I was given a free sample of PAH own brand of dog food and was wondering if anybody on here uses it.

It seems to be quite good with 25% fresh chicken as the 1st ingedient and is a fair bit cheaper than some brands at around £25 a bag (15kg).

Just wondered if it was as good as it sounds.     The dogs seemed to enjoy it!!

Thanks for your thoughts.

Fresh Chicken :rolleyes:   can mean anything in dog food like ground up bones,beaks,feet,carcase.

But sorry dont know anything abuout this food what other ingredients does it have ?

Just be aware that 'fresh chicken' is a bit of a misleading statement, a lot of manufacturers class feathers as 'chicken' and any other chicken bits and bobs that you wouldnt necessarily relish eating! Not saying thats true in this case, but I wouldnt be too impressed (unless it said 25% chicken breast ;) )

posted at the same time Mattie :)

hi... i use pets at home puppy formula its total chicken content is 40% 25%breast meat it is good  as it comes in this country.i use it 50 50 mix with fresh beef and tripe the dogs love it the beef and tripe mix can be found in the fridge at pets ' home this works well for my dogs in between waiting for shipments of abady large breed puppy kibble from the usa . i breed and own dogue de bordeaux..  in there wild state dogs dont always have the butcher handy to dice and carefully cut strips of meat so they have evolved over thousands of years eating and ripping all and any part of there prey nothing except the largest bones survive so dont worry about what part of the animal ends up in your dogs food just so long as its animal parts the more fresh meat the better its. to my knowledge  pets at home puppy formula as indeed got the highest total chicken meat content but mixing it up with beef and tripe or ground fresh chicken would in my opionion be the nearest to a natural diet, except for all raw and fresh nothing added so therefore nothing taken away

I am using it at the mo and have done in the past. I took them off it as I felt guilty and put them on Barf, then All in One but they lost loads of weight so they are back on it. Already building up again. Loads of my friends use it too and they are delighted. I think there is a certain 'snobbery' associated with it as it is an own brand. By that I don't mean people are being snobs as such, just that people are worried it is not as good because it doesn't have a well know name. I know someone whose dogs did really well on it but she changed to Arden Grange because it 'sounded better'. Her dogs have had no end of problems since. The ingredients certainly seem to compare with some of the better foods rather than the likes of Omega Tasty and Pal. :-) 

I am using PAH complete, I am pleased with the dogs intake and outgoings on it ( ;) ), it's ingredients are on par with some more expensive premium products and as PAH don't make their own dog foods, someone is making this for them!!!!   

Same with Tesco's beans etc.  Tesco don't make their own brands, somebody else does it.    M&S chocolates used to be made by Keiller's in Dundee until they shut down!!!!

Is Pets at Home puppy forumla a complete/kibble? 

25% meat and 75% what?

>25% meat and 75% what?< :D

Excellent question!!

My puppy is on the thier puppy food and i am very pleased with the results.  it is wheat Gluten free too.

bev

Actually if you read the thread it's 40% chicken, 25% of it being chicken breast meat.  And the thread started with the poster asking if anyone else used it, not non-users opinions of it.

Yep,  I think I might just give it a go next time I need to buy food.

The opinion of those that have tried it (dogs, I mean)  seems to be that it is good.

I'll be using both adult and puppy variety so it certainly won't hurt to save a few pennies!!

Thank you for your useful thoughts.

Actually if you read the packet it states minimum of 25% chicken, no more or less.

The rest is made up of poultry meal, barley, rice and maize etc etc etc  no quantities on any of these.

hi tohme the total chicken content of pets at home puppy sold in ten kilo bags is 40% this is made up of 25 %chicken breast please look at the bag carefully then you will see what i mean by my posts the ten kilo bags cost £19.95 and there is always little discount tickets on pets at home products giving you two pounds off your purchase to be used on any bag over 3kilos so to my mind this equates to very good value for money there maintanance kibble costs £14.95 for seven kilos then £24.95 for 15 kilos less your two pound discount.. tohme if you can find a better kibble at a more reasonable cost please let us all know

I did look at all the packets and it clearly states chicken not less than 25%, there are no other %ages mentioned.

I consider it reasonable to pay circa £1 per day to feed a dog.

If, say I fed JWB at £37 per 15kg bag, the suggested weight to feed my dog would be circa 450g per day, this works out at 33 days at £1.12 per day.  A very reasonable sum.  I would not expect to feed my dog for less than a £1 a day, even on raw..................

When I originally got dogs I looked into the average cost of food per day per dog and this seems reasonable.

Some foods, whilst appearing cheaper per bag/kilo actually require a greater weight to be fed as they are not so calorifically dense and so do not work out cheaper at all.

But it is horses for courses.  Everyone must give their dog what they believe to be best for them.

hi tohme i have in my hand at this very moment hand on my heart and i can promise you it clearly states on the side of this bag that reads pets at home puppy 10 kilo bag its says very clearly and no mistake total chicken 40 % 25 %chicken

hi tohme what food do you feed your dogs ?

I do not feed commercial dog food, they have human grade raw materials.

If I fed commercial food my first choice would be Naturediet, followed by Burns.

If EVO WAS available in the UK I would feed that in preference to the other two.  However, several people have had lengthy negotiations with them but the UK market will not pay the cost of a this food  which is borne out by many posts on this board.....................

hi tohme why would you recommend something your dogs dont eat (evo) i have read the post refering to evo, but i cant find any were on there web pages that states it is nearly all fresh meat and nothing else a thought crossed my mind that this product would have a shelf life compared to fresh meat unless it was pumped full of ( e ) number preservertives .so it begs the question why would you buy this stuff when you can buy fresh meat at pets at home for £o.59 apacket put it in the freezer and use when needed . i get the impression you only buy chioce cuts of meat from the butcher and not stuff thats frozen and what may contain animal bye products such as offal ,tripe ,bones etc....

Frodo, I cannot find anywhere on my posts wher I stated that EVO contained nearly all fresh meat, perhaps if you can find where I alluded to that you could kindly point out my mistake?

Thanks.

I said IF I fed commercial food, (who knows I, like many others who have posted on this board may come across a dog that does not do well on raw?) I would choose to feed EVO because it is grain free and I happen to believe that grain is not a suitable food for dogs.

There are many commercial foods that are preserved not with "E" numbers but natural anti oxidants, go to the web pages, it is all there.

I work full time and cannot get to a butcher, there is not one for miles but the one I use saves me his bones for a donation to his charity box.  I buy my food mostly wholesale from wholesale suppliers, 15kg boxes of chicken carcases, chicken wings, chicken mince, end of day short dated products at knock down prices in the supermarket, friends who supply me with the offal from their knackered beasties eg ox liver, lungs etc.

I feed frozen tripe from PAH etc.

I hope that answers your questions.

Should you have any further queries, please do not hesitate to ask.

HTH

Frodo, I cannot find anywhere on my posts wher I stated that EVO contained nearly all fresh meat, perhaps if you can find where I alluded to that you could kindly point out my mistake?

Where did i say this tohme

Sorry Frodo, I meant McCoy! Duh!  Blame it on a Friday moment!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(I am not really blonde.......) :D

tohme

>>I said IF I fed commercial food, (who knows I, like many others who have posted on this board may come across a dog that does not do well on raw?) I would choose to feed EVO because it is grain free and I happen to believe that grain is not a suitable food for dogs.>>>

Might you not consider that the very reason that some dogs don't do well on raw is because the diet doesn't contain cereal?

Julie

some people feed raw and feed cereal, there is more than "one version" of "raw" feeding.

Yes tohme but that doesn't answer my question....let me re-phrase :-)

Might you not consider that a dog on a cereal free diet may not be doing well precisely because it is cereal free?

Julie

I think one should consider everything when devising any sort of diet for a dog in order to correctly identify its needs and the appropriate and adequate nutrition for that individual.

As cereal contains nothing that a dog needs that cannot be found from a more appropriate source elsewhere I doubt very much that any dog would not be doing well because of a lack of cereal per se.

I'm not sure we know enough about the dog of today in all its diversity from multiple breed origins to assume there is nothing beneficial in cereal that could not be found elsewhere for all dogs.

Breeds/landraces have been developed for hundreds, probably thousands of years on diets including cereal and to assume no genetic change has occured to accommodate this may not be correct.

We hear of many many dogs doing perfectly well on high cereal diets and enough cases of dogs being taken off BARF (presumably cereal free) diets because they don't thrive.  It may have nothing to do with the cereal at all but it certainly raises my suspicions.

Julie

It does make you wonder Julie, although I must admit I would prefer to see my dogs eat Barf. They did not do at all well on it and I believe part of that was due to the fact that I could not feed Barf as it is intended to be fed. The range of raw meat that is supposed to be fed is very vast, and yet my dogs could only cope with tripe or chicken. And then only a leg a day. As you can imagine, they almost wasted away. The likes of Burns and All in One contain little cereal and again they were very underweight on it. Horses for courses I s'pose.

Took a ride to PAH today and, apart from spending a fortune of loads of stuff I absolutely "needed" I picked up two 100g sachets of their own dry dog food to try.

It disappeared within a couple of minutes.  Of course, this may just be because it is "different" from what they are eating at the moment, but it is certainly a possible next "big bag buy" :) :)

Kelly, yep I agree.  Like you, I have a breed that was developed reputedly on a diet of mostly cereal.  When I fed mostly raw with very little cereal, a couple of years ago, I had no problem keeping weight on my dogs as you did but there was a big difference in coat quality.  I've also read of this effect from posters on a BARF list.

Julie

However, several people have had lengthy negotiations with them but the UK market will not pay the cost of a this food  which is borne out by many posts on this board.....................

Where did you find this out tohme?

Mccoy damn right i take feeding my dogs very seriously :D Good and appropriate nutrition is one of the most important things we can do for our dogs to help them stay with us for as long as we can,the health of my dogs is not something i am prepared to take lightly :)

Mccoy if you care to e-mail Natura(EVO), ronn Walthers(director) will be more than happy to answer ALL of your questions,he always gets back within 24 hours :)

Frodo, I found it out because both I, several others in the UK and others in the US have all made enquiries about obtaining EVO in the UK and the answer is always the same, in the UK dog owners will not pay the price it would retail at over here.

thanx for for your post of support .i do do use the pets at home puppy kibble it is good and it is well priced  i tried it the first time it appeared on the pets at home store shelves its been about 7or 8 months usage so far .i must confess i have tried a few brands the best for my dogs being pets at home puppy, james welbeloved turkey and rice, and abady large breed puppy

McCoy - I have fed the adult PAH food to my 2 youngest dogs and I'm very pleased with how they have eaten, digested and looked on it which to me is the most important thing.

Mccoy, As long as your dogs are fit and healthy and look a good weight then their food is ok. I think lots of people on here taking feeding far too seriously, they are at the end of the day, dogs! (I will be hung, drawn and quartered for saying that) How did all the dogs in years gone by manage without all these fancy foods?

If your dog is doing well on pets at home as is my puppy then stick to it.
I fed raw once and never again.   It didn't suit my dog and she ended up with all her fur falling out and in a terrible state.
So you see although raw may suit many it doesn't suit all, just as different commercials don't suit different dogs.
I always found Wafcol Salmon and potatoe very good, but this puppy hated it and didn't thrive.  But he is the peak of health on Pets at home.  Its the first time I have used it and I am thrilled with the results.

Bev

Hi Whispersmum,

I tend to agree with you here (my neck on the block also!) as I have always fed my dogs (apart from my Great Dane) any and every type of complete food.  I had two labs who absolutely loved Omega Tasty, which was not favoured in this thread, and my current two are enjoying Woof at the moment.  The only thing I do is change the flavour/brand every time I buy.  My dogs are fine on it. :)

Whispersmum

Hmmm, at the end of the day they may be "just dogs", but for many of us that does not mean that we treat them any differently then we would other members of our family.   Meaning, we have a responsibility to give them the best care possible, even if it is an inconvenience (which dogs frequently are) or more costly than we planned.   At least for me, it means that I am not going to feed my dogs any old rubbish, whether or not they like it, and whether or not they appear not to be suffering because of it.  

We've got children in this country who appear to be healthy - but schools have to run constipation clinics because 10-year olds are living on nothing but junk and convenience foods. If you watched any of the Jamie Oliver school food program on TV, you might have been shocked, as I was, that children could not even recognize common vegetables and even fewer ate them.   There are many dog foods on the market that are the equivalent of junk foods for people.   Dogs fed these foods may "appear" to be healthy - but I personally am not willing to rely on appearances alone.

I agree with you, however, that some people tend to go overboard in terms of worrying about what they feed their dogs.  IMO, the attitude that "all commercial foods are bad" is as ridiculous a belief as "any commericial food is good."  I think most of us wind up somewhere in the middle.

My dogs are fed Naturediet, a few commercial treats (Markies, Scotties baked chicken (necks)), my homemade baked treats (rice flour, meat paste, baby food), fresh veg before the humans eat dinner, a bit of whatever I made for my dinner, sometimes a bit of small bite mixer, which I either throw on the floor for a treat, or sometimes mix with leftover chicken or meat for their breakfast instead of Naturediet.   Not sure where that puts me in terms of pet food philosophy, but my dogs get a varied diet of fresh and commercial foods.  I would no more feed them only commercial food than I would only eat junk food myself. 

Stacey

Please re read my post, its says dogs, not "just dogs" !

There are many dog foods on the market that are the equivalent of junk foods for people.   Dogs fed these foods may "appear" to be healthy - but I personally am not willing to rely on appearances alone.

What would be the appearance of a non-healthy dog?    

One who's coat is dull & scurfy?  One who is unenthusiastic about exercise?  One who suffers from bouts of diarrhoea?    One who maybe doesn't live to it's full life expectancy with no 'apparent' reason for an early demise?

I doubt there would be anyone feeding complete's if this is how their dogs looked but as we have a lot of happy healthy dogs getting fed a whole different variety of 'complete' feeds and looking brilliant on whatever suits them then there is no comparison to overweight constipated children who take little exercise and have their parent(s) to blame solely for that.

Christine,

Constipated children look healthy and happy, so do a lot of children who are not eating properly.  It can take years for bad eating habits to create problems, but when they do they can be significant. 

You can get a very shiney coat on a dog by a poor diet with a high fat content, a shiney coat is not an indicator of good health.  Happiness is not related to diet, whether it's Purina or pure steak.

Two years ago one of my dogs died.  She only spent two weeks very ill - to my eyes.   Up to the day she had her first seizure, she had a shiney coat, was bright, energetic and with a big appetite. Blood test showed her liver was not functioning properly.  She was scanned and the scan revealed that she had bladder cancer, plus nodules all over her liver.  Plus, the neurologist vet felt she must also have either a tumour or cancer in the brain.  However, until two weeks before she died, I never saw one outward indication that anything was wrong - although plenty cleary was wrong, and had been for quite some time.  Dogs cannot talk.  They, like most animals, have an innate ability to appear to be in good health way beyond the point where a human would be complaining or showing some physical signs of a problem.  Which is why I do not believe relying on shiney coats, or good appetites, and so on are by themselves reason to feed any old commercial food.  

I never said that complete feeds are bad.  If you reread my post you will see that I said quite the opposite. What I said was that I thought it was extreme, and wrong, to brand that all commercial foods are bad.  My point is that all complete foods are not of the same quality in terms of ingredients or nutritional value.  Especially if you choose to feed only commerical feed, then buy the best that you can afford and don't kid yourself that because your dog's coat is shiney or he wags his tail all day that your feeding him a healthy diet.  

Stacey

You said, "I think lots of people on here taking feeding far too seriously, they are at the end of the day, dogs!"    Meaning don't bother to take feeding seriously because it's a dog.  I don't know any other way to interpret what you wrote.   What did you actually mean by your statement?   

Stacey

I thought i misread your post whispersmum,but then you said this I will be hung, drawn and quartered for saying that) as if you meant "just" dogs.

I dont mean to be argumentative or pick on you,honest :)  But i would also like to hear what you meant by that statement.

I feed my dogs with the same care and devotion as i do when i feed  my kids.
I want my dogs to live a full and healthy life,i'm just not willing to take the risk in feeding a food that contains cheap innapropriate ingredients.

I tried feeding raw twice before, both times my dogs lost loads of weight and I found it incredibly expensive. If you don't have access to a large freezer and a decent butcher handy it can be impossible. My dogs are also very sensitve when it comes to rich food. The only raw meat I could feed was chicken and then no more than a leg at a time. I also tried Burns and All in One, again they lost lots of weight. They ate enough of it, in fact more than the recommended amount, but one in particular was always like a piece of string! They are now on PAH because I wanted a local dealer so I didn't have to order two sacks at a time online and have to juggle running out with storage space. The main ingredient had to be chicken and the protein content not too high. PAH fits the bill. With 3 dogs a 15kg sack lasts about 3 weeks. The price is also reasonable, although that didn't worry me too much. I have finished with beating myself up because I don't feed holistically anymore. I feed something my dogs are doing well on, I am fed up with people asking if I have, 'just rescued the skinny one?' and all the Out of Africa jokes!

Dogs are dogs and children are children. I love my dog and want to best for him of course but I'm afraid my daughter is much more important. Currently I feed my dog on naturediet and tripe but have tried all the other brands but he wouldn't eat them. Not everyone can afford to feed like this especially if you have a large breed with a big appetite or more than one dog.
Thought my previous post would get you all going !!!

Mccoy & bevb,  what is the puppy kibble like, size wise?   My lab puppy literally sucks his meals down in a micro second (often regurgitating and eating it again) and because of this I was advised to try a larger puppy kibble.  Burns mini bites are very tiny, and I think jwb puppy food is also very small.

I am going to try the adult PAH for my older Lab,  the kibble for adults seems a sensible size.

I don't know about your PAH store, but in mine they do trial size bags of all the foods, puppy, adult and senior. They are only around 35p each, very handy if you just want to try it out. I think, if I remember rightly (could be wrong!) the puppy food is equivalant size to adult Burns, maybe a little bit smaller. The adult one is lovely big lumps, no more hoovering at mealtimes! ;-)

Yes my PAH do the trial bags too so would be worth trying it for size first.
Hope the adult size is not too big I only have a little JR and i would like to keep him on it.

Bev

hi mrs mop the puppy kibble size is about half inch long very flat it looks a bit like a squashed heart shape