Hi. Does anyone feed this food and is it any good? I was looking at it today in Pets at Home - (little foil trays). I've been adding a small spoonful of wet food to Harvey's JWB and he's loving it........tried natures menu but it absolutley stinks!!! It makes Harvey's breath stink and actually makes me heave, nature diet wasn't available - supply is so unreliable at the moment, so can anyone suggest a wet food?

Thanks

Hayley

I too looked at denes tin food the other day (at PAH aswell! ) and noticed the main ingreedient was cereal!  So possibly not something if you are using ND for it's lack of cereals!

my usual petshop is having problems getting naturediet, apparantly they are moving warehouse or something.  I feed my kitten on denes, it was the most natural wet kitten food I could get hold of, I was thinking of changing my cat onto it.  I would guess that its quite expensive to feed completely but if you are just adding a bit I would have thought its ok.

Another food to try is forthglade which is similar to naturediet, my boys love it :)

Denes has lots of cereals in it, and I believe also states "Meat and animal derivatives" - what meat would that be, then?  Wouldn't you like to know what you were feeding your dog?

The Nature Diet supply is stabilising now - you should be able to get hold of some - give them a call.

Denes has lots of cereals in it, and I believe also states "Meat and animal derivatives" - what meat would that be, then?

Doubt it says that. I don't have any dog food of theirs at home at the moment (and their website has been down for months) but I just checked a can of Rabbit & Chicken adult cat food, and it states (and it is listed as the first ingredient which means it has to be the majority one) "Meat and animal derivatives -min 4% chicken, min 4 % rabbit". So they do say what it is.

Not really, Goldmali - 4% plus 4% made 8%, last time I checked.  That means that 92% of the meat and animal derivatives are NOT chicken or rabbit, but other "anonymous" meats...

Denes was really the first food to attempt to be more natural than others, it's been around for many years. I feed my cats on it and have seen a remarkable difference since I started rearing kittens on it -in my opinon there is no better cat food than the canned versions. However when I have tried it with pups (the dog version, of course!!) they have always got stomach upsets from it.

8% meat   Cats should have a minimum of 80% meat!

So you think a mouse would be 80 % meat do you Hailey?! :rolleyes: You're also missing the point COMPLETELY. ANY canned food will be around 75 % WATER! You don't read the label like that.......

Edited to add: Even the human body is 60 % water (just Googled it).

Sorry,i should have stated on a "dry matter" basis.

If you feed a cat at home for example,it should be 80% meat(irrespective of water content) and the other 20% should of 'other' :) 8% is completely unnacceptable for a carnivour IMO.

You're still totally misunderstanding how to read a food label Hailey. If you used your logic, then you would not even get 80 % meat even if you fed NOTHING but raw meat straight off the animal.

If you feed a cat at home for example,it should be 80% meat(irrespective of water content)

Oh and a cat's diet in the wild consists of animals that actually are 75 % water, so no, it most definitley should NOT be 80 % meat irrespective of water content -you'd end up with a dead cat due to dehydration......

If you read what I said before you will find that the MAIN ingredient in Denes is the meat content -and certainly in the US (can't find any info on the UK laws and give up searching now due to how late it is) any cat food has to be at least 95 % meat for it to be labelled as such as opposed to "flavoured" or "with" or similar.

Now who is not interpreting labels correctly?  "Meat and animal derivatives -min 4% chicken, min 4 % rabbit" does not mean that the main ingredient is "meat" - animal flesh.   You could interpret the label to mean 8% protein-based ingredients, but a "derivative" is not what most of us call meat.  Derivatives could be sinew, intestines, undeveloped eggs, skin and so on.  Given Denes does not list the percentage of meat separately from the percentage of derivatives I suspect the ingredients lean heavily toward derivatives.  

There is nothing necessarily wrong with derivatives, but you still don't know whether the mix leans toward the more protein rich (meaning available protein) end of the scale (undigested eggs, heart, liver, tripe, etc.) or toward the cheaper and less digestible end of the derivative spectrum (sinew, skin and so on).

Stacey

Thank-you Stacey :) I had just about given up!

Personally if people feel it's ok to feed foods such as gusto,pedigree etc etc. than i'm afraid i cant put much stock in their nutritional knowledge.

I dont mean to sound snarky or nasty but i dont know any other way to put it! It doesnt take a genius to read the ingredients of these foods to know that they are pretty bad :(

And i know cost isnt everything,but there is NO WAY, Gusto, for example could use quality ingredients for the amount they sell their food for In these cases you definately get what you pay for :(

Genuinely not being picky or snide or anything here - but reading this forum a person gets the impression that 'small, firm poos' are a sign of a good diet.

I tried my lot on Gusto when we ran out of their usual food when I was away caring to my elderly mother, and 'small, firm poos' was definitely what they produced!

So are condition of stools a sign of good diet or not?

no no JG if there's something I've learn't then what the dog produces doesn't matter as long as teh ingreedients are correct ;)

I've fed pedigree with healthy coats, bright eye's, good skin (on a dog with skin problems) with firm poo's!  Then they "improved" the recipie and we had to change this dogs diet!

Can't believe I'm going to say this ...... but anyway

Not dogs I know but having had 3 children and seen many a poo close up I can honestly say that all given the same food doesn't necessarily mean that they produce poos with the same consistency.  People (and why not dogs?) have slightly different constitutions.

Cheryls thats exactly it! Each dog is different.  Some thrive on one food another can't live on at all!

I honestly find it very hard to fathom that a food with so many cereals and undigestable ingredients could produce small,firm poops. Perhaps your'e used to big cow pats

I've seen dogs poo at the park which look like they come out of a small horse! The owners whom i've spoken to about it all seem to think their dogs poops are 'normal'.One woman even needed 2 bags to pick up ONE of her dogs poops,she didnt see anything unusual about it.

For me,raw fed dogs produce the 'perfect' uniform poop which by i measure all others by,LOL :o (i feed both dry food and raw)

Ice queen are you sure your not confusing 'thrive' with 'survive'? :)

Well I think the solid poos my dogs give are normal but I don't look at other dog's poos TBH.  I'm not used to cow pats and I pick up poo's that are solid lumps that lift straight off the ground so....well I thought that was OK

>For me,raw fed dogs produce the 'perfect' uniform poop which by i measure all others by,LOL

That did make me laugh. I've never thought to compare poos, when I see them I just get cross they haven't been picked up.  Something I would say though when comparing poos, I've noticed that poos in my garden that haven't been picked up for a few days when it's been raining swell/loosen up. 

>Perhaps your'e used to big cow pats

No, they usually produce poos which are firm enough to pick up easily! The ones Gusto provided were more like sheep droppings - or marbles.

JG it all depends on whether water is added or not to the Gusto! I have one dog that is physically unable to eat the food if soaked all the way through, so his is only sligihtly softened, wheras all the other dogs have theirs totally soaked. The one that has virtually no water with it has VERY dry poo, the others do not.

Oh yes, Marianne, I always put plenty of water with the dogs' dry food - about half a cup of water to a cup of kibble.

Weird JG, LOL! In any event all mine have nice firm poo (but only the one with hardly no water added is dry, so that it actually falls to pieces when you pick it up) and there definitely isn't as much of it that I have seen some foods produce. Can't think of any examples, but a times I've won sacks of food as prizes at shows, match nights etc, and I tend to use it all up as  my Goldens don't get any problems if you switch food for a while (the Malis are a bit more sensitive) and I have noticed then that sometimes the volume increases an awful lot.

Drinking lots of water is supposed to aid digestion and prevent constipation.  The more water you drink the softer the poos will be in humans, isn't it the same for dogs?

Most water in the diet is absorbed in the large intestine into the bloodstream and passed out as urine. :)

.....but it also helps alleviate constipation.  Apart from not eating enough roughage an indicator of not drinking enough water is constipation but this is humans.  I wondered if it was similar for dogs because it would make sense that dogs on dry food who do not drink enough would produce harder poos than those on natural or tinned food.

But that doesn't explain why certain dry foods produce hard, crumbly poos when others don't, when the same amount of water is given with the food (to replace that which is removed in processing) and the dog has free access to fresh water at all times.

If your food is so great why on earth do you have to drown it in water Doesnt complete and balanced mean just that? :D

Goldmali perhaps your confusing Billinghurst with Lonsdale,you should know this,as they were both around when you fed your "supposed" raw diet :)

Not sure if you read my earlier question to you,i cant seem to find it anymore! I would really like to know what you fed your dogs and cats that made them so sick!

I also asked you on another thread if you could please list the ingredients to Gusto,as their site is continuously down,to which you replied you would.As yet you have ignored that request also.

Hailey, of course I add water to dry food - by definition it contains negligible amounts of water, and water is vital to ensure correct digestion. Suggesting that dogs fed dry food shouldn't be given water is just being silly! :rolleyes: It seems you've never read the instructions given by the manufacturers. ;) I also make water available when I feed 'wet' food (including raw meat) as it's so vital for life.

I asked you earlier if small, firm poos are considered indicative of a good diet or not - are you still trying to find out, or are you ignoring the question?

If your food is so great why on earth do you have to drown it in water confused Doesnt complete and balanced mean just that? :-D

SURELY Hailey you KNOW that dogs need WATER? And like I have said many a time, I would never feed dry food unsoaked to my dogs as it is dangerous.

Goldmali perhaps your confusing Billinghurst with Lonsdale,you should know this,as they were both around when you fed your "supposed" raw diet

Nope, Billinghurst without a doubt. And no, he was NOT around then. Check out his own website:
http://www.drianbillinghurst.com/discovering_barf.html He actually says he started working as a vet in 1976 and that it wasn't until several years later in 1984 than he came upon the idea of raw feeding. The vet in Sweden I refer to started her ideas before Billinghurst even was a vet. I first followed her feeding in 1982.

Anyway I can't rememebr now WHERE I read it, it may have been in English, it may have been in Swedish -but I also remeber reading he himself even admitted his first book was lacking in many ways.

Not sure if you read my earlier question to you,i cant seem to find it anymore!

What question?

I would really like to know what you fed your dogs and cats that made them so sick!

I can't remember exactly now, after all we are talking many years ago, but the whole idea was only natural stuff and no processed commercial food.

I also asked you on another thread if you could please list the ingredients to Gusto,as their site is continuously down,to which you replied you would.As yet you have ignored that request also.

I haven't ignored anything, I just forgot. I don't know about you but I don't just sit in front of the computer all day, I do things with my dogs :) and when a topic isn't amongst the ones on the first page of "Active topics" it's very easy to miss something.

However I also didn't see you mention anything whatsoever about my I believe common sense statement that what everyone should feed their pets is what SUITS them. Nobody should be bullied into believing they are doing something WRONG because they chose to buy commercial food, despite the fact that their animals are healthy and happy -and this is what you are guilty of I'm afraid. Scaremongering.

Everyone can have their own beliefs, but that doesn't mean they have to have everyone ELSE follow them. It's very narrow minded to not be able to see other viewpoints. I wouldn't dream of telling anyone that feeding raw is something they shouldn't do. As long as the dogs are healthy, that's all that matters. You could just as well argue that nobody should live where there are any cars in case the fumes make the dogs ill, or they should never be allowed near smokers, never be in a house where any cleaning agents are used, anything. In fact you might as well take it one step further and say dogs shouldn't be kept as pets at all unless they lived in the middle of nowhere, were kept for hunting and were fed raw foods only and kept away from everything modern and manufactured, as it isn't NATURAL to them. It's not natural to travel in cars, it's not natural to wear collars, it's not natural to not hunt and kill prey. But our pet dogs are just that these days, PETS, and they have adapted to a great many things that could never be considered to be natural to them, without it doing them any harm.

As if I should post the Gusto ingredients or not: I'm in two minds. After all, all you'll do with it is pull it to pieces and make rude comments about how people should never feed anything like it to their dogs. Why bother? Instead it might be better if I invited you to come and visit my dogs and tell me if you think they all seem healthy and happy with good bodies, good coats, good teeth etc. After all, that's the basis I decide upon what to feed or not.

Wow, Hailey.  You really know your *hit.  :-)

Jeangenie, who mentioned 'small, firm poo's'

Crap I gotta go to work :( Look forward to continuing this conversation with you all tonight :)

Luvhandles, if you do a search for 'small firm poos' you'll find many threads on the forum mentioning that they are the ideal. :)

Oh I see!! Well personally, I prefer a poo that is easy to pick up and doesn't stick to the floorAs far as quantity goes......if they've gotta go, they've gotta go!!

Personally if people feel it's ok to feed foods such as gusto,pedigree etc etc. than i'm afraid i cant put much stock in their nutritional knowledge.

I dont mean to sound snarky or nasty but i dont know any other way to put it! It doesnt take a genius to read the ingredients of these foods to know that they are pretty bad

I'm afraid you DO, though. Listen, I worked for years for a vet whose speciality was food and food allergies. She was like you. Only what she recommended was good enough, and NO commercial food should EVER be used, because ALL illnesses etc were caused by feeding commercial food. (She was WAY before her time as well, as this was in the early 1980's.) I believed her, and I fed my animals accordingly. Only natural. Know what? My dogs always had skin problems, my cats never gained weight, never had good coats etc. After 10 years of this I decided to do something drastically different -I vowed that next time I bought a puppy I would feed it on what the BREEDER recommended, and not what I had been taught was the only natural and correct way of feeding. So I got my puppy and she was fed on Pedigree.

That dog never had a day's illness in her life.

Seeing what this achieved, I took drastic action for my Golden Retriever that from 8 weeks of age had been fed like my vet recommended. He had skin problems, he was underweight, he had interdigital cysts, he had a lot of ear problems, you name it.  I switched him to a dry complete food. His problems disappeared and never came back for the rest of his life.

So since then I've fed all my dogs on dry food and since then they have all been extremely healthy -not counting HD in the old Golden and MVD in the old Cavalier, which of coruse is very much breed related and not caused by the food. My vet hardly knows my dogs.

With the cats, I had been showing for 7 years and never did anything much at all, just the odd CC here and there, which never added up to the magical 3. Judges often commented on my cats being too lean, and not having much coat for Persians.  In 1996 finally (4 years after I changed the dogs' feeding) I decided to try feeding them like others did -on dried food. (Well a mixture as I don't believe it is safe to feed dried only due to the water intake and cats won't eat soaked food.) The result was heavier cats, full coats, much better condition, and I quickly got my first titled cats.

I think the RESULTS is what have to matter. It's no good saying you SHOULD feed this or that. You shouldn't. You should feed what SUITS your animals, keeps them happy and healthy and in general good condition. It's as simple as that!

Only what she recommended was good enough,

I very rarely recommend foods,mainly coz there's not many decent ones TO recommend!

because ALL illnesses etc were caused by feeding commercial food.

Smart vet :) However i do not think ALL commercial foods cause illness,there are some top notch ones out there,except they havnt made it to our shores yet! :( But i do agree that the cheap and nasty foods that use BHA,BHT,ethoxiquin,derivatives,cereals up the wazoo,by-products,excess preservatives and sugars,rancid fat sprayed on to make them palatable etc etc etc,There's even a couple who use bakers cereals/yeast or something >OMG< . Contribute hugely to disease!
For example not many people know that cancer cells feed off of carbs,what are grains? Carbs,what do all of these foods contain excess amounts of,among others? Grains! Omitt the carbs/grains and you will literally starve those cancer cells! How many cancer dogs do you know of that are still fed grain heavy foods? I have heard of plenty,IMO feeding these foods to these dogs is only serving to speed up their death :(

Edited: Goldmali i would be interested to hear what you fed your dogs that made them so sick!

I did not realise you were such an oncology expert Exactly which cancers lives off carbs?

Ian Billinghurst
"When a dog eats any grain based diet,it is recievinga product containing about 70% carbs.Most of this is starch with a little bit od fibre.Unfortunately,starch,once cooked,has a reaction in the body not much different to feeding pure sugar. Such products fed over a long period of time are likely to cause any disease which can be attributed to a diet high in soluble carbs...particularly sugar diabetes and cancer"

Isabel look up cancer/carbs/dogs on the net,you will find tonns of stuff to support this,it is a fact,not opinion. As another member here on the boards says isabel,i wont be doing your leg work for you ;)

I did not realise you were such an oncology expert

No need to be an oncology expert,just a brain and an interest in the field :)

Ian Billinghurst

I thought he and his books were discredited years ago.

I thought he and his books were discredited years ago.

By whom? The commercial food manufacture's :D ;)

Moonmaiden i'm not sure why you posted that article other than grains/carbs are not found in anti-cancer diets,was that the point?

By whom? The commercial food manufacture's :-D ;-)

No actually by other people feeding raw..........

Sorry Hailey, if this was fact dogs with cancer would be treated in this manner, this is one maverick theory it is certainly not the concensus of the veterinary profession.  If you really did have an interest in the field you would know that different cancers feed on different things, generally present in the body anyway such as hormones, none of them have I ever heard discribed as feeding off of carbohydrates.

you would know that different cancers feed on different things,

Now your'e the oncology expert heh :rolleyes: Well please enlighten us with your vast knowledge on the subject :)

Like i said Gals look it up and you will find :)

You don't have to look very far or be an expert Hailey, the link MM has given you talks about the use of hormone suppressants, most lay people have heard of the commonly used cancer treatments and none of them seem to involve cutting out carbohydrates.

>For example not many people know that cancer cells feed off of carbs,what are grains? Carbs,what do all of these foods contain excess amounts of,among others? Grains! Omitt the carbs/grains and you will literally starve those cancer cells!

Hailey, why are we not told about this? As you're undoubtedly aware, cancer is cancer is cancer, whatever species it's found in. Humans eat enormous amounts of carbohydrates, and yet the races which eat the most carbs tend to have lower rates of cancers. All the bakeries should be put out of business immediately!

>cancer is cancer is cancer, whatever species it's found in

That's what I thought or else why would they be using animals for research?

http://www.zhion.com/anticancer_diet.html

http://www.luminet.net/~wenonah/new/antican.htm bear in mind that the chinese diet contain masses of carbohydrates

None of them say no carbohydrates

There is little bowel cancer found in races that include high carbohydrate & vegetable in take as their staple diet

In European high protein low carb diet lifestyle it is one of the most common cancers