg dog) and it gets a thumbs up as far as tinned food goes. I've never noticed any tummy upsets and he loves it.

They also do a kangaroo (with chicken) one now!

[Meea]

I use Nature's Gift sparingly in my house for Kong filling (we only go through one tin a week for a 40kg dog) and it gets a thumbs up as far as tinned food goes. I've never noticed any tummy upsets and he loves it.

They also do a kangaroo (with chicken) one now!

stinky cheap smelly fishy cat food - mix with warm water and everything goes down...*where is the icon for v*o*m*i*t?!!

[gila]

Before I knew better I sometimes fed my dog Pedigree Homestyle. It's different to 'normal' canned food cos it looks more like a stew with pieces of pasta and veges and meat and stuff in gravy rather than a big tin can shaped blob of meat in jelly. Maybe try some of that for the fussy dogs?

If you do decided to get it, make sure you get the one that says HOMESTYLE, otherwise you will just end up with the big meat/jelly blob

[ellz]

I will occasionally feed a tin of the Pedigree Casserole, or at least mix it with some hot water to make a gravy, especially if I'm away from home and can't take my normal food with me. Nature's Gift is ok although I'm a bit phased by the layer of fat that tends to accumulate in the bottom of the tin...it stinks!

My dogs do actually tend to prefer a tin of cat food, and for bitches which won't eat when they're in late pregnancy or lactating, I usually warm it in the microwave for a few seconds. For some reason when warm it has the most delectable smell....to a dog anyway!

[Staranais]

If I had to feed canned, and if price was no object? Probably Ziwipeak. The ingredients are good, and it's NZ made - unfortunately both of these things are reflected in the price tag!

Canned food is shocking for teeth, so if you can't get any bones or meat chunks into them, I recommend you brush their teeth every day or two if at all possible.

[malsam]

From the food you are giving, I can see why your dogs are fussy eaters.

I won't feed my dogs a mixed state of food in their diet plan. i.e I won't mixed raw with cooked, commercial kibbles then canned food. The reason I wouldn't do that is because the condition of digestion will be very different for your dogs to manage these varied food.

I try not to go into too much medical explanation so for those who knows the exact process, please bear with me on the wordings.

Basically when you try to give all different chemical states of food to your dog, your dog digestion system is going to be very taxing. Say you feeding raw, the dog stomach will get used to raw state of food and develop the correct friendly bacteria and enzymes to digest that kind of food over time. When you give kibbles, it needs another environment of digestion inside the stomach. Similarly, canned, commercial raw etc will all need a digestion environment of their own.

Having said that, you may want to ask me isn't kibble, cooked and canned all the same chemical state as COOKED food while raw (DIY) and commerical raw the same? The answer is no. Because when you talking about home cooked food, you do not use a strict cooking procedure as opposed to kibbles...which uses heat too. Normal kibbles uses heat. And commercially prepared kibbles uses a cooking process very different from home cooked 1s. Hence the chemical state and content of the finished product is not the same as well. Just grab a pre-cooked chicken from supermart and compare to your freshly cooked chicken at home and taste them you know why.

Canned food again is packed with preservatives and chemicals which again have a different chemical state and content versus kibbles and HCF. Raw that you DIY and commercial ones are different too. Commercial raw will need to contain certain types of preservative be it natural or not and will generally take a longer time before it gets consumed compared to our DIY 1s we get it fresh daily and consume within a few days. Raw food contains living enzymes, so it is very chemically different from cooked ones.

Knowing all these stuffs will let you better understand why your dog is being fussy. Because their body are constantly trying to switch their optimal digestions in between raw (in the morning), cooked (in the evening), then tomorrow (canned food) followed like commercial raw?

Dogs are not humans, we have the most inefficient digestion systems and most screwed up diets in the living world. We need to eat regularly and we can ingest large amount of chemical processed food because we have evolved our body to accept all these. Dogs are like other animals too, their body do not processed food like humans. They need to be efficient because that is how they live their days in nature as an animal. They are not as highly evolved as human beings. Hence it will be very challenging for them to keep changing different states of food within a month, a week or even a day.

Humans are the most wasteful eaters in the world....we will eat stuffs that are of no health or medical benefits to us and we just let our body passed them out without getting any benefit or worst, getting harmed. Dogs will strive to develop the most efficient way of digestions in their body....which is why if you are on a DIY raw diet, you see them pooing significantly less if you just feed meat. My dogs when on raw organic meat only, gets poo like once in 2-3 days. Thats because their body will absorb whatever that they can effectively use pooing less to avoid wastages. Humans will poo everyday...because of the food we put into our mouth and the inefficient state of our digestion system which have developed to take all sorts of chemical states of the food we eat.

[nickojoy]

Instead of canned, probably the rolls. I used to feed them with kibble to my rescue dogs.

[KitKat]

If i was feeding the boys canned food...i'd feed Natures Gift For the most part if they get any canned food (eg treat/whatever) they get Natures Gift

[ShesaLikeableBiBear]

The only canned food we will feed ours is Ziwipeak, its all natural, contains no chemical preservatives added colourants etc. but it is pricey.

[Loving my Oldies]

From the food you are giving, I can see why your dogs are fussy eaters.

I won't feed my dogs a mixed state of food in their diet plan. i.e I won't mixed raw with cooked, commercial kibbles then canned food. The reason I wouldn't do that is because the condition of digestion will be very different for your dogs to manage these varied food.

I try not to go into too much medical explanation so for those who knows the exact process, please bear with me on the wordings.

Basically when you try to give all different chemical states of food to your dog, your dog digestion system is going to be very taxing. Say you feeding raw, the dog stomach will get used to raw state of food and develop the correct friendly bacteria and enzymes to digest that kind of food over time. When you give kibbles, it needs another environment of digestion inside the stomach. Similarly, canned, commercial raw etc will all need a digestion environment of their own.

Having said that, you may want to ask me isn't kibble, cooked and canned all the same chemical state as COOKED food while raw (DIY) and commerical raw the same? The answer is no. Because when you talking about home cooked food, you do not use a strict cooking procedure as opposed to kibbles...which uses heat too. Normal kibbles uses heat. And commercially prepared kibbles uses a cooking process very different from home cooked 1s. Hence the chemical state and content of the finished product is not the same as well. Just grab a pre-cooked chicken from supermart and compare to your freshly cooked chicken at home and taste them you know why.

Canned food again is packed with preservatives and chemicals which again have a different chemical state and content versus kibbles and HCF. Raw that you DIY and commercial ones are different too. Commercial raw will need to contain certain types of preservative be it natural or not and will generally take a longer time before it gets consumed compared to our DIY 1s we get it fresh daily and consume within a few days. Raw food contains living enzymes, so it is very chemically different from cooked ones.

Knowing all these stuffs will let you better understand why your dog is being fussy. Because their body are constantly trying to switch their optimal digestions in between raw (in the morning), cooked (in the evening), then tomorrow (canned food) followed like commercial raw?

Dogs are not humans, we have the most inefficient digestion systems and most screwed up diets in the living world. We need to eat regularly and we can ingest large amount of chemical processed food because we have evolved our body to accept all these. Dogs are like other animals too, their body do not processed food like humans. They need to be efficient because that is how they live their days in nature as an animal. They are not as highly evolved as human beings. Hence it will be very challenging for them to keep changing different states of food within a month, a week or even a day.

Humans are the most wasteful eaters in the world....we will eat stuffs that are of no health or medical benefits to us and we just let our body passed them out without getting any benefit or worst, getting harmed. Dogs will strive to develop the most efficient way of digestions in their body....which is why if you are on a DIY raw diet, you see them pooing significantly less if you just feed meat. My dogs when on raw organic meat only, gets poo like once in 2-3 days. Thats because their body will absorb whatever that they can effectively use pooing less to avoid wastages. Humans will poo everyday...because of the food we put into our mouth and the inefficient state of our digestion system which have developed to take all sorts of chemical states of the food we eat.

Well I absolutely no idea about any of that . I was just trying to make life interesting for the dogs. I wonder how many vets know this?

So, to put it simply, you are saying find something the dogs like and has all the necessary nutrition, etc and stick to that and forget about variety?

ETA: I have done that with my cat and if I think she MUST be getting bored and I try something different, she won't eat it. She has the same food, day after day, week after week, year after year. It makes me sad, but I guess that really is being anthropomorphic - LOL.

Instead of canned, probably the rolls. I used to feed them with kibble to my rescue dogs.

I was getting rolls from the vet and at first they loved them, then did the usual thing and went off them.

Edited September 21, 2009 by _Cynthia_

[Robbi]

I always try to keep some tins of Eagle pack in the pantry for back up if I run out of home made dinners. The duck and chicken formula is my favourite but it is very expensive and the tins are only 369gms

[ellz]

So, to put it simply, you are saying find something the dogs like and has all the necessary nutrition, etc and stick to that and forget about variety?

Dogs eat to live, they don't live to eat. Their taste buds are not as refined as ours and we get more hung up on variety than they do.

Find whatever they do best on, whatever the form it takes and no matter what the cost is, whether it be high-end or budget and stick with it.

There are far too many food Nazis on forums and many people are cowed into feeding so-called "premium" foods because of the name, the price and peer pressure and it really isn't necessary.