I need a mixer

Discussion dedicated to promoting the well-being of your dog through diet, exercise and general health tips.

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Owdb1tch
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Post by Owdb1tch »

Fergot to say - raw chickie wings not a lot of good for people!
katowaggytail
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Post by katowaggytail »

damn! thought I might give it a go!!.... Honestly only joking peeps, I don't want peeps to go down with any nasties!! :lol:
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Horace's Mum
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Post by Horace's Mum »

Anything other than chicken wings? Just asking.

Well, we have now changed to Naturediet completely, with a handful of wafcol, a couple of other biscuits that I have at the moment and today Horace had cheesy roast veg leftovers. I have never seen both meals disappear so fast, so I think he approves! And so far no real detrimental effects on his stools, other than them being smaller, which I consider to be good as he is wasting less of the food, must be digesting more. So, definite thumbs up to table scraps! Now I just have to keep my diet varied enough....

On the other hand, he has been rather full of himself today, hope that is not related to the diet other than maybe not being hungry because he didn't eat breakfast? Any experience on behaviour and diet in dogs? Somebody did tell me that meat causes behavioural problems, don't quite see how but anyway...

Mind you, he could just be as happy as I am that we have had such an incredibly good week together!!
Owdb1tch
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Post by Owdb1tch »

Diet has a HUGE effect on behaviour - tis one of my specialist areas :P

That's why I feed raw meat - raw bones - raw fruit and veg - table scraps of healthy food - the occasional cooked stew of meat and veg.

Breast of lamb is good for teeth as well as chick wings - get the butcher to chop it up (leave the bones in) and feed a small piece at a time because some dogs do find the fat content a bit much to begin with, though extra veggies will balance this.

There used to be a daft idea that meat was bad for dogs!!!! Very convenient and economical for kennel owners and exacerbated by makers of dog biscuits :roll: then passed into "received wisdom".
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Horace's Mum
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Post by Horace's Mum »

Ok, got that straight then. So Horace should be ok with a diet of chicken, rice, veg, fish and the odd bit of cheese? We will investigate other meats soon, but I feel he is still settling in and getting used to any food which is not Wafcol, so I want to do it little by little.

What are your opinions on Naturediet, just out of curiosity? I know its not raw :roll: but other than that? Most people I have spoken to about it seem to think very highly of it - mainly dog trainers (nice ones!)
Owdb1tch
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Post by Owdb1tch »

No rice.


Otherwise okay.


Not for me to comment on a public forum about any commercial dog food :wink: read the list of ingredients and consider.......
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Horace's Mum
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Post by Horace's Mum »

Why no rice? I thought that was one of things you use in a BARF diet?
emmabeth
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Post by emmabeth »

Doggies dont need rice, or other grainy cerealy type things.

It is a bit of a weird thing at first when you are used to the idea that dogs need either meat + biscuit or dry food, and the single biggest ingredient in dry foods is.... cereals.

Cereals are present in dog foods for three reasons: 1/ human food production creates a large wasteage of low grade cereals/rice.
2/ Cereals suit the production of dry extruded baked product and will carry a oil/meat flavour
3/ They are extremely cheap (see 1, manufacturers previously will have had to pay to get rid of this waste, now they sell it to dog food companies).

When you move away from cereals and feed meat you will see a huge reduction in the volume of food you feed, and in the volume of poo created - cereals are fairly indigestible to dogs, being short gutted carnivores, cereals create POO, so a large proportion of the cereal based food you feed... is just the first stage of a poo production line.

Cut out the cereals and dogs will go from four or more voluminous poo's a day, to maybe 2 small, smell free poos.

We do also believe there is a strong link between the unsuitability of cereal/ rice based diets, and the tendancy towards skin conditions and bowel conditions in dogs.

(I dont believe humans are supposed to base their diets on carbs such as rice and cereals either, and even herbivores such as horses do not do well on high sugar high carb diets, which is what cereals are).
Ocelot0411
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Post by Ocelot0411 »

emmabeth wrote: (I dont believe humans are supposed to base their diets on carbs such as rice and cereals either, and even herbivores such as horses do not do well on high sugar high carb diets, which is what cereals are).
Oh too true Em. I don't eat wheat (so no bread, pasta, cakes, biscuits, take aways, most ready made meals), rice, or potatoes and feel great on it. The wheat thing is because I am intolerant to it and can't digest it but the rice and potatoes are because a) I am not keen and b) you lose tons of weight if you don't eat them!

To be honest human processed food is just as big a culprit as doggie processed food for being bunged full of rubbish (i.e. cheap low grade cereal). If you read the labels of processed foods before you buy what you will find is that pretty much everything contains 'rusk' or 'modified wheat starch', the reason for this is again the same as dog food, its cheap and it bulks food out.

So when it comes to Ellie I don't feed cereals to her anymore either as I figure that a dog will need them even less than I do (so not at all). Also I have been told (by both Mattie and OB I think) that cereals can be a contributing factor to bloat in dogs, and as Ellie is a doberman and therefore more prone to bloat than some breeds, this is another good reason for ditching the cereal.
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Mattie
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Post by Mattie »

Processed food has a lot of poor quality and additives in so I know make my own ready meals, find them much better and tastier as well. The meat ready meals taste of strong, salty gravy and very little else.
[url=http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v312/Nethertumbleweed/PIXIE.jpg][img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v312/Nethertumbleweed/th_PIXIE.jpg[/img][/url]
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Horace's Mum
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Post by Horace's Mum »

Ok, I'll have to have a rethink then. Thanks for all the advice. We have definitely gone from big poo to small poo, 2x a day, but the first part of the poo is very dry, and the very last bit is quite soft and orange. This is just since dramatically reducing the wafcol - before that he had big poos but no consistency in texture, softer more than anything else. And they are rather smelly. Should I be worried? I think overall it is an improvement, but am slightly concerned about the dryness - I see a lot of children with behavioural problems due to constipation so I would rather not see this in my dog.

I don't eat any processed food, never have, which is why I am keen not to give my dog it either, but BARF really isn't an option. I just have to do the best I can for the moment, and hopefully at some point in the future I will be able to change.
emmabeth
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Post by emmabeth »

You can adjust the hardness of poo with a few more veggies, and I think once you leave out the rice you may well see the end of the poo that goes from hard to runnier.
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Mattie
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Please pretty please:))

Post by Mattie »

Can I post the RDR photo competition on here :D

I love the pictures Raiye up up on LL and well done getting second place :D

Mx
[url=http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v312/Nethertumbleweed/PIXIE.jpg][img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v312/Nethertumbleweed/th_PIXIE.jpg[/img][/url]
emmabeth
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Post by emmabeth »

You can, though errrrrrr was this sposed to appear on this fred? Is the interwebulator playing you up?
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Horace's Mum
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Post by Horace's Mum »

:lol: :lol: :lol: I did think it was a bit funny asking to put photos up just after a post about poo! Wondered if it was some weird photo competition.... :lol: :lol:
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