Hi all

Im sorry if this has already been covered in previous posts but I done a quick search and couldnt quite find the answers I was looking for. Basically im looking for some advice on skinners if anyone can help me.

Basically my dog is the total opposite from a working dog, in fact shes extremely lazy and as long as she gets a good daily walk shes happy so I dont want to put her on a "working dogs" diet, which will have her bouncing off the walls. I've read its only marketed as working food to save on VAT but I've also read its high in protein which can cause hyperactivity. I was wondering if anyone has any experience or advice regarding this?

Also if I did change to skinners could anyone recommend which version I should go for in my situation as they all seem to be similarly priced but marketed quite differently.

To put you in the picture I am looking to change from AG lamb%rice as my 3 yr old spayed lab bitch has gone totally off it and is basically refusing to eat it even when I try to bribe her with some cheese etc through it. Its basically down to good reviews on this forum that im looking at Skinners however as long as its under about £30 per 15kg im willing to buy any food that will suit her.

Thanks in advance

Mick

Why don't you compare the amount of protein in them all, and against the AG?

Why don't you just give it a go and see how she gets on?

i have used ruff and ready on my danes and found it quite good. danes are not the most active of creatures and i have found it to not give them excess energy.

I use the working hypoallergenic duck and rice on my dogs and they are not hyper, quite lazy infact.  I have no problems with this food - decent poo too.  The protein level is very similar to the over the counter stuff and certainly not high enough to cause hyperactivity.  They are poodles and the sales rep was mortified that I was feeding his working dog food to them lol!

They liked the ruff and ready too but after getting a spoiled batch, it put me off.  I would thoroughly recomend them though so long as they stay a small privately owned company.

I used to feed Ruff & Ready to mine, and was very happy with how the dogs thrived on it; they certainly weren't hyperactive. I only stopped using it after finding chunks and shards of cooked bone (about 2 inches long) in several batches. Complaints (accompanied by the offending pieces as proof) to the manufacturers only resulted in an apology and a voucher for more - which contained the same; nothing changed.

Yes, which is why I changed the type of food.  I was very glad to be able to get hold of someone on the other end of the phone though.  Truly though, I would like to make my own dogs food and feed fresh, I just do not have the fridge or freezer storage in the current house.

A very good friend of mine, that I trust 100 %, is always very VERY careful about what she feeds her dogs, will only feed the best, makes sure the ingredients are what she wants etc. Last year she changed to Skinners for all her dogs, but only after grilling the manufacturers for 2 hours, doing a feed trial for them, checking carefully into the ingredients etc. She was very happy with what she found, then told me about it and in fact gave me a sack of food to try. As Skinners is cheaper than James Wellbeloved, we changed most of our dogs over to it (not all, for instance I did not want to risk changing growing pups onto a new food when I knew they'd be fine on JW). We have had no problems at all, and there certainly have not been any change in activity or similar, and we do use the working version for the adults, the oldies get the version for older dogs (sorry can't remember what it is called, I hardly ever see the bags as my husband picks the food up and we then store it in giant plastic tubs). Everyone is doing really well on it.

My 2 Labs eat skinners f & t maintenance which is only 18% protein,  they are not working dogs, although they get plenty of exercise.  I buy this for £14.99 which is a good price.  I have given them the f & t muesli which is exactly the same as ruff n ready but vat free, The dogs love it, but they do seem to poo a little more.  This is probably better for fussier dogs!

Mine love this food and they get a big bowlful as it weighs in quite light, if that makes sense,  They are certainly nor hyper on it.

I'm often changing their food, always looking for something better, but I always go back to skinners.  This year I have  vowed not to change the food.

So, I would certainly recommend skinners,  give the f&T maintenance a go, suits my Labs brilliantly.

Thanks for the replies, I've bought the F&T maintainence and the muesli so my plan is to mix a little of the muesli in with the mainainence to make it a bit more appealing. I must say im very impressed with price of these products especially if they are as good as people on this site say, up until recently I was feeding JWB but I can get 3 bags of the F&T from vets uk for the same price as I was paying for 1 bag of JWB.

Mick