Hi,

At Border Union yesterday I spoke with the guy at the Holistic Pets stand. He is John Burns' (Burns dog food) brother and he used to work for his Burns. He sells two different feeds Robbies and Luath's.

The ingredients in Robbies are...brown rice and pearl rice,chicken,green beans,oats,spinach,carrots,chicken oil,seaweed,sunflower oil,chicken liver,oregano,sage,parsley,thyme,green tea,chicory and vitamins and minerals. THis feed has to be soaked in hot water prior to feeding to soften the rice etc and is nice to look at. The price is a bit sore though at £46 for 10kg.

The ingredients in Luath's are.....brown rice,chicken,millet,oats,chicken fat,peas,carrots,spinach,spirulina,seaweed,oregano,green tea,parsley,vitamins and minerals. This one sells for £35 for £15kg.

What do you think??

Thanks

Personally I wouldn't use them, they don't start with a meat meal or a meat, the food is mostly made up of grains :( I read I think on here that rice has to boiled to basically a mush for the dogs to be able to digest it, so why the need tp soften the rice ... If you have to add hot water then if the dog does not eat it all then the food has to be thrown away.

I dont like them either,they are mainly rice and hearbs and i think i remember some meat in there .As dollface said dog foods have to start with a meat meal or meat,not a grain :rolleyes:

What is it with these Burns guys and rice???They must have a share in a grain factory somewhere ;) :rolleyes: They seem to think this is the main thing our little carnivors need

Why do they have to start with meat and not grain?  That does not suit every dog infact I have not yet owned a dog that did better on a meat based food, caused horrible constipation for mine.

>I have not yet owned a dog that did better on a meat based food,<

I have never met,owned or heard of a dog that thrived to their full potential on a grain based diet,it just goes against millions of years of evolution Dogs are meant to eat a meat based diet,this is fact,not opinion.

Isabel i would be very interested to hear what meat based diets you have tried? :) Because,as far as i'm aware there are only maybe 1 or 2 dry foods and the rest are wet.

My dogs are a product of the most recent milleniums eating the food that humans give them, based on their own mainly.
Perhaps I should have said more meat based foods, although I have tried meat and biscuits in the past but, whatever, it needed more grains to get them running smoothly in particular Chappie was a life saver for my terrier :) a grainy food that countless people have found extremely beneficial so not sure how the meat based diet idea is fact rather than opinion.  As ever I think it depends on the dog entirely.

Hmm, it's strange to me how this guy used to work for Burns and is now selling 2 foods which are v similar to Burns in terms of ingredients....  Sounds like it's the old story of guy falls out with brother, sets up rival company, or something like that.

I really can't see much difference between the foods, or much difference between either of these foods and Burns.  Like others here have said, rice is the first ingredient.  I definitely don't see why the Robbies one is a whole £10 more, and that's for TEN kgs - the Luaths one (and Burns too, incidentally) is £10 less, for 15 kgs!!!

That is what happened. George Burns wanted to pursue his "own thing" within the Burns company but his brother,John, said that he should give 100% to Burns as it was. There has been a lot of trouble,allegedly, between them and George was saying negative things about Burns dog food. 

I bought some samples out of curiosity but haven't used them yet but my friend tried her dogs on them yesterday and they were all very sick overnight. They brought up a lot of the greenery,beans and carrots. I reckon I will just give trying my bunch on it a miss.

I cannot understand the price difference either. He raved about spirolini being wonderful but it isn't listed as an ingredient in the more expensive food

>He raved about spirolini being wonderful<

"Spirolini" LOL :D Sounds like some exotic pasta :D :D
It's spirulina and it is a wonderful supplement and has very many healthful properties.

oops sorry:rolleyes:

I know my fish like spirulina... its a very popular ingredient in premium quality fish foods, especially marine fish.

I think my dogs do FAR better on a predominantly meat based diet, supplemented with fish and vegetables.

On a cereal based diet they all smell, they all have the squits, two of them bounce off teh walls and are horrid to live with and they all f@rt like you wouldnt believe.

Constipation on a meat based diet is caused by too much meat and not enough veg or fat. Not by lack of cereals!

Em

That may be your experience it certainly isn't mine :) what suits one dog will not suit another.  I think we should not forget that the vast majority of dogs in the UK eat grains in their diet and yet we have a healthy population with a life expectancy as good as it has ever been.

Mmmm

But id love to know, and obviously cant, how many dogs pre dried/tinned dog food days smelled bad (liek the dogs in the pedigree smell thread), had itchy skin, colitis, food allergies, varied cancers, repeat dental work, anal gland problems....

Dogs can and will survive on the most dire of foods, THAT is what they have evolved to do (rather than as some people will believe, they have evolved to eat processed/dried/canned grain based foods).... so its no surprise that many will do ok on these foods, some will do very well.

But i personally believe most dogs can do better (and mine DO do better) wtihout grains.

Longevity is not the only sign of healthy dogs, and i do wonder just HOW many health problems like those i mentioned above people put down to 'dogs are like that' these days, when really they shouldnt be!

Em

I think pre-tinned foods, at least, is before you or I can remember  :) but I don't think we can suppose there were not problems with skin, teeth and anal glands before that as these subjects are covered in many of my collection of old dog books and of course cancer is a disease very much associated with old age so to be expected to be an increased cause of mortality when life expectancy itself increases.
You are entitled to believe grains are not good for your dog but those of us that feed them and do not see these problems and infact have found them useful in sorting things like anal gland emptying can continue to know they are suited their dogs :)

Before commercial tinned foods (long before my day!) dogs were fed table scraps or 'pudding' - meat was considered dangerous (see article.

Hi,

I think actually a lot of the dry dog foods that start with meat or meat meal as the highest content are mis-leading any way it's just the grains are listed individually so it looks as though meat is the primary ingredient when that isn't actually the case.

Karen

This is why I like the % of the meat meal to be listed.  With Arden Grange Classic Lamb and rice it tells you there is a minimum 27% Lamb meal (there are other animal ingredients too).

Yep one of the foods i feed states 40% chicken meal. But i know what you mean karen,it's called ingredient splitting :(