What do you feed your Sheltie? And, Colitis advice.

I feed strictly home cooked foods. My menu includes a variety of meats. Turkey, chicken breast, ground beef (80/20 or better) chicken liver, salmon, but no pork.
Fruits and vegetables are a variety and I like to take advantage of what is in season with two exceptions. Blue berries and strawberries. My kids get the runs something awful from those two fruits. Green beans, squash of all types, cauliflower, brocolli, carrots, spinach, parsley, apples, oranges, pears and melon of all kinds.
Carbohydrates consist of brown rice, oatmeal and potato. For calcium I use Cottage cheese and eggs.

Depending on the meat I cook I choose vegetables that will go readily with the dinner. For instance if i want to use chicken breast I add green beans or brocolli, carrots and cauliflower with apples. If I use salmon then I add spinach and cauliflower and oranges. It just depends on what I'm going to prepare for their next batch of food.

It only takes me an hour to prepare, bag and clean up the mess when I cook a batch of food which lasts me about 10 days for my two furkids.

 

Feeding

I feed Shadow Solid Gold Lamb and Rice.He gets Fish Oil pills twice a day and Gygloflex.

 

Hunter gets Innova EVO small bites

in the yellow bag. Totally grain free, ancestral based diet. I give him Zuke's mini naturals or sometimes cooked & diced chicken organs for training treats. He also loves veggies and I give him a few pieces of what ever I'm having; brussel sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, green beans etc
My favorite dog food site is www.dogfoodanalysis.com.

 

California Natural for our kids.

 

Very informative web site, I had not heard of it before. Thanks!

 

As I said, this is a very informative site, but i wonder, what exactly are the qualifications of the editors? I tried looking into this but found this information missing. Just curious.

 

At the moment Im feeding James Well Beloved for convenience whilst I concerntrate on house training/leaving/ basic obediance, but I then hope to move onto RAW or homecooked (or a mixture of both)

 

I don't know what their qualifications are, if any.

But as with anything you read on the net, it is best to take it with a grain of salt. That site is certainly not the 'dog food bible' but it is a helpful resource and really opened my eyes to the super premium dog food alternatives available.
Unless one feeds a prey model raw diet, it is next to impossible to recreate a natural canine diet. Alot of what is on the site makes sense, to me at least.
For instance, there are alot of inexpensive fillers used in dog food that hold little to no nutritional value, such as beet pulp. Its mainly fiber and some residual sugar, thats about it!
I can pay the same for Eukanuba as for Innova EVO but I'm paying for the fillers in Eukanuba and the meat in Innova EVO. I would rather pay for something my dog can digest and benefit from. Plus, I feed less (have to buy less) and my dog's BM's are tiny, telling me he can digest most of what I'm giving him.
My big yuck is corn. My theory on that is, if WE can't digest it (comes out pretty much the same way it goes in!), how can we expect our dogs, with their shorter intestinal tracts, to digest it?
If nothing else, it gets one thinking and reading those dog food labels so we are more aware of what we are offering our pups. Nothing wrong with a little education!

 

Vet recommendations

Because of CeCe kidney concerns, the vet immediately put CeCe on a Science Diet K/D formula. Low in protein, lots of carbs, and fillers. My question is now, after I've been reading this thread and other web sites out there, is this good? After reading the ingredients for K/D (brewers rice, pork fat, corn gluten meal, powdered cellulose) it seems the equvilant of feeding her McDonalds everyday She a 7 month old puppy and I would think she still needs her protein to help her grow and develop. Just a higher quality protein, maybe EVO, something like that, a better quality protien and diet.

 

If the vet thinks she is already starting to have kidney problems, he is trying to prevent further damage by prescribing the K/D diet. If she is truley having these problems, she does need to be a on a very low protein diet. There is another prescription kidney food out there that you could ask your vet to get, it is Purina N/F. I have heard it is very good but I have not tried it with Zoe yet. Keep in mind that your vet is trying to prevent further kidney damage and extend her life. Is she done with her UTI meds yet? Have they re-checked a urine sample? If so, did they see anything? I would really push to have a full renial panel done before keeping her on the kidney diet. She may not need it if her levels are all normal.