Blog Article By Kate Harper Wednesday 11th September 2024
The food you choose affects your dogs life expectancy. Humans that maintain a healthy balanced diet high in things like fruit, vegetables and unprocessed foods live for longer and have less health problems, and just as you might expect, the same is true for our dogs.
I have a BSc Hons degree in Animal Science and so I have studied Animal Nutrition at degree level, analysing ingredients and production techniques with a fine tooth comb. I know all the sales and marketing tricks of the industry. And trust me there are a lot of them because in 2023 the UK Pet Food market was worth £4.1b. Every company is vying for a slice of this profit. They want your money and they don’t necessarily care if they are offering you the best quality product. They just want you to THINK it is.
This matters because scientific studies show that quality wholefood based and raw feeds increase a dogs life expectancy. Incredibly, in some studies it has been shown to DOUBLE a dog's life expectancy!
Nutrition can also impact on behaviour. I have been out to see hyper teenage dogs for training before where making a simple switch from a higher energy puppy food to lower energy adult food has solved their behavioural issue. Many dog food brands use fillers such as cereals or legumes that make production cheap and add vital vitamins and minerals as supplements in order that they can label the food as 'Complete'. But these do not provide optimum nutrition. They may cause long term chronic health issues in dogs such as skin or digestive issues and they reduce life expectancy. 'Meat and animal derivatives' may be included which can encompass any body part, normally preserved, and, trust me - you would not want to eat this. In it’s natural state before this food is dyed to make it look more appealing for you the buyer, it is a big grey glupe of by-products nobody else wants.
The WHICH? of dog food
All About Dog Food is an independent nutrition review site. It’s a bit like Which? for dogs.
Take a look at this site, find your dog's food and let us know what it’s rated as this week in classes www.allaboutdogfood.co.uk
Personally, I wouldn’t feed my dogs anything rated less than 90%.
Different Dog
You don’t often see me collaborating with a canine nutrition brand and that’s because I am quite cynical and discerning about dog food producers and their labelling. However, this year I have decided to partner with Different Dog because of their excellent quality nutrition, an emphasis on British produce and excellent sustainability policy. It's what I proudly feed my own dogs and I want to share that with you.
Different Dog is a Shropshire based company that uses only British meat and fish ensuring that these farm animals are protected by our 'better than most' UK animal welfare laws. They stood out to me because they are rated 96% on the All About Dog Food Independent Nutrition Review site. They are also serious about sustainability, a B-Corp, and are Carbon Neutral. Plus all their packaging is recyclable.
They don’t use legumes, grains of fillers and all their recipes are gently hand cooked. The food doesn’t smell awful like most dog food and it keeps in the fridge for 5 days once defrosted. As well as a variety of standard flavours such as braised beef, lamb hotpot and pork ragu, they do some specialist recipes for dogs in need of additional nutritional support.
Chichi
My dog Chichi has had some serious digestive issues which she was hospitalised for in 2021. She had suspected oesophageal ulcers and was about as ill as you can get. I thought we were going to lose her at one awful point when she couldn’t keep her food down and was vomiting blood.
She is now thriving on ‘Comforting Chicken’ by Different Dog which is full of tummy calming ingredients including chicken, slippery elm, alfalfa and ginger to support good gut health.
40% OFF DISCOUNT CODE
Different Dog are kindly offering a huge 40% off your first two boxes for all my customers and followers.
Order here and use enter KHDTCC40 to get a huge 40% off!
Go and create a plan for your dog here:
www.differentdog.com/freshly-cooked-adult-dog-food
Top Tip!
If you want to stick to your current food for now or are on a budget, why not try Different Dog as a high quality food topper?
