Food

As some of you may know Archie has a funny tummy so tonight I made him a special dinner:

I boiled some chicken with a clove of garlic and a carrot, and made some rice to go with it.

I couldn't believe how well Archie ate, he licked his plate clean! he normally eats well but leaves a bit of kibble in his dish. And he doesn't seem to enjoy his kibble as much as he enjoyed tonight's dinner

Now I feel terrible cos I'd like him to enjoy every meal like that, but can't really risk cooking his food myself as I don't feel I know enough to get his nutrition right.

You can always mix something similar in with his kibble - I feed both my dogs like that.

Add a little water to the kibble, add something tasty like moist dog food, minced meat (Prizechoice is excellent), rice, scrambled eggs, gravy, veg, anything really.

That way you kinda get the best of both worlds - balanced nutrition from the kibble, and nutrition and taste from the fresh ingredients.

Becs

but doesn't that just un-balance the kibble if u add stuff to it?

I do add wet food, NatureDiet which he likes a lot, but now way as much as what he had today.

And I don't really want to add water to the kibble cos the vet told me that the whole point of feeding kibble is that chewing it helps clean their teeth... or is this BS? I do brush his teeth anyway...

Maybe I can add a few bits of chicken like I used to when we first got him

I dunno Tuti, I'm not an expert, so I'm probably screwing things up no end. All I know is that I've fed Satch like this since puppyhood and my NZ vet who knows the breed inside out said he's the fittest rottie he'd seen in a looooong time. And we're not even working that much at the moment.

I'm not sure how (chemically) the kibble's nutrition would be compromised by adding anything to it. I might be wrong, but I don't see how that's possible as you're not altering the kibble in any way. A little meat and water to make a kind of tasty coating shouldn't be detrimental to his diet.

I don't soak the kibble and make it soft, I just add a little water so whatever else I add to it (i.e. mince) makes a kind of gravy coating. The kibbles stays fairly crunchy and Satch gets raw bones too, which help the teeth - check out his pics for his shiny gnashers!

I guess I feed a kind of kibble and fresh diet - it certainly seems to agree with my two.

Becs

Yeah you're probably right... He normally gets a carrot or a bit of apple as a snack anyway so i suppose a few bits of chicken and some water won't do any harm!

What type of bones do you feed? Do you brush his teeth too?

Complete meals are supposed to be exactly that, so adding to it is probably unbalancing everything,IMO.

Mo

Tuti, I don't brush his teeth, the bones, biscuits etc do all that. I feed raw meaty bones from our meat market - I get quite a few large cow bones at a time and keep them in a chest freezer - anything smaller than cow and he just eats through them in no time. I'm not against brushing teeth, by any means, I use an enzymatic toothpaste on Sophie's teeth as hers are a mess.

Mo - I may well be ******ing up their diets by unbalancing it I guess I justify it by only adding very small amounts of fresh food to their kibble - it's more to give them something tasty with flavour rather than adding tons more nutritional value. I'd hate to just eat boring kibble every day, so I try to give it more flavour for them. It genuinely works well for my two.

I agree that you do not need to add anything to a complete commercial kibble (except perhaps water). But I don't think that adding a little something-or-other occasionally to make it a bit more interesting is likely to unbalance the meal sufficiently to do harm. The only drawback is that, by adding things, you might possibly create a picky eater who will not eat kibble without the garnish

PS Does anyone's dog actually chew their kibble? On the few occasions that I have fed it it goes straight down without touching the sides , so it can have no beneficial effect on teeth.

Star crunches her kibble but then again she is a slow eater and usually has a nose around halfway through her food. Always a clean bowl though

I must admit, I agree whole-heartedly with this, though I do believe it's more a case of how you feed than what you feed. I don't agree with pandering to a young dog's whims. They all seem to go through a slightly picky phase, and if you fall into the trap of adding something nicer each time they turn their noses up, they soon learn all they have to do is wait a while for increasingly tastier food to be added in an attempt to get them to eat.

If it's of any interest, Sophie's a good example. This only relates to her, so I'm not saying it applies to all dogs, but I mentioned the other day in her update that she came to us with a very definite diet - she would only eat if her mince had been microwaved first, then water added, then kibble, so the whole meal was warm. I think she has been spoiled by this, possibly in her third home.

I stuck to her routine for a few weeks while she settled in then gradually changed it so she would accept cold food - she didn't even notice, and yesterday morning I tested her with a bowl of plain dry kibble, which she wolfed down.

Becs