I thought I'd talk about canine nutrition, seen as it is a subject I have spent lots of time learning about. When we first got Amber, she was on a few different kibbles as she was very fussy and we wanted to find one she would enjoy - she really liked Lily's Kitchen, so that's what she stayed on. When Holly came along, feeding two dogs Lily's Kitchen got expensive. It's a high quality food but it's organic - something that added to the price tag, and that we didn't really mind about. It also has a relatively low meat content, compared to some other similar foods for the same price. However it was at this point we decided to put our dogs on Raw.
I'd heard of quite a lot of owners switching their dogs to Raw, both on the online dog forums I'm on and owners we met at dog training. I liked the ethos behind the idea, the fact that it was natural and you knew exactly what your dog was eating. We kept our dogs on Raw for almost a year - Amber's litter were weaned onto it too. However, I was finding it took a lot of work and preparation. The only way we could afford to feed it was by buying in bulk (most of the meat came in 15kg slabs). So we'd have to defrost the meat (equaling lots of blood and mess and just yuck!) and I'd then have to portion it up into meal sized portions. This would take me at least two hours a month - and that's before I had blended their fruit and veg, which also took a long time. We also had issues with the fact that our supplier had no food available for several months and I found it really hard to get a variety of meats; which then meant I worried about them getting a balanced diet, especially as we were feeding it to a growing puppy.
So we then put them back on Lily's Kitchen but like I said before this was out of our price range, and instead of two dogs we were now feeding four! So I started researching other suitable kibbles. I decided to put them on Acana Wild Prairie & Pacifica. They were on this for about two months, maybe slightly more. However, it didn't suit Cody well and he really struggled to keep weight on. Time for a change, again!
I had heard about Millies Wolfheart, a British made product, which is chicken, egg and gluten free. This sounded ideal for Cody's issues, and Wilson, my sisters Cavalier, also has digestive problems and can't tolerate grains. I found them very helpful, after explaining about our dogs' specific needs, they suggested we try one of their 60/40 formulas for the Bernese. Millies have several different recipes, and the 60/40 ones contain 60 per cent meat and 40 per cent fruits and vegetables. I chose the Farmers Mix (Turkey, Black Aberdeen Angus Beef and Pork) and the Gamekeepers Mix (Salmon, Venison, Trout and Rabbit).
My plan is to have them on Farmers for their morning meal, Gamekeepers in the evening (they're fed twice daily). To begin with though, they recommended we stuck to one flavour for a few weeks until they were settled on that - I decided to start with the Farmers Mix, which they've been on for just over a week now.
By the way - Holly & Wilson, my sisters dogs, went onto Millies too, although we chose the Turkey and Vegetable Mix for them instead, as we thought it would be most suitable.
So hows it suiting them? Well, Amber's doing brilliantly on it, Cody's okay - he loves the food but has got diarrhea :( He seems to have a very sensitive stomach. I've taken him off wet food altogether (they normally have half a tin each per meal, at the moment it's Lukullus) to see if that makes any difference, if not I'll contact Millies Wolfheart for more advice later in the week. I'm really hoping though that he'll settle on it because it ticks all the boxes for us and is an awesome food.
Anna xoxo
No comments:
Post a Comment