I have recently changed my miniature poodle to Gentle Cold Pressed dog food following a chat with Beate. I received samples of the fish and the goat varieties and Mia had them as treats - which she ate very quickly.
Bearing mind that poodles are fussy little devils, food wonderful one day and poison the next! I spoke with Beate and said it was a shame they didn’t do a smaller bag size (smallest is 5kg). Beate said no problem she could send me a smaller amount, which she did - I received 1.6kg a couple of days later. Thankfully Mia still loves it and I now have a 5kg bag ready to start. The only downside is that she is constantly hungry. The initial food allowance suggested for her weight was 70-80g per day. I tried this but she was clearly hungry and was going round beating everything up, including me. Raised the allowance to 85-90g per day but also feeding a small portion of meat or fish or an egg during the day and adding some cooked veg to her evening meal. This is working out better but I am sure she is putting on weight, judging by the feel of her ribs. Eeek, I I don’t want a fat poodle :-[.
I have usually fed my dog by body condition and weight whilst also looking at the recommendations on the food and calorie count (or what the vet said after she had been ill) - I normally look at this one: https://www.pfma.org.uk/dog-calorie-calculator-nrc-method which for my 7kg poodle is about 400 kcal per day. The goat variety of Gentle dog food is 345 kcal/100g. So about 85g would be about 293 kcal so with the addtion of meat or fish and veg I think I am feeding about the right amount for her - doesn’t stop her bringing her kong to be filled with treats though! (treats being mostly, but not all, food from her daily allowance).
Until I changed to cold pressed food, Mia was getting about 100g kibble with additional cooked meat or fish and veg daily - she has been eating well on that (previously a struggle to get weight on her). I do wonder if she just really likes the cold pressed and being greedy. Hopefully she will get used to smaller portions because I hope to get her spayed after the next season (due early December) and I believe I would need to cut her food down to stop her putting on weight.
Have to mention how helpful Beate has been.
And one other thing - my standard poodle never ate nearly as much as suggested by his breeder/previous owner or what the food package suggested whether it was wet or dry food. My friend says the same about her Goldendoodle and my minature would never eat the amount of wet food (or dry extruded for that matter) suggested by the manufacturer.
I fed cold pressed food for quite some time. My dogs did well on it but I understand what you are saying about hunger. The portion size does seem small, especially in comparison with dry extruded food. I used to supplement with fresh cooked food as you are doing but in order to prevent weight gain I fed the bottom end of the cold pressed RDA for their weight.
I don’t know whether this is relevant but I have read that fat sates the appetite and cold pressed food usually has lower levels of this. If a dog has been fed dry food for some time it will maybe have got used to the feeling of fullness as it expands in the stomach. This can be seen in the videos of digestion comparison between cold pressed and extruded food. I have always fed three smaller meals per day to stave off the apparent hunger and it seems to help. Perhaps your dog will, in time get used to the amount and will settle down. As you say, it is important to keep her weight down pre spey surgery.
That’s interesting Dottie. May I ask why you stopped using Cold Pressed food?
I had hoped to just feed the Cold Pressed food with no additions but I am pretty sure my dog’s behaviour was because she was hungry. I understand what you are saying about fat sates the appetite but the Purina HA was low fat, only 10%. The Goat recipe of Cold Pressed is about the same at 10.4%.
I had been feeding Fish4Dogs Sardine in the Finest range, the fat content of that is 15.7% but I was adding extra meat/fish and veg to her food. I noticed when she was last clipped that her coat is slightly glossy and is staying much blacker than usual (that maybe because I am not letting her loose in the garden to dig holes). I tried to gradually change from that to the cold pressed but madam picked out the cold press and left the rest!
I am quite sure my dog is being fed too much at the moment, judging by output. Today she has eaten about 25g of the dry food and not interested in finishing the bowl. Hopefully she will calm down and not keep pestering for food - which I have to say is very odd for her as she has been difficult to feed in the past.
On a slightly different subject but it may affect her appetite and behaviour, Mia is due to come into season in early December and I wonder if this is having an affect. Also she was clipped short again nearly three weeks ago so may be using up more energy to keep warm.
Addendum: I have just done an instant review using the ingredient list of Fish4Dogs Finest Sardine and it comes up at 80%. I think their recipe must have been tweaked because there are slight differences in the ingredient list and on the Foods review it is listed as 65%. The Gentle Goat recipe comes up as 86% on the instant review.
The only reason I changed from cold pressed food is because I was enhancing it with fresh cooked food and as I was pushed for time I thought it would easier to just change to a complete fresh cooked food. Also, with these products the dog gets to have variety.
Fish4Dogs sardine might attract a higher nutrition score because it doesn’t contain salmon digest. It also contains two types of fish. I recall that digest was marked as a red ingredient. However, I have just looked at Superior Adult and it does contain this but it’s not marked as a red ingredient now. It seems that digest has been removed from some of the other versions.