Hi

Posted a couple of times on this forum and always had a good response - hoping some of you out there can help this time with a couple of questions.

Gemma our chocolate mad lab is now 19 months old and has always been a fussy madam with her dry food - we started off by feeding her beta puppy, then junior. She totally went off beta, we had to add normal butchers tripe (only a few teaspoon fulls) to tempt her to eat it.

Since then we tried her on some new dry food (Dicksons Maintenance complete dog food) which our local gun shop kindly gave us a free sample of and you guessed it Gemma wolfed it down, then after the novelty had worn off she stopped eating the food again unless we topped it up with some nice smelling meat.

Just a couple of questions really, will it do any harm to add meat to a complete dry mix? We only add a couple of spoonfuls at each meal and then her desert is a lovely carrot (can't believe she likes them but hey they clean her teeth). Another quetions is with regards to how much protein your dog needs, this complete food we are feeding her on at the moment is 18% - we both work so she goes out twice a day, and I come home a lunch time in the week but at weekends she is very active with my better half often out for hours at a time retrieving which she thoroughly enjoys. So to stop rambling any longer can anyone recommend a really tasty dry food with maybe a lower protein content as I suppose Gemma is only a part time working dog and more of a home girl. Is the protein we are feeding her too high???

Thanks in advance for any advice.

Hi Lesley

Although your breed is regarded as a working breed if she is not a working dog 18% protein should be fine. Adding more protein to the diet can be counter-productive - she may like it but it can make some dogs hyper-active and labbies can usually be this without any extra diet help!

I have working breeds although they don't 'work' and mine have Skinners Ruff and Ready (21%) in the morning and a meal of meat, veg and carbo (potato, rice, pasta etc) at night.

I'm sure someone else will come along with feeding advice specifically for labbies but hope this helps in the meantime.

18% is ideal for a Labrador although experiment is sometimes needed to see what make suits a dog best. To know whats happening inside your dog look at what comes out!! Nice firm stools show the body is working well and few stools show that the maximum food value is being got out of the feed. Obviously the more a dog is getting out of a food the less of that food is needed in order to maintain the body weight.
I use the low protein "Maintainance" foods for my labs changing to the slightly higher protein "Performance" foods during the working season. Using the "working" grades of food mean that it is cheaper, being Vat Free! I use Masters although Skinners is easier to obtain and is also a good food.

Regards, John

You have taught your dog that if she does not eat what is in front of her you will add some very tasty morsels to it. Dogs are very good at training their owners to give them what they want :)

Labs, like most gundogs, are generally dustbins and will eat anything and everything. If your dog does not eat after 10 minutes remove food and wait until next time. You will find that this will improve her appetite; no dog will starve itself to death; least of all a labrador.

18% protein is fine (providing that it is all available to her).

Hah! So my dog isn't the only one that has sussed that the cat gets nice stuff out of a pouch and he gets chappie. He won't touch the chappie now, would rather starve it seems. He's not a lab, but now he likes his own pouch food thank you very much. In fact I don't blame him, looks so nice I almost tasted it myself! Dogs!!

Thanks for all your replies - I know Gemma has taught us well into giving into her and adding tastier morsels to her food but it's really hard when she dosn't seem to be eating much, we will persevere and like you say she certainly wont starve herself. Thanks again.

Lesley

Duno while i went away, left my cocker with a freind and she wouldent eat for 4 days till my freind cooked her sunday dinner, she was really worried so put sum down ,now thats one thing she will eat! but she eats all the veg outa it:Pi wonder how long dogs are willing to wait for there meal