Our 9 month old male Golden Retriever has started to turn his nose up at Orijen Puppy Large Breed kibble which he has previously happily devoured for the last 7 months. In all other respects, he is perfectly healthy. As an experiment, we have started mixing Canagan free run chicken in to his meals in a 60:40 ratio (Orijen:Canagan) which he seems happy with. Given that I have 2 large bags of Orijen in the garage to use up (worth about £140) that he might not otherwise eat, is this mixed food strategy ok in the long run (as opposed to switching 100% to another food) or are there any potential problems with this approach? Thanks for any advice that anyone can give.
Hello and welcome to the forum. I would hazard a guess that many people top up with wet food and I think the practise is probably becoming more popular these days. They probably do this to add a bit of flavour and make dry food more palatable. It adds variety to the dog’s diet too and that can only be a good thing. Some wet foods come in several different flavours so the dog gets to have a change. Wet food tends to be higher in protein and fat so might be useful to watch the dog’s weight. Also watch the poo and if the output is nice and firm you know you are doing the right thing.
Thank you for the welcome. It’s actually Canagan dry that we are adding - but I think the principle is the same. It’s just adding a bit of a different taste and smell to his food that he finds appealing. We just wanted to ensure that there wasn’t some dietary downside to mixing different foods with different ingredients. I think you’ve allayed that fear. Thanks again.
Thank you for getting back to us. Apologies for not reading properly. Canagan now has a wet food in the range so that is why I was thinking of that. My dogs have dry food and a topper every day. I usually give them a home cooked protein type food as the product is average in protein and this raises the level a little.
Orijen is a higher protein food and Canagan is mid range but as you are adjusting the amounts it should be OK. However, I am wondering if your dog would appreciate some home cooked food as a topper rather than another dry food? Mine love cooked, puréed vegetables. There is some information about this in the home cooking section. If you are interested, check out Rodney Habib on Facebook (Planet Paws). He is quite keen on enhancing dry dog food with a bit of fresh food. He also has a number of YouTube videos.
Having a non food orientated dog means he gets fed various grain free kibble, coldpressed, wet home cooked, a little raw. Basically if it doesn’t upset his tummy and it’s good quality food I just go with what he eat
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Great advice, thank you both!
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