CALLING ALL UK DOG OWNERS
Hi Everyone!
I’m a vet student currently doing some research into canine nutrition and have set up a discussion forum online.
If you’re a dog owner in the UK, please visit the website below to register on the forum and contribute to the discussion threads.
Even if you only have 2 minutes to spare, any comments are really helpful and will be hugely appreciated!
Please feel free to reply to this thread with any queries and I hope to hear from lots of you on the forum!
Thank you 
Hello and welcome to the forum. I’ve converted your url to a link and have checked it out. As there are no forums on it at the moment, please can you let us know a bit more about your plans for it? It would be interesting to know what you are particularly wanting to know and your area/s of interest.
Hi There!
Sorry for the confusion, you have to click ‘register’ and enter an email address and username in order to be able to access my forum. Once you have done that your account will be activated and you will be able to see the 5 discussion threads that I have posted.
Hope that clears things up a bit!
Thanks,
Elaine
Hello egoulbourn and welcome to the forum!
I wonder if you might consider adding your information to the allaboutdogfood forum somehow? I only ask as the allboutdogfood forum users and readers should likely benefit from your canine nutritional knowledge.
Elaine - don’t know if it is intended, but the board is showing no forums to guests. In the acp/permissions you can set it to guests can see the forum but not read. They will then know that the forum is in use. It may also be helpful to install the announcement extension. This sits at the top of the Board Index. You can use it to let people know what the forum is about.
Forums are difficult to get off the ground, particularly these days when many people prefer Facebook. If you have a look at some of the threads on here you will see that we have a problem with lack of feedback. A lot of people (probably the majority) ask for help, but do not return to acknowledge the advice they are given and to let us know how they are getting on. Lack of participation is a problem for forums.
We suspect that some people just want to be told what to feed - the question ‘what’s the best food…’ crops up fairly regularly. We prefer to encourage pet owners to learn something (however basic) about the subject so they can make an informed choice.
BTW it’s good that you are interested in this subject.
Hello!
Thanks so much for your help everyone. Unfortunately there is little I can do about the permissions on the forum as it has been set up by my university as a temporary forum just for my research project and permissions are controlled mainly by the IT department. Ethics requirements mean I have to have people register so unfortunately won’t be able to post the questions on here but I will look into trying to get an introduction written on the front page - thank you.
I have 5 question threads which I have posted on the forum (visible once registered) which relate to where owners go to get their nutritional advice and the concept of nutrition as a preventative medicine. My forum doesn’t intend to provide any information but is instead aimed at understanding some owner opinions on dietary advice from their vets and elsewhere, and I hope to use my research to promote greater use of preventative nutrition in the veterinary world.
The registration is very simple and the forum will be closed once data is collected so information will not be able to be viewed/accessed by people who are not registered (required for the conditions of my project).
Thank you for your help. I hope some people on here will be interested in adding to the comments already present on my forum and enjoy reading what some other owners think about the subject.
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Thank you for the explanation about the forum. It is now clearer. I hope that when it is closed the participants will eventually be notified of the outcome.
I wish you well with the research and well done for developing an interest in this very important subject. Hopefully it will be very useful to you (and your clients) when you qualify and join a veterinary practice.
No problem, thanks for your help with this!
I’m hoping to be able to share the results once my paper is written up so anyone who is interested can have a read. Thank you so much!
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Hi, I just saw this thread. Is it still active?
The study was only for a short period of time so I assume that it was taken offline once the student had completed the piece of work. It’s a shame that he or she didn’t report back on the outcome.