wet or dry food

Thanks for replies concerning my last query on which food to stick to. Basically the sensible advice was to stick with the one that suit best - regardless of whether super premium or just premium. Trouble with labs, or mine anyway, is that they eat anything but ironically can be quite sensitive i.e if you judge what comes out other end. I said in my last thread, the food that seems to suit best at moment is millies wolfheart. I am not going to rush into any further changes and not going down raw root for various reason (got young child etc). My query today is that some like Millies, lily's kitchen etc do dry, tinned, trays. Some say that as dry is higher processed, therefore not as good as tinned/trays, which in turn not as good as raw. As millies, the brand I am using, do wet alternative, just wondering on views on feeding wet or dry or mix of both OR yet again whether best advice is again jut stick with a decent dry variety if suits. I think Origen, Acana only do dry which may answer my question but really would value any comments from the community here

 

I give dry food but I put warm water on it. I don't leave it to soak, just put the water on before feeding.


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I do as Boogie does and also add a tablespoon each of a good tinned food as I feel they may get bored! So the tinned food is really for my benefit

 

I used to worry a bit about the 'highly processed' aspects of kibble but in reality 'processed' in dog food is not the same as 'processed' in human food. Highly processed human food also tends to be food that's high sugar, high carb, high saturated fat, low fibre. It's all those features that are the big problem, not the 'processing' per se. Dog food, though 'processed' is generally not high sugar, high carb, high saturated fat, or low in fibre. So I wouldn't worry too much about that side of things.

In general dry food (kibble) is better than canned food because there is a bit more teeth cleaning action from dry food. My dog's vet dentist says she sees more gum disease and decay in the teeth of cats and dogs that are fed canned food, versus those fed kibble. Having said that kibble doesn't have much of a cleaning effect. Raw meat bones have more cleaning effect but the absolute best thing of all being cleaning your dog's teeth with a brush and doggie toothpaste.

 

We mix tinned wet food with dry (only because OH thinks dry is boring).

 

Harley is on mixed. She gets one meal a day kibble, the other meal is Barf (frozen raw food that is defrosted, but natural) and gets a bone twice a week. She has a very sensitive tummy but does really well on the mix.

 

We had to put our two on canned food for a few days after Cooper's spay surgery. OMG it would have cost us more than $30 per day to feed them the recommended one can/10# of dog. (14 cans/day)

 

I do use some canned dog food mixed with kibble. I use Millies Wolfheart wet food ,Green and Wilds salmon or trout, hermanns, with a discount from zooplus keeps the cost down, they also have veggie tins, useful when Casper needs to drop a pound or two My older lab is on a strict diet, so using a couple of tablespoons of wet food I think is more satisfying than a bowl with 8 pieces of kibble!

 

I use dry food and put a bit of warm water on it too, not soaking it though. I haven't given tinned food, mainly because it may cause problems with teeth, so most extra things I feed them are hard (e.g. raw vegetables), except for bananas and cheese!