I don't know about you but do you use the same approach for feeding yourselves and your kids?  Eg wonder about the protein content etc?  I didn't and my daughter grew up healthy and strong :D

It has always seemed odd to me that we get told we need a degree to feed our dogs correctly but not ourselves :D 

Animals in the wild seem to cope with getting all the right nutrients with no scientific help as well :D

Everyone must feed their dogs (and families) what they believe to be the best and what is practical for them. There are a lot of myths and old wives tales that abound about dog feeding  (commercial or raw)and hopefully the more these are dispelled the better it will be for the dogs :D

Hi,

I see your point:-)

I give the family well balanced diet as I can .However my children are not hipscored  and not shown any problems with hips and joints:-D
And as puppies tend to grow faster in a very short time span the mico nutrirnts and their percentages I feel are important especially in my breed Goldies between the ages of 14wks and 6 months and therfore I would be happier if i knew exactly in what percentage I was giving for example protein.Perhaps with the older dogs I woud not worry quite so much:-)
That way there is less chance of over doing any one particuar food group.

Briony:-)

Hi,

Also there are wild animals while survive in the wild using the food and nutrients around them does not always mean their in the best health they may appear healthy on the outside and able to reproduce this does not give us an indication of whats happening on the inside and also may not live as long our pet domesticted animals do:-)

Briony:-)

True, but there are many factors in wild animals health, not just diet; predation, survival of the fittest (not a bad criteria on which to base healthy breeding stock), lack of veterinary care etc etc.

The same could also be said of the domesticated pet (or person) :D.  You can smoke and appear healthy for years, reproduce but it is not until you have an x ray that you see the damage inside! :D  The same as processed convenience foods, baby food jars etc etc are less than an ideal diet for humans.

Personally I feel I have MORE control over my dog's diet feeding raw than commercial; after all I KNOW exactly what they are eating; this cannot, I am afraid be said of most commercial foods.

dogs will survive on anything their scavengers! with all the bits and bods your putting in the meal you might as well feed a complete!

Hell of a big difference between a dog surviving by scavenging & one being nourished with good food!

Christine, Spain.

I don't want my dogs merely to survive but thrive; there is a vast difference between feeding wholesome, preferably organic, fresh foods with selective supplementation to suit individual dog's needs and feeding highly processed, commercial dog food containing ingredients they don't need or may be potentially harmful or are just fillers; just as there is a vast difference between feeding your family wholesome foods rather than a permanent diet of convenience foods.

I feed for optimum health and performance; but as I have said before its horses for courses.  If your dogs are doing well on commercial food and have no health problems and you are convinced of its benefit then fine; if it ain't broke don' fix it :D

We all have choices to make and most of us do what we think is best; doesn''t mean we all have to agree :D

Hi Briony, I don`t use mince for the dogs except for weaning & I did itmyself thru the magimix. Each bag of dog food will also be different as well, more so as it`s coming off a conveyor belt. They are in the same postion but if for example I give a quail/wing/leg to my dogs I know what I`m giving & it`s being given & eaten in it`s natural/unprocessed form. If I need to know the nutrient content of any food stuff I can look it up on any government health site. The same goes for any fruit or veg they get. Theres even sites that can tell you the cal/phos ratio if you want to know :)
Convenience/processed foods were supposed to be just that, they were never meant to be an every day for life way of eating. I don`t find it hard or difficult feeding raw but it`s never going to be as easy as opening a bag or a tin :)

Christine, Spain.

Hi Guys,

You both have raised good points and I don't necessarily disagree with you both.I do like some of the ideas behind raw feeding but I cannot do it full time ,part-time  I don't know whether that is such a good thing now.I personally think if suits your lifestyle & dogs great,if it does not then a good quality complete is better.Having said that never had a problem with JWB and the dogs have all looked stunning on it and to date had no problems with hips.Maybe I'll keep the chicken wings for the odd treat.

Briony:-)

I would love to feed the B.A.R.F diet but what do you do if your dogs just reefuse to eat it??i am unfortunately forced to cook my dogs food:( For me barf would be a CONVINIENCE food as i could do away with all the cooking and the washing of all the pots and pans!
A terrific website for great dane owners is www.greatdanelady.com  it has the answers to just about every question, it has particularly good info. on nutrition.

Christine

Thanks for that Christine :)

Actually surprised that anyone remembers my original question ;)

I went yesterday and bought burns adult for her on the advise of another breeder - then managed to speak to her breeder who said this would be great for her.

Although I am interested in finding out a little more about raw feeding I just don't think I could constantly keep it up - we travel back and forth to england regularly and it just wouldn't work at the in-laws! I'm going to look into it some more, read up a bit more and talk to different Dane people about it before I make any decisions. :)

Thanks everyone for the interesting posts.

Just to give you some info in case you don't already know about them, but there are 2 great gane rehoming agencies & they both have websites detailing lots of advise on danes.
http://www.daneline.co.uk/
http://www.danes.org.uk/ - this is also a registered charity so a good one to support.

I myself have 2 danes, plus my mum has one & we have a friend who has another 2, the youngest of themm is my pup Tally, who is not 10 months but she has been eating raw mince for a few months now. All 5 of them love tripe & my mum's dane gets a very smelly bum (to put it nicely) when he eats any thing else. I also find that mince meat, such a tesco value is happy munched down by them, but I'm not sure about nutirional values  on it though, but we find that you either have to feed a very good mixer, such as Royal Canin for large breeds or hills for large breeds; Or a cheap mixer with raw meat; however I have never tried my danes on a BARF diet, but I'm sure they would love it, but as they are happy & healthy on what I feed them (cheap mixer & tripe/mince) then I am not planning on changing their diet until they get older & then I will probaby start using a senior style food deasign foor big dogs, as they can be prone to arthritus.
I'm sure by now your pup has settled on something, but just wanted to give you an idea of what the rescue societies say.

Tally - I know a fawn dane called Tally.... did you get her from a mutual friend I wonder - how old is she? :)

Wishfairy, if you like the idea of feeding a raw diet have a look at this list

Yahoo groups,Rawpup.

i agree with the nutro over the beta------or  burns-----i also still think eukanuba is an excellent food       you really need to put in the best you can espescially while growing. -----cheers from the alternate dizzy     :)

Also the GREATDANE LADY strongly reccomends feeding a dry food named "eaglepack" it has just become available in England. She also has a great article on "the corn myth" and the "beet pulp myth" for those people who think these ingredients are "deadly" to their pets:)

christine

Hi,
   Been reading this post and agree with nearly everybody! That just goes to show how many different ways there are to raise a Great Dane puppy. Obviously the following is just my opinion having had two danes myself. You could raise one Great Dane puppy on just tripe and biscuit and it would be fine, another might not. You could raise another on complete food and it would be fine, another may not.
There are very few bad dog foods out there, just some that suit your dog less well than others. The main thing I have noticed is that if a Dane is fed just tripe and biscuit it matures more slowly. This subject is a minefield but I always think you know your dog and as long as you apply some common sense you shouldn't go far wrong.

I forgot I ever had this problem! :)

She's been on Burns for months now and is huge and happy! I had a few other problems with the Beta before changing her but ChloeH and GraceB helped me out tonnes and she quickly recovered.