What is it that puts you off commercial diets?

This is a question for the raw/natural/barf feeders. I don't really want to start a debate about the rights and wrongs, and I'm not particularly pro or anti myself this is just for my own interest really.

What is it that put you off feeding commercial diets (kibble or wet), and made you want to feed raw? Personal bad experience or reading about bad experiences on the internet or in dog magazines? Viewpoints or opinions that you arrived at yourself, or read about? Or have you always fed raw/natural?

I'd just like to get a bit of an insight.

Because I wanted to feed a diet that is appropriate to a carnivourus animal which doesn't include 3/4 wheat and grains that they just don't need It's like paying for waste in my opinion

I think Nature Diet is a bit different saying that and don't class that as quite the same but then it's to expensive to feed two big dogs.

Hi Harry I have been feeding dogs on the same fresh food for many many years with just a brief time of feeding a ready food ( Burns) because of my circumstances at that time .

When I started in dogs there were no 'complete foods' or BARF it was just dog meal and tinned meat which was horrid. Then came frozen meat, then the complete foods.

I believe many commercial foods contain poor quality ingredients/ preservatives/ additives put in to try to increase the nutritional value of the poor ingredients

I do not eat any convenience food myself and never give it to my family, my son never had commercial baby food, everything was home made from beef tea to fruit jelly and I like my dogs to have fresh food too.

I think if humans and dogs are fed food which is as fresh as possible with the least number of additives you can't go far wrong. I appreciate not everyone is able to do this and it is a matter of personal choice, we all do the best we can

Added I don't fed BARF but fresh mainly cooked and some raw food.

I fed my first ever dogs on tinned dog food. Its what my mum had brought her dogs up on.

3 years ago I got my first leonberger. she was given kibble by her breeder and thats what I continued with. She always had bouts of dire rear, sickness, colitis. I had my second leo, also kibble fed, for about 3 months when I found out my first had real major problems with food allergies. I changed over to raw for her (as I've explained in another thread ) In the meantime my second leo suffered bouts of dire rear and the vomitting was getting to be a real pain! 6 to 8 hours after eating kibble she would bring the whole lot back up - still in its 'wholesome' shape! no foreign objects just food. She would refuse to eat sometimes for days, she wanted what the other one was having so I changed her to raw aswell. So since changing them both, neither have had dire rear, no sickness related to food (only pebbles ) no refusing to eat any meal, and in general they appear a lot better - certainly this is true for the eldest one (if I knew how to post pics I'd show you before and after raw)
The pup - 6 months- was fed raw and complete before she came to me so the change over to completely raw was done gradual over a couple of weeks and now thats what they all get fed
and they also get treats of fruit etc and occasionally veg

I have no problem with anyone feeding kibble, or tinned meat etc, its 'what ever suits' as the saying goes. But I will defend feeding raw to MY dogs

I think what puts most people off is the amount of junk that goes into commercial diets, even expensive ones.

Really there is little to say that a cheap kibble is any less as good as a very expensive one.

To the Doberman pups now nearly a year old, we feed kibble and tinned dog food, but also cooked foods such as fresh mince and kennel mince and fish, usually pollock,
pasta, tuna, sardines, rice and some veggies thrown in for good measure. They have a variety of food, some cheap and some expensive.

Fresh food has got to be better than commercial food alone, but it never did our old Dobe any harm (over 15 years when she died) and our male BC who is still going strong at 13.
They were (and are in the case of the BC) fed on DJ and Vitalin Working, cheapest of the bunch and illness rarely.

It depends so much on the dog which is best for them, the BC does not fair well when his diet is altered and has never been able to stomache a high maize content.

my lot get Eukanuba when they are pups untill around 9 months normaly, though the two pups I have at the moment came of at 6 months and then they are fed DJ's I buy big bags of frozen chicken from tesco/asda it gets boiled up and they get that throught there dinner with the stock used to soak some meal then some dry meal added too,
they also get ....
all left overs, even OH kebabs which im sure are not fit for animal consumption
sardines,
tuna
mince
liver & kidneys & bones from the butcher
tripe (when I can handle it, gives me the gag)
tinned foods,
eggs, cheese, sausage.
they get just about everything, walking wheely bins never get bad belly or dier rear lol
if one of my lot up chuck or get runny bum I would think they were going to drop dead,
I honestly cant think of any real illness re: tummy upsets since having the rotts, I must by the law of averages had the odd day but I can't remember one,
Oh I do now, kaos did clay coloured water in his run over night but it did not last I never saw him do it but the run was covered one morning, the next one he did that I saw was solid, it was a mess though,

Try this link

http://www.imageshack.us/

Where it says browse click on it and you can find the picture you want, say on desktop or wherever you saved it. Click or double click the picture and it will fill the box in with the details, if its alarge file you will have to resize it to< 1.5meg (check the resize box)then pick the format you want, then click host it.

After its uploaded you have a choice of format, use the bottom direct link to image, highlight the text and right click and select copy.

Use the format [img]paste the content in here![/img]

and voila!!! Living proof that dogs don't do raw

Our dog was kibble fed in rescue and we continued to feed him with same brand until he was 8 months old. He was fed Arden Grange - a good quality kibble - but I was aware that large breed dogs should ideally grow at a slow and steady rate - something I considered very important for a rescue pup of unknown parentage and of a breed that is prone to hip dsyplacia.

So I started doing some research into various foods that were available and came across some information on raw feeding. A lot of what I read seemed to make sense to me so I joined a forum called BritBarf which has some very knowledgeable people as members who are always willing to share their knowledge and experience.

After a lot of research I finally made the decision to feed raw and have to say that it really seems to suit my dog and I am really glad I changed. As a family we tend not to eat processed food ourselves and am glad I have extended this to include our dog as well.

I firmly believe that all dog owners have the right to feed the type of diet that suits their dog and themselves and try to remember that old saying - one man's meat is another man's poison. Raw feeding is the choice I made as I believe it is the best choice for my dog

For me it was seven years as a vet tech, seeing all the diet related problems that most pets had. Allergies, obesity, dental problems, diabetes, cancers, and on and on.

I started reading about what was actually in dog food and it was an aha moment. I feel my dog should be eating at least the same quality of meats that I eat. So I started cooking fresh foods for her. I discovered raw, but was very afraid of it at first. I did tons of reading on it before I made the switch. But we have had nothing but wonderful results on raw and I wouldn't look back

I have 3 dogs, 2 of which are officially mine. Woody is on a commercial diet as that's what suits him best. Pickles (mine) is fed Burns Mini Bites + ND as he has many, many allergies and no teeth!

Isla I got as a pup. Her breeder fed her adults raw, but preferred to go for Arden Grange + raw for any pups (minced beef, fish, chicken etc).

Although I had raw feeding in the back of my mind, it was Isla who decided at about 7/8 months of age that she preferred the raw food to the Arden Grange. So I switched to raw.

I really can't think of a better reason than that!