Hi
I've read through some comments already, and I am now concerned!! Our lab is 4 months old and has been on Iams large breed puppy from the start, his coat is really glossy but he seems to have bad dandruff. His weight is good but I want to make sure he's getting the best food. Could it be the food causing his dandruff? What is the best food in your experience?

One of my choc labs gets Autarky Senior light as she is prone to weight gain, the other gets Beta Bravo. Labs are usually quite happy to eat anything as you will know so i would look at the oil content in the different types of food and compare them. My beagle started off on Chudleys as a puppy, she suffered with a bit of dandruff and her coat was quite nice on that, it has a higher oil content than some of the others. The vet also told us to give the labs a dessert spoon of corn oil in their food every day to help give the coat condition. I give the beagle a cod liver oil capsule as she doesn't like the oil on her food.
Hope this helps you.

Thanks Beagle, I will check out the oil content. You are right he will eat absolutely anything!! Chinese does seem to be his favourite though and gets him into plenty of trouble.

Hi YG

I have three Labs and the two younger ones are on JWB and are in tip top condition. The oldie is on nature diet for her colitis and is also in great condition.

I would say though in respect of your last post Chinese is his favourite !! If you are feeding other foods as well then you may well have found the problem. Chinese is not at all good for him as it will have such a high content of salt which is not good. A well balanced diet will ultimately give the best conditioned dog and feeding human types of food will only jepordise this!

Hope this helps

Lucy

Lucy

No he doesn't actually manage to get any - but he tries to pinch it and does the old lab trick of looking very starved. I totally agree that they shouldn't be fed human food.

Thanks

Hi everyone-

I also have a young lab (17 weeks tomorrow!). If you are pretty sure that it's not the food, could I suggest something (Its free and it doesn't hurt the dog!). Everyday for a week give your pup a really good finger massage all over (Not just a stroke-really get your fingers right through to the skin). This will help to distribute the sebum, which is the natural oil in the pups coat. If you get a build up of sebum, it shows as white, dandruff-like flakes - sometimes the outer coat can still be really glossy even if the sebum has built up. Its worth a try. I've found that central heating can be a bit of a problem for some dogs coats, most of the dogs I've know that live outside dont have any coat problems as they are not housed in such a hot dry atmosphere. Good luck!