Hi, have just acquired an 8 month old pug and also own a 2 year old labrador.  At the moment the lab is on Royal Canin, and the pug is on burns mini bites, which she only eats if mixed with meat.  Is there any really good dog food that anyone can recommend as the vet recommends Royal Canin and Hills, but I think most vets go down that line.  What do you feed yours and how are your dogs on it?  The pug has a sensitive stomach, and the lab has very yeasty ears.

Many thanks.

I raw feed with the occasional use of Orijen kibble.
If you don't want to go down the raw route, I'd certainly recommend Orijen, there are cheaper alternatives, CSJ is often recommended and is about half the price of Orijen.

I do the same Celli,and would reccomend either,or both.

Which CSJ would you recommend as I have a friend with the same questions as the OP, I feed Orijen but my friend needs a cheaper good food. She has looked at the CSJ website and is confused with the choices.

I'd recommend Orijen as well, although I predominantly feed raw. A cheaper, but very similar food is Acana, made by the same company that makes Orijen with different percentages of ingredients (Orijen is generally 80% meat/20% veg etc/0% grains whereas Acana is 60/40/0).

Which CSJ would you recommend as I have a friend with the same questions as the OP, I feed Orijen but my friend needs a cheaper good food. She has looked at the CSJ website and is confused with the choices.

I couldn't recommend which variety as I don't use it myself, however, if I was juggling cost against quality it would be the first one I'd try.

If your friend gives CSJ a phone, they have great customer service and would be more than happy to help her choose, I think they also send out samples.

I took my pug to the vet today, and the vet said I shouldn't feed raw meat unless I know what I am doing.  She said to do it properly you have to feed the whole carcass as in the wild, and not just a bit of chicken for example.  When you feed raw, what do you feed?

I'm currently feeding Natural Instinct, which is a complete, balanced diet (http://www.naturalinstinct.com/). In the past I have made up my own mixes and I do still feed some lamb ribs a couple of times a week (keeps their teeth beautifully clean).

I agree with your Vet in that you do need to know what you are doing, and the diet needs to be balanced and varied, which I fully understand. Raw feeding is really about balancing the diet over a period of time and not at every meal.

Your vets quite correct, and good for her for not just dismissing it out of hand.

With a bit of planning though it's not too difficult.
I feed a mixture of different meat's, beef, lamb, tripe ( my dog's not keen on chicken so i don't use that ) rabbit, venison, I try for a different meat source each day, to that I add approx 10 % offal ( liver or kidney ) and 10% bone, which can be whole or ground, or even baked and crushed egg shell. Some people add veg every day, I don't, I just use leftovers from my own meals a couple of times a week. I also feed Salmon body oil and some cottage cheese.
If you have a look through the feeding section there will be loads of threads on raw feeding.
There are raw food suppliers who will deliver to your door, depending on who you use, it can work out a good bit cheaper than regular feeding for some, it did for me.

Symply. Great food! Well worth a look. No cheap ingredients there!!

Is Natural instinct a raw food? Is it minced or bones or?

> I took my pug to the vet today, and the vet said I shouldn't feed raw meat unless I know what I am doing

Yes she's right but in your case I think you were feeding a little raw meat alongside a predominantly kibble diet...?  If that's the case then you don't need to worry about embracing the whole raw feeding ethos - you could just buy some minced tripe or other minced meat and add it to her kibble.  It certainly won't do her any harm and even a little raw is better than none at all :)

I feed raw but have Fish4Dogs as my back up food (usually for travelling).  I also recommend Arden Grange (based on experience), and suggest people look at CSJ too (based of the number of times I've heard it recommended by others) - I did try CSJ once but the kibble sizes didn't suit in the version I wanted to feed.

If you are curious about raw feeding nothing beats reading from source so have a look at the following authors:  Kymythy Shultze, Tom Lonsdale and Ian Billinghurst

> Is Natural instinct a raw food? Is it minced or bones or?

It is raw, comes in tubs already frozen. If you look at the link I put up earlier you will see the types of food they do. As well as raw completes they do some minces, with and without bone, bones, treats etc. Not cheap but VERY good quality.

hello lirilou i also have pugs and a labrador i have 3 pugs two are rescue two of my pugs are on wainwrights small breed dry they have that in the morning evening they have wainwrights wet trays mixed in with the dry my lab has the same but senior and do very well on it my third pug i have only had four weeks and she come to me  very obese an ex breeding bitch she is on royal canin obesity but will go on to wainwrights when we get the weight off hope this helps

I would highly recommend Acana.

Josh if u feed entirely natures instinct for raw I wouls still give him the occasional meal of whole carcas or meat and bone because continual mince. Prepared dopesnt cover the need for muscle develoment and teeth cleaning in same way. However iyou afford raw this way and it suits all the humans involved too that's areally good option