cocker nutrition

Question
QUESTION: I have a 9 month old cocker and an 11 month old golden retriever. I have been reading your answers to all sorts of issues with great interest. Whilst my family have always owned dogs, this is the first time I have had experience with these two breeds.
I have noticed that diet comes up in almost every response, so I decided to take a proper look at the ingredients on our dog food.
I am currently feeding them Purina Mainstay....sure enough it is full of rubbish.
The problem I have is I live in Mexico City and the dog foods you mention are not available here. Vets and pet stores here seem to mainly push Eukanuba, at ridiculous prices. Apart from that, there are the supermarkets and Costco where most of the big commercial brands are available.
Money is also a big factor, we can't afford to spend extortinate amounts on food so I was wondering whether there is an economical solution you could suggest, be it adding supplements to a commercial brand, mixing dry and wet food, or even custom making their meals from scratch (although I feel this would be even more expensive).

Any advice you may have would be great.

Thanks, Nikki

ANSWER: If you can tell me exactly what is available to you I'd be happy to help you pick the best of the lot.

And yes, you can add some inexpensive protein to cheaper dog food but it's not much more expensive to make your own at least a few days a week.

You're currently feeding Purina (just awful)...figure out how much that costs you a day and I'd pretty much bet I could do homemade for close to the same amount.

But first let's find the most decent food - so take a look at the supermarket - Costco - pet store and I'll see if Eukanuba has even one product that's tolerable.  Are you saying you can only buy it through vets there?  Is canned available?
Delores

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: I would say that the Purina works out at about 60cents a day.

It is mainly dry food available here, I think the only canned varieties available are Pedigree and Old Roy. I have always stayed away from Pedigree (I heard it contains addictive subtances...the McDonald's for dogs?!) and I have never heard of the Old Roy brand.

The principal brands are Pedigree and Purina. Also available is a brand called Ganador, which I presume is a Mexican brand.

We then have Costco's Kirkland brand dry food and Sam's Club Sportsman's Choice brand.

I have just done some research on the net myself and the Kirkland brand foods seem to be fairly highly rated, followed by the Sportsman's Choice brand. Both are quite affordable to boot so I would be interested to know if you agree with this.

The only pet store chain here stocks Eukanuba, IAMS and Science Diet (I think that's the name) at over inflated prices, and from what I've seen and heard these are not particularly rated foods.

I have also started adding a touch of olive oil to their foods and am looking for an Ester C product and glucosamine supplements, as we adopted both the Cocker and the Golden without knowing their histories and I am particularly concerned about hip dysplasia in the golden. When I was very young we had a German Shepherd that suffered terribly with the disease).

One more thing...both dogs eat feces whilst walking, is this a defeciency of some sort or are they just being puppies? the vet said to feed them courgettes but I beilieve this only stops them eating their own excrement?

I know you keep saying that the cheap dog foods are false economy etc...and whilst I agree, we just cannot afford to be spending crazy money as we have just bought our first home and we have our wedding coming up. However I want to give them the best we can WITHIN our budget constraints!(the same goes for my fiance and myself, if we had the money I would buy everything organic, but we just can't at the moment!!!)

Please help me achieve this!
Many thanks, your advice has been great.

Nikki

Answer
At their ages they don't need glucosamine.  Usually you'd start that around age 3 or 4.
I have no idea why you'd be adding Ester C ???  And olive oil doesn't do a thing for dogs except add calories.
Best to use 1 tsp. of sunflower or safflower oil.

Do stop them from eating feces.  If you have to, use a muzzle while walking.  This can give them parasites and some really nasty tummy problems.

You'll have to tell me what brand you have chosen - I'll take a look at it and see what you can add.

I have never seen anyone list Kirkland as a good food or recommend it.
Delores