Dry food all the time - is this okay?

I have been recomended by some friends who are dog owners to feed my 8 month old GSD dry food only. Reason is their stool will be more solid and less of it making clean up easier.

Just want to confirm if its ok for the dog to live on dry food only with the occasional treats here and there?

Providing it is a food designed to be fed by itself rather than a 'mixer' type biscuit, there is no problem at all.

Remember though that dogs need more water when fed on dry food.

Changing to a dry food won't necessarily reduce the amount of poo - what are you feeding just now? It also won't necessarily make the poos more firm - that depends on what the cause of the current problem is (e.g. if the dog has an intolerance to wheat, giving a dry good which is wheat based isn't going to help at all)

I have a gsd (had quite a few of them), and feel it's always best with kibble to feed a little bit of meat, shredded chicken or something. This breed is very prone to bloat and if you research on bloat, it is recommended that you feed some meat with each meal to ward off the risk of bloat.

I feed mine a good quality kibble so that you feed less of it and the dog is able to take in all the nutrients from it, thereby producing less stools.

Your boy is only 8 months old and I do remember my vet kept stressing to me that he wanted my puppy to stay on large breed puppy kibble until at least a year old. His reasons for this was because it would slow down the growth giving the bones a chance to catch up. I'm only repeating what my vet said here though, some people change to adult kibble quite early, but I would certainly suggest the large breed variety.

All in all, I personally would never feed kibble and nothing else, I'd always give my dogs some kind of meat with it. Good luck.

I would just like to add that soaking the dried food for up to an hour before feeding in hot(not boiling water) will further help reduce the risk of bloat as the food won't be expanding in their tummy.

when i feed dry food, i do this - and stuff it in a kong, then stick it in the freezer; can't remember the last time i fed dry food from a bowl

Yes you may feed kibble all the time, millions of people do. Of course you want to be feeding a reputable good quality one.

Complete dog foods are designed to be just that, complete so ADDING stuff to it then just undoes all the research done by scientists to make it so.

Adding meat to the complete will do NOTHING to minimise the risk of bloat, this is an old wives tale.

There is no evidence based science to back this claim which is utterly without foundation.

Not all food benefits from soaking before hand, for example it would be pointless to soak Orijen as it does not expand when soaked.

If this was indeed the case, then one would imagine that the complete foods manufactured, sold and prescribed for dogs prone to bloat would actually have this advice on the packs?

So, although I do not feed complete dry (apart from in emergency) there is nothing wrong in feeding a complete dry food.

thanks for that smokey. i was kicking myself for feeding kibble ( pets at home, mature.) to Jeager. he used to be on Nature diet, but it started to make him a bit loose. i was always against dried food, but in the end i thought it was best for him. his tummy was fine for nearly a year. after reading so much about bloat etc, i think it was just one of those thing that was probably going to happen. the one big factor, imo, was he was on Prednidale for an "itch", which he was chewing, on his rear hock. it was the last day of the treatment and it had stopped the chewing, but that definately made him drink so much more, for the 5 days he was on it. you could see that he was not comfortable drinking that much. he was always a very controlled drinker. who always preferred anything other than tap water.
but that week, he drank like he had been running for miles.

thanks for all the info. I use a very high quality and expensive dry food, made by Purina called supercoat, its been reocmended to me by some breeders and trainers.

We have always fed dry food (JWB mature now) and China has always been great on it....HOWEVER....instead of the recommended 3small cups a day we do one, a bonio, and leftovers of our food ie, eggs, crusts, lasagne...whatever we have had for tea we leave a couple of tablespoons for her.....i just like to mix things up for her, i cant imagine how boring it must be to have the same food everyday!

I would just say beware of premium priced foods that aren't necessarily premium quality, we have a few in the UK that market themselves into the top range by pricing up the food at the higher end but aren't actually that great when you look at the ingredients. I found these ingredients for Purina Supercoat (adult beef flavour):
Meat and meat by-products (from beef and/or chicken), wholegrain cereals (wheat and/or sorghum), cereal bran and/or other cereals, beet pulp, iodised salt, vitamins (A, D, E, K, B1, B6, niacin, riboflavin, folic acid, choline, biotin, B12) and trace minerals (iron, zinc, copper, manganese), mixed natural tocopherols (vitamin E), rosemary plant extract, lutein, whole linseeds, garlic and kelp.

I think you could do far better than unspecified meat, derivatives and cereals.
E.g. compare it to Orijen
Fresh boneless chicken*, chicken meal, fresh boneless salmon*, turkey meal, herring meal, russet potato, peas, sweet potato, fresh boneless turkey*, fresh whole eggs*, fresh chicken liver*, fresh boneless lake whitefish*, fresh boneless walleye*, sun-cured alfalfa, pea fiber, chicken fat (preserved with mixed tocopherols), organic kelp, pumpkin, chicory root, carrots, spinach, turnip greens, apples, cranberries, blueberries, licorice root, angelica root, fenugreek, marigold flowers, sweet fennel, peppermint leaf, chamomile, dandelion, summer savory, rosemary, vitamin A, vitamin D3, vitamin E, niacin, thiamine mononitrate, riboflavin, d-calcium pantothenate, pyridoxine, folic acid, biotin, vitamin B12, zinc proteinate, iron proteinate, manganese proteinate, copper proteinate, selenium yeast, Lactobacillus acidophilus, Enterococcus faecium.

Or Fish4Dogs
Salmon 30. 5%, Potato 30. 5%, Herring Meal 21. 4%, Salmon Oil 7. 6%, Beet Fibre 6. 4%, Brewers Yeast 2. 1%, Minerals 0. 8%, Vitamins 0. 7%

Who specify each and every ingredient. Companies who use vague descriptions in the ingredients list usually do this so that they have the leeway to vary the 'recipe' according to what is cheapest at the time of manufacture. E.g. cereals vary in price depending on how good a crop is being farmed, so wheat may be cheaper one month, corn/maize the next. Ditto with the meat. This means that each bag of food could vary despite having the same ingredients list and this can often upset a dog's tummy - if your dog is sensitive to maize, for example, a bag one month may contain very little maize and be fine, but the next bag could contain a high proportion of maize and cause tummy upsets. This is why brands that specify each ingredient are better as they then *have* to stick to those same ingredients - so if it says it's wheat, oats and rice, it cannot contain any maize.
Another trick that Purina have done is to combine the meat & meat by-products. Ingredients are listed in order of quantity, so it looks like meat is the highest of the list - but it could be that there is less meat and more by-products, and that if they were listed separately, cereals may be the highest on the list.
The way I see it, if companies use good ingredients, they tend to be proud of it and like to go into thorough detail on their ingredients lists! Those with vague lists or doing this little 'tricks' with the list just make me believe they have something to hide.

Interestingly, someone on another dog forum I use has had issues with the behaviour of two of their dogs after switching to Purina's ProPlan and found the behaviours stopped when they switched back to a different food - could be worth bearing in mind with your dog's behavioural issues, a change in diet may be worth considering to see if the diet is having any effect.