Dog Food - Page 1

Hey

I just started feeding my dog with Royal Canin 24 German Shepherd. She has been doing fine on it, which is quite a miracle. She never last to long on any dog food. She started to become sensitive to dog food around the age of 9. She was on Pedrigee till the age of 8 she became sensitive to it so I changed  for Pro Plan Senior she was on that for almost a year then I decided to make her own food.

She lost a bit of weight, from 28 kilos to 25 kilos in 3 months, the vet said it was too much for a dog. I started mixing some dog food with her homemade food, she put back the weight but after a year she became sensitive to it. So I put her back on 100% home made food.

Her intestine was perfect but she lost (again) 3 kilos in 1 month, the vet said she could not lose more weight, so I decided to try the Royal Canin 24 German Sherpherd, she has been on it for a month now.

Here are my questions:

What do you think of this food?

What do you feed your dog?

Should I give any supplements with this food?

How do I find out what is the perfect body weight for my dog? (Her height is 56cm and her weight is 26 kilos, age 11 years)

Thanks

Royal Canin 24 formula is a good food.

Happy Dog is also a very good food if you can get hold of it depending on where you stay.

Supplements the only thing you need is Omega Oil It will take care of all the health related issues

cheers

I feed my dogs this food and they seem to do well on it so far (haven't been feeding them the food for all that long).  I've also had success with Nutro Natural Choice large breed dog food.  I also supplement with "real" food such as yogurt, cottage cheese, meat, veggies, apples, strawberries, etc.  This can really stimulate the appetite and giving variety is a great way to see what foods your dog likes best.  You can also try to completely natural diet.  If you're feeding just one dog, you could easily switch and this might help her tremendously.

As far as supplements, you might want to look into books by Dr. Pitcairn (he has a Healthy Powder receipe consisting of kelp, brewers yeast, bonemeal and lecithin) which has worked well for my dogs.  There's also a book called The Whole Pet Diet by Andi Brown that has a nice recipe that is good for the coat that consists of soybean or olive oil, cod liver oil, wheat germ oil, flaxseed oil, garlic and rosemary.  If she is having digestive issues, products such as Prozyme can help.  It doesn't matter is you're feeding the best foods in the world, if she isn't digesting them properly, they're not going to work in her system.  As pets age, their digestive systems can become weaker, so this may help boost her system.

Just make sure you limit the commerical and processed foods and give as many "real foods" as possible.  Since your dog is 11, you don't want to tax  her system.  You really want to focus on keeping her immune system strong.

Weight can be gauged just by looking at your dog's ribs.  They should be felt, but there should be a reasonable layer of fat and muscle there as well.  Just as people can weigh different sizes, yet still be in a healthy range, you know your dog so you should be able to visually see if she looks healthy or is starting to look too thin.

Hi,

For those of you out there that use Orijen dog food.  HeartyPet has a special.  If you go to www.heartypet.com and put ORIJEN for the coupon code. It will give you 8% off.

Hope this helps.

I use Orijen and raw supplement with Canine Complete.

Thanks for the tip on Orijen

Like they said as far as kibble goes I believe Orijen is the best.  Another food that I prefer is Abady it is a granular formula, it is not completely grain free. However the grain that is in it is white rice, and IMO is the better choice of grain if any as a filler.  Right now one of my dogs is on Orijen and the other is on abady puppy formula. Both of the dogs also get various raw foods meat,plain yogurt, egg every now and then, and the occasional marrow bone for chewing.

If you are having trouble keeping weight on your dog some fatty ground beef can always help. Hope this helps you.

Over Here in Belgium, I use Orijen for the Dogs, Plus Salmon Oil omce a day and a Vit E capsule, once a week a small teaspoon of Kelp Powder

. for a treat a\ Chicken leg or wing Raw

I would love to feed Raw but costs will not allow it

However the Dogs look fantastic on what they are getting

Look for fillers in the food

 I have fed RC GSD before, not a big problem with it or anything though I never from the get go liked the ingredients on the label. My dogs did ok on it though. I have one dog I am switching to California natural, and if that doesn't work for him I'll try Orijen (I was switching first so no need to do it again right away). I've tried just about every premium brand out there, including the prepared raw diets, and actually researching and making my own raw diets as well as recipes from Dr. Pitcairns. I'm convinced each has a problem. Dog foods change without telling people, and all are missing something or another, particularly kibble no matter what the pretty advertisement says (beneful....UCK!) So I tend to rotate through kibbles every so often and try different things. I add vetraceuticals ( http://www.vetrapethealth.com ) (yes I've posted on this before, but not a ton of people have heard about it, so people tend to go off on things they haven't heard about without actually taking the time to research it, I actually took the time to research all ingredients and speak with the vet who designed it, then try it with my own dogs before ever mentioning it anywhere). to the food which has helped digestion immensely. To the point where I actually had to start feeding less....when I started giving it to my dogs they were eating a certain amount but got loose stools, I lowered food amount and they are doing fantastic on the stuff. My small dog who smelled like he ate something dead and never woudl last on a food for longer then a few days has now been on the same food for a couple of months and has gained weight (some of you may remember me talking about my little dog that I had to give satin balls to every day to keep his weight up, and he's so dang finicky he'd eat for a couple of days then not. Even raw diets, or prepared diets (he's currently on Dr. Harveys Canine Health). After adding this he has gained weight, more active, smells better, all around just healthier. So I have all of my dogs on it now, and I still rotate through food. 

I give my dog who is eleven years old Royal Canin German Shepherd 24. He loves it, it's is a good dog food and it's light on the stomach. I give my bitch who is 9months old Royal Canin Junior German Shepherd 30 mixed with cooked meat and carrots. Ive never had a problem with RC.

I made the switch from Canidae to Royal Canin, very happy with the results. I am not knocking Canidae, I think it is a good food but my dogs always had loose stools with it. Now they have firm stools and there coats look great. They also have a ton of energy.