The Best Food For a Your Dog/Cat

I have had huge problems with finding a good quality and cost effective dog and cat food suitable for my Westhighland terrier with horrible, itchy skin and also a food suitable for my poodles sensitive stomach. I used to work in a pet store where I got premium pet food at a highly discounted price so it was easy for me to feed my dogs a god quality food and not cost me an arm and a leg. I used to use royal Canin for both the dogs and the cats and although this is a great food your looking at nearly $30 for 1.5kg. 

Since leaving the pet shop I have had to resort to supermarket bough pet food and it has played havoc on both my cats and dogs. One of the cats developed urine crystals from the high sodium content in whiskas and friskies cat biscuits and more poor terrier had scratched and chewed his skin raw. 

It has now been discovered that my terrier has quite an extreme wheat allergy as do a lot of dogs. It was recommended that we try him on a "grain free and raw diet" but having 3 dogs, 5 cats and a 1 year old I just could not afford to put the pets on premium pet food again. I then discovered that woolworths stock a brand called "V.I.P Natures Goodness" that promotes grain free in their dog biscuits. You can get a 3kg bag for about $20 and sometimes it's on special aswell. The only downside is that you can't get any bigger sized bags so naturally 3kg does not last my 3 dogs that long. I also buy pet mince from my local butcher that is chicken mince, organ meats and chunks of bone all mixed together, my dogs go crazy over it! And it's so cheap, I get 2kg for $4-5 and that will last about a week. My westies skin is looking so much better, it's not perfect, but it's a huge improvement to what it used to be. 

This is the dry dog food. 

This is the pet mince. (It looks and smells disgusting)

Most commercial pet food is full of preservatives, artificial colors and flavours. My Dog, chum and pedigree are some of the worst pet foods you could possibly feed your dog. Always look on the label of any pet food that you buy and if one of the first 3 ingredients is some form of grain like corn meal, oatmeal etc stay clear. Meat should be one of the first ingredients (meat by products do not count!) the grains are just a cheap filler and your feeding your dog on something that is as nutritional as a piece of cardboard. Tinned food is horrible, it's full of preservatives and is just blank calories. 

I'm still having a bit of trouble finding a decent cat food, my cats were fed on friskies or whiskas cat biscuits but since one of my cats has been getting urine crystals because of the high amount of sodium (salt) I need to swap to something else. V.I.P currently don't make the natures goodness for cats but do make another grain free food called fussy cat, but again it only comes in small bags. 

If your dog is struggling with skin and stomach problems, consider changing their diet before resorting to expensive vet medications. A good quality diet and regular grooming go hand in hand. Beef and any other red meat tends to flare up bad skin so stick to white meats like chicken and fish. Kangaroo is a big no no as it contains a high volume of worms as do a lot of other game meats (boar, rabbit etc)

If you would like more information then feel free to ask me and I can send you lots of recipes for your pooch/es :)