Hi Everyone,

I was just wondering if any of you feed your dogs Arden Grange as I would be interested to hear what your thoughts are about this food good or bad? I had ours on Burns for about 18 months and it seemed ok, although reading through previous posts people found their dogs lost weight..I found this also.

I raised one litter on Burns and had nothing but upset tummies on and off the whole time, the pups werent a good body weight compared to previous litters because of this. Someone told me how good Orijen was so I changed to this food after reading all the info on the website which allayed my fears about the high levels of protein in their food. The food itself looks as smells amazing and our hounds love it, but the side effects I have noticed after being on this food for 2 months now is that, some of our hounds have had gulping /swollowing episodes which we never had before this..obviously my concern was they would take in too much air while doing this and bloat? Having lost a dog from this only a few months before it makes you paranoid!!(other than this all our dogs are in good health so I ruled out that it was any kind of bug or infection causing this) so  I spoke to one of the top nutirtionists at Orijen telling her what had happend. she couldnt understand why their food would cause this and said that because their food didnt have any grains in it, it doesnt swell up like other foods do so is safer for dogs that are prone to bloat..I had also expressed my concerns when first looking into this food that they used citric acid to preserve their meat range, she said that this is the only preservative that is used for meat ranges as rosemary oil only works on fish products and she assured me the citric acid was only in very small amounts..none the less I decided to go for their fish range as this was preserved with Rosemary oil instead.  

A month into this food, a few of our hounds have again lost weight while others have put weight on..I have been following the feeding instructions for this food so everyone is getting the correct amounts. I also give tripe with their biscuit which the nutritionist at orijen said was fine. one other thing I have  noticed is that all of our hounds have developed an odour and their breath has become smelly. our hounds are bathed regularly and get their teeth cleaned every day so they shouldnt smell? but since going onto this food they do, other than that they are  all in excellent health. Has anyone else exprienced any problems with Orijen..I am not 100% happy with it to be honest and even with my breeders discount its so expensive, although nothing is too much for my dogs.

Because of my uncertainty about this food I have been looking into Arden Grange, I dont want to go back to Burns as I feel their meat content is minimal around 18/20% and a wacking 63%  brown rice. Were as the Arden Grange seems to be a mixture of both good quality meat a higher content than most other foods and only a small amount of brown rice, I think it was something like 15% possibly less? and suprise, suprise they use rosemary oil to preserve all of their range including the meat one. so was the lady at Orijen telling me porky pies?? I would be interested to hear everyones thoughts on this as I want to ensure my dogs are on the best diet possible for them. Thanks 

Hi i've been switching between the 2 brands tbh myself.

My boys do really well on Orijen, but it does get too much on some months for me to be able to afford it, especially on the run up to Xmas. The protein levels do not worry me in the slightest due to the way its balanced out.

The boys are now on Arden Grange and again are doing well on it, there are no side effects either. Have no idea about the preservative, will go and have a look in a mo at the ingredients. Or call them tomorrow when they are open.

I like both foods and would recommend both of them to other owners.
I also add in tripe to their dinners and also we have times when we go through a BARF diet and the kibble is added as a topper.

ETA both my bags are showing preserved with tocopherols and rosemary. Both are meat Large breed puppy and the other large breed adult.

I guess you have to bear in mind that not all dogs are going to do well on one brand of food. You may well find that one of your boys doesn't for some reason do well on Orijen, so would need to be on something different. And vice versa with AG.

Thanks for that SueJaw...

Maybe you could try feeding more raw foods and as suejaw says use the Orijen more as a topper. That is what I've been doing and have found feeding 6 dogs mainly raw food I only use 1 x 13.5kg bag of Orijen a month. I firmly believe dogs are predominantly meat eaters and should be fed meat as the main ingredient of any diet, raw or complete. If you've got freezer space feeding raw is relatively cheap.

> Arden Grange seems to be a mixture of both good quality meat a higher content than most other foods and only a small amount of brown rice, I think it was something like 15% possibly less? and suprise, suprise they use rosemary oil to preserve all of their range including the meat one.

Those are the reasons I chose the food, good level of ingredients compared to competitors and a reasonable price.

Re rosemary extract I think it is probably because there is some fish in their meat ranges.

I have always got on well with this food and have been using it alone or in conjunction with other foods (have won a fair bit of Royal Canin) for 10 years now.

My dogs often get other foods, including raw, but sometimes they are on AG for months and are very god on it.  I tend to use the Lamb one as a staple.

due to costs involved I use orijen for my 22 month old BC bitch because it is the only complete she seems to enjoy and I love the content of it.  My two boys, WSD and sprollie, tend to be on a mixture as they love everything you put in front of them and do well on practically anything - at the moment it is burns as I got some on a special offer but we will go back to arden grange performance after we have finished that.  I do prefer the meat content in arden grange but when money is tight I cant always feed what I want to.

Thank you everyone for your comments all very good sound advice as usual. I think I might give the AG a try for a couple of months once my Orijen has run out then and see how we go on that..cheers.  

I used to feed Orijen and didn't have any problems when feeding it. I have since changed over to Fish4Dogs (www.fish4dogs.com) and am really impressed with the food. I use both the cod and salmon varieties, both varieties are equally well received. I pick it up at shows where it is normally £20 for a 13kg bag, a huge saving on Orijen. We all want to do our best for our dogs and I would never let price alone influence my decision, but I have to say that I am every bit as impressed with the Fish4Dogs as I was with the Orijen.

I have never fed Arden Grange, so cannot really comment, but from what others have said, it is a food that I would consider trying if ever I had to look for an alternative food.

I have never fed arden grange but am very pleased with my boy on orijen.  I have found his poos to be much better (smaller and smell less) and that he has far less of a doggy odour.  His coat looks amazing too.  As has been said on here many times before, there is no best food, only what is best for your dog and it sounds like orijen isn't best for them.

Hi everyone,
I have not fed or feed either, but something that caught my eye was that you were told that a food wouldnt bulk up because it has no grains in it(?). I thought all dry food was low in moisture so would bulk up inside the dog? I feed a dry grain free food and i know it bulks up when water is put on it (due to someother topic a while ago). Sorry if i'm missing the point of the original post. The gulping may also be something as simple as if they are liking the food - my dogs 'inhale' their food when they are hungry!!!

Stitch, if you are refering to the thread a while ago about people soaking their different types of kibble to see if/how quickly they expanded, I don't recall that orijen expanded much.  If you aren't then I'm off up the wrong dreel but don't remember it expanding much and I tested it.

I have soaked a couple of orijen biscuits just to see if it did swell up at all, as the nutritionist I spoke to said that it did not at all due to having no grain? I soaked it for about an hour and the biscuit stayed the same size and was still firm, unlike other biscuits that seem to double in size.

ive fed arden grange for about 13 years and have been very happy with the results.I only have pet dogs,and have a youngster.I wanted the best food I could afford,Ive had no problems with this.Good luck!

I have an adult on Orijen fish. She loved Bakers(!) but it made her itchy & since switching to Orijen she's been fine.
I reared a litter last year on Orijen & they've done great on it. Four years ago I had a litter on Arden Grange & found it gave them dire rears unless measured out exactly. My adults did ok on it though.

cheeky cow- yes - that was the thread lol- i'm glad someone else remembered it!!!

Thanks everyone, I was intrested to read the post about pups having the runs on Arden Grange also? Any more thoughts on that would be helpful too as we are planning a litter for this spring (not advertising admin) but dont want to go through what we did with Burns last time, back and forth to the vets, lots of pro kolin, chicken and rice etc..etc..one other thing I did see on the AG website was they have stopped doing puppy packs, which is a bit mean? They just do a leafet or something, but are still doing kitten packs?? I have to say I couldnt fault the Burns puppy packs they were incredible, there was just so much info for the new puppy owner. Has anyone had puppy packs from  Orijen at all are they good?

Have never had the runs on AG, and have always allowed pups to feed to appetite, with bitch clearing up excess.

I do feed my pups the food well soaked and add a Goats milk based Puppy milk, up 1/4 pint per pup, increasing the solids gradually and not feeding any dry until 6 weeks when they get a bit dry in a bowl over night, as well as four meals of it soaked (but only cold water by then).

They will also be getting a variety of other suitable food stuffs (other than tinned) from 4 weeks of age so they can readily adapt to whatever kind of feeding the new owners choose.

The only food I had serious problems with loosness in bitch and pups was the Pedigree Proffesional after they got rid of the Advance range.

I put the dire rears down to being too heavy handed with the puppy food. Was under control when weighed out to the last pellet. The Orijen puppy pack just consisted of a leaflet & small bag of food. The best puppy packs used to be Eukanuba's (bowl, food, clicker, booklet, plastic lidded container). Not endorsing the food though!

Barbara i know you are a fan of AG so thought you would be able to answer my question please.
My pup GR is 5months and  on puppy juniour AG and i was thinking of putting her on AG lamb and rice now....do you think she is old enough or should i keep to pup version. I was thinking of dropping the protien levels more than anything.
Thanks in advance.

My friend works at AG and i asked her about feeding Large breed puppy/junior to my boy and what age to change to Adult food. Their suggestion is around 18 months, when they stop being a junior. My friend has the same breed as me who works for them.
I would call them up and ask them, they are in the office tomorrow if they have managed to get in, very icy that road and not always gritted!! :-)

Also be guided by the breeder if they feed a food which is similar or the same as to what they do with their lines.

If the pup is on the plump side then I would be Happy to put on the lamb and Rice, but if it is one with hollow legs or a fussy one then I would stick to the puppy a while yet.  I went for a period of half and half with current youngster.

Ok thats lovely thanks,i will stick to the junior for now then,as she is all legs at the moment and growing fast....then try the half and half at later age. Thanks again.

Thanks suejaw, i am going to stick with the junior for now and change later...i will call them then.

> A month into this food, a few of our hounds have again lost weight while others have put weight on..I have been following the feeding instructions for this food so everyone is getting the correct amounts

I can't comment on either of the foods as I have not used them, but the quantities recomended on any packet are just a guideline and should be adjusted for each dogs individual requirements. I would think that whatever food you use, if giving all the dogs the exact amount it says on the packet, you will find the same problem (some dogs being thinner than others).
I wouldn't personally switch brands of food to increase the dogs weight unless I first increased the amount fed at each meal and found it still wasn't enough to maintain a good body weight.
You have said you have some other problems with this food (smelly breath etc.), so i can see why you would want to change, but keep in mind whatever food you switch to, amounts need adjusting to suit each dog individually, using the packet guidelines as a starting point :)

> The food itself looks as smells amazing and our hounds love it, but the side effects I have noticed after being on this food for 2 months now is that, some of our hounds have had gulping /swollowing episodes which we never had before this..

Is this because they like it so much?  I have one that as a puppy would sometimes speed eat then have an alarming gulping, sneezing, choking episode, before oiking the last mouthful back up for another go.  Nice!  There are things you can do to slow their eating down - would that help?

Mine are now raw fed but used to be on AG Lamb and Rice.  In fact this is still my back up food so I always keep a bag in.  My two love it and I've never had problems with smells or bad breath.  I have no experience of Orijen for comparison but could it simply be the fish food smell you are noticing?  Incidentally mine loved the AG Salmon and Rice but wouldn't touch the fish based Challenge food.  Shame as I really liked the sound of this one.  I didn't feed the fish foods regularly enough to notice a change in doggy odour - I just bought the occasional small bag for variety.

With regards to volume I had one dog on more than AG recommend, and the other on less.  Depends on the dog, their activity levels, and how they use their food. HTH :)

Thanks mastiflower & dogs a babe for your posts, although I follow the feeding guidelines I do adjust to some degree depending on the dog size & sex etc.. I havent had anymore problems with the gulping on Orijen, it was really only in the first week they were on it. I guess I will never know if it was related to this food or something else completely? None of my hounds are greedy eaters really, just normal so I dont think it was a case of them just eating too fast..bit of a mystery that one. From what everyone has said about AG it seems a really good food so think I might give it a try...and see how it goes. But I will certainly consider using Orijen to perhaps raise any future litters as from what I have read on this thread pups seem to do very well on it..thanks everyone. 

My last litter, 9 puppies,  were on Arden Grange weaning puppy and they all had the runs, as soon as I took then off this food all of them were 100% OK, I will never use the AG Weaning puppy again. The normal puppy food seems OK but it is probably due to the high 'maize' content in the WP.

Hi Moomins, I have a 6mths old Cocker spaniel on AG and she does really well on it. Have tried a few different foods with her as she had a bit of an upset tummy but AG really seems to suit her and she looks great on it too, never tried Orijen but have heard its good. I dont have puppies but I'm definitely an AG fan, I had to email them once to ask them something and the customer care I received from them was fantastic.

I have never used the weaning food that is only for pups to 2 months, only the puppy/junior of the AG prestige for puppies and Dams

All my dogs have been on Arden Grange and the Puppy Junior and Adult Lge Breed suited them fine with no problems. I only had problems (big time) with the weaning puppy, having said that the food I changed the puppies to when they were having diarrhea was the Puppy AG (rice based not corn based?) and they all thrived on that. My next litter, if I use AG I will put them straight on to the AG Puppy like I did with previous litters.

Although I liked Orijen a lot the cost was just too high for us to keep up with 7 dogs to feed, plus they have raised the price this Jan and stopped the 20kg breeder bags so for us it just wasnt financially viable. I changed over to Arden Grange a week or two ago now, as from what everyone has said about the adult food anyway it seems a good quality food. I didnt want to compramise on the quality of food just because of price. I have had no problems with this food everyone seems to like it a lot and poo's are good etc..but I think reading through the posts I may well use Orijen for any litters.

Just wondered what the price of the Fish Origen is on the breeders bags deal anyone know?

Thanks

Hi, Sorry haven't read all the posts, so apologies if repeating.  I used to feed my crowd Burns, and was very happy with it too, but the number of dogs and the costs involved meant a change. I found my youngsters dropped weight from puppy to adult feeding, which would have meant an increase in food ... more expense.  We swopped to Arden Grange. They liked it, I liked it, in terms of health (they were incredibly healthy on Burns will excellent coats) there was no difference at all.  Poos were still lovely ... we like firm and kickable - but not rock solid ;-)
We were on the Performance.  They do good rates if you join their breeder club - you either need to be a breeder (!) or you can join if you have 3 (I think) dogs or more that you compete with or show.  We're not on AG now, just 'cause the prices increased and I had to get delivered as no local stockists.  So if going from Burns to AG I don't think you'll have a problem.
Not got a clue about Orijen though.

Edit:  Ooops, ok, should have read your last post ... hope you'll be happy with your AG choice, think you probably will be :-D

Hi Blue,

The orijen fish 6 is about £55 for a 13.5kg bag (they dont do 15kg bags) that was with the breeder rate if I recall, for pet owners it was about £58. Since changing to AG and joining there breeder scheme, they offer the Lamb and Rice 15kg bag (for breeders only) for £28 its normally about £33 I think so very good and I like this food, its been great everyone loves it poo's great so I am very happy with it so far.

I have always managed to buy AG cheaper on the internet than through the breeders' scheme. Feedem have the 15kg L&R for £25.25 and delivery is free if you buy two bags. I expect others will come up with even cheaper ones!

M.

Hi Lily Mc, do you know if the price for L&R on Feedem is normally this low? Tis a good price bearing in mind there's no P&P to pay. My crowd used to be on the performance, but they're currently on a L&R but not AG make. Just wondering if this was a 'special' or not. Thanks

No idea how long it will last, but it has been that price for .... ooh, ages. Certainly well over 6 months.

M.

Ta, didn't want to get too excited if it was a special offer type price :-D

Vet uk have an offer of £23.96 15kg lamb and rice plus delivery.

Thanks. Knew the bag size as did use it a while back but stopped when suoply issues started.

I generally find pups who have the runs are being overfed of eating it's share quicker so pinching siblings shares.

I can never get the fish and potato cheaper than the AG breeders deal the breeders discount is about £10 a bag off. 

Vet uk is £23.96 a bag  of Lamb and Rice (offer price)  spend over £39.00 del free,but you have to be in to sign for it which makes it hard when you are in and out with dogs.I have tried quite a few foods over the years but have used AG for years now and will stick to it regardless of price.

Have you spoke to Chris at UK pet foods?   http://www.ukpetfood.com/  I find him/them very good with their prices.

I was just chatting to him about my Wafcol order today( been a gem helping me with my Wafcol) Not sure of prices but he has some promotions starting on Monday morning , I think Harringtons is one that is coming on at a good price. Never used it but I remember someone on here saying they used it so thought I would share the info :-)

I have used Arden Grange Weaning/Puppy for my last two litters of Border Terriers, and have been most impressed with it. However for my youngsters and adult dogs I use Fish4Dogs which they adore. I normally buy at Shows where both brands are cheaper than in pet shops. Fish4Dogs is also sold for working dogs which is VAT free. The composition is the same. I have looked at Orijen, but consider it too expensive,and I cannot fault the growth of my dogs on their present foods.

To do a proper comparison of all the innumerable dog foods would, in my opinion, be impossible, as it would involve a very large number of dogs (viz; clinical trials in humans)

if you are looking at this from a litter point of view either me or my friends have had experience of all three. My friend bought a BC pup that was reared on burns and had nothing but tummy trouble.  Another friend had a pup brought up on orijen but found as soon as she gave meat treats she ended up with bad runny poos - my youngster was brought up on AG puppy food and did brilliant on it but didnt change to adult well at all and was on orijen for quite a while but due to cost etc I have swopped to natures harvest that she is doing just as well on and looking great on.

but you have to be in to sign for it

If you have somewhere safe your goods can be left, ie outside cupboard, or neighbour, there is a space to leave a note when making an order from vetuk :-)

Oh and I beleive it is £15 minimum order for free delivery :-)

I'm weaning 5 weeks old ones on AG Weanning at the moment. Perfect little poos! :) Very happy with it.                                     

>but you have to be in to sign for it which makes it hard when you are in and out with dogs.

Hi S, VetUK have been using a new delivery company and they do need to 'collect' a signature.  However, they told me that as long as I was happy for my parcel to be left that they will accept a signed note.  I left my authorising note and signature in an envelope attached to my front door when I went out for a walk.  The driver was just leaving when I got back and he said it was fine to do that any time I wasn't going to be home.

I feed mostly raw now but always keep a bag of AG in.  VetUK is usually the cheapest for L&R and I buy my wild bird seed and fat balls from them too.

Both my dogs are on AG Lamb and Rice. One of my dogs has a sensitive stomach but since being on this food he's been much better! I am interested to read people's experiences on the weaning food as I was planning to wean my next litter on it. Is the puppy food preferable to wean onto, and have mum eating it too? Am interested to hear the high maise content of the weaning as opposed to rice in the puppy.

I've never paid more than £25 per sack with free delivery (usually have to buy 2 sacks for this). I tend to have to shop around, but think for this price it is a brilliant food!

I'm in their breeder club, and have joined so that I can purchase larger sacks of puppy when the time comes and also be able to purchase their puppy sample sacks (at cost price). I can't purchase the Lamb and Rice cheaper through them but feel it's worthwhile being a member.

Would just add that when I phoned our local distributor (for breeder sacks) who also runs a kennel, he said he has always fed all dogs boarded with him on AG, regardless of what they are normally fed, and has lost count of the number of owners who comment how great their dogs look when they come to pick them up. He has never had any trouble with the food, and believes it is one of the best on the market.

I certainly think it's the best food I've fed my dogs in 18 years of dog ownership, and seems to mix really well with the odd raw treat or two...

I also have a friend who feeds Origen, and swears by it, but of course it's that more expensive too....