My border collie pup - she is 7 to 8 months now I think - has just had a couple of days in kennels again.  As usual I take her Burns mini-bites down with her because they don't supply that feed.  I was told that she shoud be on adult diet now because the mini-bites have too much protein in them and it could lead to kidney or liver problems as an adult.  I actually add a little from a sachet of juniour nature diet meat because she prefers that with a little water.  If I have left over gravy and vegetables she has that instead.  In short she really does not like a straight dry food anymore.  Should I consider swapping her to adult Burns now?  Does anyone else think that too much protein could have a detrimental effect on her adult health?  My local pet shop owner thinks that I should keep her on mini-bites until a year old.

High protein foods do NOT cause kidney/liver problems! :) However they are not recommended if your dog already has problems in those area's.

Hi ceejay

why dont you ring burns and ask them when they think your collie should be on aldult food? they are always happy to help, or ask your breeder at what age they change upto adult food. no offence but some pet shop owners dont know much about what and how to feed dogs. JMO :)

Hi CJ,
My puppy who has been on burns all of his puppy life, was changed onto adult burns when he was 13 months old.  I do as you do and mix it in with a little gravy and a few veg or a tiny bit of wet meat for one of the meals (he is still on two meals a day and approximately 140gms daily amount of food). I wouldnt take to heart too much what people tell you, go by what burns recommend, they have a helpline number on the bag if you need to speak to a nutrition advisor.  I forgot to mention hes a spaniel and weighs 11.8kgs and he is now 14 months old so been on ault for just a month and everything seems fine :o)

Hi Ceejay -

I think the first thing for you to sort out is whether you want to feed dry or wet food. 

If you want to feed dry, then feed dry and stop adding tasty things to it, because your dog is then unlikely to want it when there is nothing added. 

Just put the bowl down, and if it's not eaten in 10 minutes, take it away and offer it again for the next meal - feed nothing till the next meal.

I'd suggest that you feed a Junior food (not a Puppy one, but for dogs between Puppy and Adult).  Unfortunately Burns don't make a Junior food.  I'd advise James Wellbeloved, which is similar to Burns in terms of high quality ingredients with no additives, and they also make a Junior food which is for dogs from 6-12 mnths.  See www.wellbeloved.co.uk  It comes in turkey, fish, duck or lamb and the Junior food is available in all those flavours.  (I've heard that a lot of dogs like the duck one!)

If you want to feed wet, then Nature Diet is an excellent food and your dog can now eat the Nature Diet adult range.

There's nothing wrong with mixing some James Wellbeloved into the Nature Diet, if you want to do that all the time.  But don't do it once or twice to "make" your dog want to eat it or you'll find your dog will then refuse the food unless it has ND added.

HI Ceejay - give Burns an email or call - I did that yesterday as I wasn't sure when to switch to adult from mini bites for my 5 month Gordon Setter.  They replied this morning so super fast service.  And it was a really informative email too.  So get in touch and see what they say.

Rachel

Everyone I've spoken to recommends weaning dogs onto adult food over a period of 10 days from 12 months (small and medium sized dogs) or 18 months (large and giant breeds)

:)

I can see no real reason for puppy food. 1. It has only been available for about 15 -20 years, there was no real problem before that. 2. In a natural environment a dog would go straight from mothers milk through regurgitated to raw meat - no special high protein foods. Infact I believe that in some instances puppy food makes the dogs grow too fast and is detrimental to the joints.    

Ditto Bluebell,there are far too many pet owners feeding puppy food to large breed dogs that have absolutely no idea :( But the real cracker is 'junior foods',what on earth is the point or reason Whoever came up with that one found marketing gold :rolleyes:

I agree, mine were on adult food from the day the came home, and what is wrong with adding tasty bits to dry food ? I couldnt think of anything worse than having to eat the same boring old biscuits day in day out :(

I would put your pup on Burns adult, dont change to JWB its nothing like it in quality.

Well in theory you are unbalancing the complete diet - but then you would have to believe that it was a complete diet in the first place!

I have to say that I often add bits that I think my dog needs, in the belief that I probably know better if, when and how much suplements my dog requires. I fail to see the point in some of these dog foods where they have added the latest 'fad' suplement to sell more bags of food.

Call me synical but having done such a great marketing job on puppy food, they found that lots of dogs were growing too quickly and vets were telling owners to switch early. So they just had to come up with another product to fill the gap :rolleyes:

The other one I think they should be held accountable for is the 'daily requirement' whilst I understand that especially new owners feel the need for some guidance, most state far too much and hence there are a lot of fat dogs out there.

Thanks for the points and advice.  The breeder was actually giving dry food with a little wet.  I dropped the wet and just fed dry - after all it is supposed to be a complete food.  After putting my pup in kennels the first time I was adviced that I was underfeeding.  I ended up giving far more than double the amount recommended and asked advice from this board.  Hence I started mixing the food.  I think that she would rather the wet food and the nature diet sachets seem to be easy to give and she enjoys them.  I did wonder about the 'junior' label - there was no indication what junior meant. 

Complete dog foods were brought out for owners convenience so they no longer had to rely on giving meat and veggies to their pooches.  Our pup is on a complete adult food with a bit of wet puppy food mixed in but only because she decided at 6 months old that she wanted the adults food and not her own!  I have been undecided as to whether or not to wean her back onto puppy food but after reading this will just stick with the adult stuff :)

I agree that dried foods are certainly convenient and do use them myself as I find BARF a bit of a faff, especially when Im busy. However I also recognise that they are convenient for the dog food industry, in that it is easy to disguise cheep or unpalitable ingredients and give them a very long shelf life. I also have issues with the way in which it is produced, which in most cases changes some of the key ingredients, these are then topped up at the end of processing and it took me ages to discover that this was what one of my dogs was allergic to! As with most things there are good and bad ones, sadly the difference is not always easy to spot.

I phoned Burns nutrition helpline today.  My local petshop can't get nature diet on a regular supply.  I really want to support my local shop not go to pets at home superstore.  I was told that my dog has probabally done the important growing stage and it is correct to put her onto adult.  I have bought a bag of chicken which she said was best to go on after minibites.  I still have a few sachets to use so I will slowly try phasing these out to use them up.  However it seems to be unnatural to feed dry food - the wet looks and smells so much better.  Isn't smell important to dogs?  I fed Burns to my English setter because he had skin problems - which really did clear up using Burns!  I haven't got time to do the fresh food thing - I am looking after my son's parrot while he is away for Christmas - it is a headache trying to give him variety.  Mind you it is bad enough trying to decide what to cook for tea ourselves!!!!

Complete dog foods were brought out for owners convenience so they no longer had to rely on giving meat and veggies to their pooches.

Where did you hear this one peewee :)

I and many others have always been under the impression pet food was thought up because the feed/grain mills,abboitoirs etc. etc. found a dumping post for their waste products,they found they could make a pretty packet from the waste or not up to par produce that they would normally throw away,and the clever dicks who thought up pet food found an avenue paved with gold.The 'convenience' and 'complete' was thought up afterward by the pet food manufacture's,this afterall as been their slogan from day 1 ;)

Dont get me wrong,i feed commercial food too but i am,by  no means under any impression that it is more than it really is,hence why i also feed fresh meat,bones etc. on a daily basis aswell :)

I stated it because if companies didn't think there was a market for it they would never have started to produce it   Manufactured dog food is of course very convenient and in this day and age most people are all for convenience.  I personally think its wrong to slate all manufactured dog food as some of the companies spend a lot of money, time and effort researching their formula's to keep the majority of dogs fit and healthy and I'm all for that :)  I know a lot of it is complete crap but its the dog owners who choose to feed their dogs on this stuff and if they didn't then it wouldn't be produced