What is ok to mix with kibble?

[Inuneko]

Hi, I'm back after a little hiatus.

I'd like to start mixing canned food with my girl's kibble. Although not the dog food since it gives her TERRIBLE gas. She's done well with canned cat food but I've only given her the chicken, duck, or beef, but she LOVES it. She'll knock people out the way and chase you all over the house if she sees you holding a can lol. So far I've noticed it hasn't given her gas, diarrhea or made her constipated. So is it ok to start mixing a can of cat food with her kibble for permenant? And is it ok to give her like the fish ones too?

I also give her baby carrots and banana chips as treats, broccoli too. She'll occasionally get a small bowl of mixed greens like collard greens and mustard greens when we cook them. She also gets a few sardines once a month for her coat, my mom eats the rest and the juice gets sealed and put in the fridge to mix with her kibble the next day.

Also does anyone know of any kibble cookie recipes I can use for treats for her? My friend told me there's some recipe you can use with oatmeal but I forgot it, if anyone knows an easy one, I'd appreciate it.

 

[SisMorphine]

First off: what kind of canned have you tried in the past? Not every canned (or every kibble) is made the same.

Another question: why are you adding something other than her kibble? Is it for health reasons? Just to change things up a bit? To add more to her diet? Or is she not a good eater?

 

[Inuneko]

Pedigree soft food and Gravy Train, both have given her rather bad gas, as in clear the room bad.

I'd like to change things up a bit for her and add more to her diet, but I try to make her mealtime interesting and something for her to look forward to other than walks since she's a bored girl and I can't get her to play with anything for the life of me and instead of being naughty when she's bored, she'll just sleep, so I try to keep her interested and active.

I had a kibble-dispensing ball for her and I'd switch it up every other day and let her eat her meals from the kibble ball, granted I'd have to refill it several times, but she really enjoyed that until my cousin's dog got a hold of it and I haven't found it since.

The kibble-dispensing ball was the ONLY toy I've ever gotten her to play with, except for a cat ball toy with feathers on it, she showed interest in it for about a minute until she chewed the feathers off and left it there lol. She likes to hunt vermin so I thought a toy mouse would keep her interested but nope, she wants nothing to do with it, she sniffs it then snorts at it and goes lay down.

 

[vanillasugar]

:yikes: I haven't heard of anyone feeding Gravy Train in YEARS....

Both it and Pedigree are terrible foods. I'm not surprised they gave her gas!

Cat food is not a long term solution. Cats have different nutritional needs than dogs, and you might cause problems doing this.

Look for a higher quality canned dog food without by-products, corn, wheat or soy, and you'd be off to a good start.

 

[Dekka]

Have you tried a stuffed kong toy? I agree you can do much better for food (umm and likely can't do much worse... its like feeding fast food every meal!!)

Good foods cost more initially but end up costing less as they go much further (are more nutrient dense) and you will have less shedding, less smell (so less cleaning time and cleaning products) and less health issues (so savings at the vets office).

What kind of dog do you have? *we love pictures

 

[Fran101]

Ya the bad food is probably whats giving her gas! my moms dog was the same way when he was on ceasar (those lil square foods with the westie on them). Changing him to wellness REALLY helped and the price was about the same per (not including the money we saved because of his frequent health problems he used to have)

a change of food with most likely help! most dogs will readily eat food, but for my dog(before she was on raw) on special days sometimes i added a bit of cheese, chicken, hotdog or something like that to give her a lil treat

 

[Inuneko]

Yeah, her kibble ball was a kong ball, but I think my cousin's dog took off with it and buried it somewhere, I can't find it anywhere in the house.

I used to mix rice, liver, and egg in with her kibble about 3x a week but I haven't done so in a while. Would it be advisable to start doing that again?

Also, she's a little mutt but she's my little mutt lol
Her mom was a pekinese mix, she looked like a tibetan spaniel though (I owned her mom, but we lost her though)
And her dad was a chow-chow looking dog but he had a sparse wirey coat instead of a full coat.

I'll try to get a picture of her, she gets annoyed with me when I turn on the camera and she's 'not ready for her closeup' lol
edit: She doesn't want the camera right now lol She's such a beauty queen, she's more accepting of the camera after she's had a bath :lol-sign:
I'll get a couple of pictures of her tonight after she's had her bath.

 

[vanillasugar]

I used to mix rice, liver, and egg in with her kibble about 3x a week but I haven't done so in a while. Would it be advisable to start doing that again?

It would be 100% better than Pedigree or Gravy Train

3 times a week might be a *bit* much for liver, but if you're not feeding much of it at each meal it should be fine.

She sounds adorable, I hope you can get pictures posted soon!

 

[Inuneko]

No, I'd feed her about the equivilant of a tablespoon full of liver, but it would be chopped up and boiled in water with the rice until the rice is tender, almost like a pilaf and sometimes I'd add an egg sort of like egg drop soup, but sometimes I'd chop up a carrot and let that boil with the liver too and I'd season it with a bit of garlic. But if I didn't want to sit there and stir rice, I'd just boil the liver down and add the stock to some already cooked rice. She liked it either way lol.

Yes, she is adorable and has a wonderful personality, unfortunately she's a bored girl and sort of lazy so if she has no incentive to be motivated, she'll sleep all the time.

Thanks for the advice everyone. I'll be heading off to bed for now but I do plan on getting some pictures up soon.

 

[Zoom]

Switching to anything else, even ProPlan (not that I'm recommending that either), would help with the gas. Gravy Train is a HORRIBLE food! :yikes: Purina isn't much better.

Switching to a higher-quality food will clear up pretty much all your problems. My recommendations would be Chicken Soup for the Dog Lover's Soul (also known as Kirkland Signatures Chicken and Rice if you buy from Costco), Innova, EVO, Taste of the Wild, and Fromm, just to name a few. Go to The Dog Food Project - How does your Dog Food Brand compare? too. There you will learn how to read labels and really compare different foods. These foods have a higher price tag on them but it's well worth it in decreased feeding amounts, less shedding, less pooping, less gas, fewer overall vet bills...yeah.

 

[Doberluv]

I used to mix rice, liver, and egg in with her kibble about 3x a week but I haven't done so in a while. Would it be advisable to start doing that again?

Adding a tiny smiggen of something like this to her kibble would be fine. However.....if you substitute her meals with this mixture, she is missing all kinds of essential minerals and vitamins. She's not getting a balance of things like bone meal, calcium and a ton of other important ingredients.

If you want to do a home cooked meal, I recommend consulting with the nutritional expert on the website Zoom gave you the link for. She knows her stuff and can advise you. I've used her myself and was very happy with the results.

That website is a well of information where you can compare brands of kibble and learn about what dogs need and what you should avoid. I highly recommend studying it.

 

[Inuneko]

Oh no, I don't feed her JUST that mixture, I mix it in with her kibble. Since if I gave her just that, she might not want to eat her food.

I already had problems with that when I lived with my mom and her ex boyfriend, his nephew moved in and he would leave his food plates with food still in them on the floor and my girl decided that since she could just eat the food he left, that she didn't have to eat her kibble. I got her to eat her dog food again, thankfully, but mr nephew got quite a fussing at. He stopped leaving food on the floor though, after he put down his plate for a moment and she snatched up a link of boudin and ran off with it lol

But I gave her a little treat today, I was a little iffy since I didn't know if she'd like it. I froze a bit of vanilla yogurt in an empty fruit freezers cup with a carrot and some kibble, a little bit of cheese and peanutbutter, she LOVED it lol I won't be feeding her such things every day though. I'll get some pictures of her up in a bit, I just have to get them uploaded and all that.

 

[Inuneko]

I know it's a double post but here's a link to the thread of my girl's pictures.

http://www.chazhound.com/forums/t99889/

 

[Dekka]

So since you obviously care deeply for her and really want her to have good (and enjoyable) nutrition why not move her to a much better food? (as well as adding tidbits.. though I would add RMB or Raw Meaty Bones as they have many benefits as well as being highly enjoyable by the dog)

 

[Inuneko]

I do care about my girl, I've had her since the day she was born, we owned her mom but we lost her a few months after she had her litter.

I'll try to get her a Kong toy when we can make the trip to PetCo. I'd like to get her a harness too and forgo the collar. When she finds something interesting outside, she'll pull on the lead hard enough that she actually starts choking and she's actually slipped her collar a few times and run off.

 

[Dekka]

I mean a new food NOT pedigree (regardless of what you put it in its still icky). Kong toys are great, as are the Genius leo toys.

 

[Doberluv]

I recommend you spend some time reading some of that website....the link Zoom gave you. It's very informative. There are lots of better foods out there, actually designed for dogs. Pedegree and these other grocery store foods look more designed for an animal that doesn't need meat. Adding a little something tasty is fine. My Chulita goes through phases where she is picky. She's not always picky. When she is, I'll sprinkle a pinch of fresh parmessan cheese and add a teensy bit of water. That makes it nice and smelly. Yum, yum. Or you can add a tsp of cottage cheese or yogurt, a few tid bits of chicken or beef that you had for dinner. But the base diet should be of good quality, premium dog food. Or if you want to go with a raw meaty bone diet. That requires some research but a lot of people do that successfully with their dogs.

 

[Inuneko]

Yeah, right now we have her on Dog Chow, which is probably our best choice for the local store until we can get to PetCo, **** that store for being so far away... And it's either Dog Chow or Kibbles n Bits or some off-brand. I used to have her on Beneful but the last bag I got her made her constipated and made it hard for her to go, so I took her off of the Beneful.

But I will read up on that site, thanks.

I do give her bones sometimes, but never chicken bones. But I haven't given her raw meat before, I'll give her a bit when I get the chance.

She's never had rawhide, and I don't plan on letting her have any either. She likes pig ears though, but I'd love to catch the butcher and get some fresh ears to season and bake myself rather than buy the pre-packaged ones, namely because I'd want one for myself :lol-sign:

 

[skittledoo]

Switching to anything else, even ProPlan (not that I'm recommending that either), would help with the gas. Gravy Train is a HORRIBLE food! :yikes: Purina isn't much better.

Switching to a higher-quality food will clear up pretty much all your problems. My recommendations would be Chicken Soup for the Dog Lover's Soul (also known as Kirkland Signatures Chicken and Rice if you buy from Costco), Innova, EVO, Taste of the Wild, and Fromm, just to name a few. Go to The Dog Food Project - How does your Dog Food Brand compare? too. There you will learn how to read labels and really compare different foods. These foods have a higher price tag on them but it's well worth it in decreased feeding amounts, less shedding, less pooping, less gas, fewer overall vet bills...yeah.

^This X2
:hail:

My dog is currently on Kirkland I recently paid $23 for a 40lb bag at Costco. I'd rather him be on raw to be honest or at least on Innova or Evo, but money is tight and Kirkland is the best I can find for what I can afford right now. Do you have a Costco near you? Also... google around to see if any stores in your area carry any of the other foods Zoom suggested and I can't tell you enough how great that website is that Zoom linked you too. Please PLEASE check it out. Do your research and find what's best for your dog. Pedigree, Purina, Iams, Science Diet and Gravy Train are just a few of the WORST foods for a dog. There's absolutely NO nutritional value in those bags and it's nothing short of feeding awful fast food every single meal. Search around and read up on other threads posted in this forum regarding food and nutritional needs. It's a great way to see what has worked for other people's dogs and the benefits of feeding better quality foods.

 

[Inuneko]

Her dog food now doesn't give her gas, it's only when she has canned dog food.

And no we don't have a Costco nearby, there might be one in Lafayette though. But if we go to Lafayette, we might as well just go to PetCo. We do have a feed store just up the highway that carries dog food but I don't know what kinds they have, I could try to get my other aunt to bring me to go check it out.

I'll be heading off to bed now though. Please keep up with the suggestions.