I feed my boxers an holistic diet which can only be bought online. I usually order Healthy Paws from pet-supermarket.co.uk. I have also used gwjtitmuss, bestpet, for treats and supplements. I made it a rule, many years ago, not to feed my dogs anything which contains "meat and animal derivatives", including any pedigree or bakers products, among other popular brands. Sometimes, however, I get the impression that, as a supposed ~"nation of animal lovers", these sites feel we will pay through the nose, for our pets. I must admit, I spend more on my boxers than myself as the diet I feed them is pivotal to their wellbeing, and I am not willing to compromise their health. The site "Animed" does offer free postage, but the prices are extortionate. For a 125g pack of bakers treats, £2.99. They can be bought for £1 in the supermarket. I obviously don't buy these as they have no nutritional benefits, but for those who do, to charge triple what the shops do, is preposterous. I feed mine pooch and mutt, and pet munchies, the latter costing the same as the bakers. But they are fresh meat, no meat/animal derivatives, low fat, protein, fibre, etc. So, if you would possibly pay almost £3 for these, pay the same price for healthy snacks. Rip off. It is, fundamentally, emotional blackmail.

I wouldn't call it emotional blackmail. These companies are trying to market their products so of course are going to play on the healthy happy pet image and rely on people's ignorance, laziness or apathy.
That said I might just put the so called prescription products into this category.
None of this is helped by the attitude of so many vets. Mine looked at me as if I had just dropped off the moon when I asked for advice about home cooking (I had worked out I could give twice the quality of food at half the price by doing it myself).
These companies also play on people's fear that if they prepare food themselves, they might get it wrong or miss out on a nutrient. Some friends who live in Africa don't have the luxury of commercial pet foods and their dogs do just fine on what they get.
There is plenty of good advice on the net about pet nutrition plus thankfully there are some vets who offer a holistic service including advice about home prepared meals.

I've noticed that although the food is often a really good price online if you google it every time and buy it on offer the treats are often a crazy price like you say. With 4 dogs I do a lot of shopping around on line and seldom buy everything from 1 place. I usually stock up enough to avoid postage charges. Play them at their own game!!!

I can recommend this site for both food and vet prescriptions. They try to give the best prices for their goods. If an item is out of stock you can phone them and they will order it in for you. The shop is owned by a pharmacist so they can fill any prescriptions from a vet and in most cases at a better price than a vet will charge.

http://animalmedicinechest.co.uk/ind...te=common/home

All big named brands do this. Look at the liked of pedigree. Saying their food contains whole wheat etc. dogs have no use for this. It is a cheap filler and can actually cause a lot of issues. But to the average Joe it sounds healthy and so they aim their advertisements at that.

Same as fresh meat. Sounds great. But in a dry food you want meat meal. Else you end up with a fraction of the Stated meat content in the food once moisture is removed. But to average joe fresh meat sounds better.

They rely on people's ignorance, the vast majority of pet owners haven't got any idea what should and shouldn't be in a pet food.

Meat and animal derivatives in UK based foods I avoid. But on zoo plus they sell a lot of German foods. Email the makers and you find out meat and animal derivatives there is actually offal, which is absolutely fine. So don't automatically write it off. Most German makers will actually give you a list of what offal it is too. So you know it's not just beaks and feathers of whatever is cheapest that week.


I feed a raw diet. Had to oh this route since one of my dogs seemed to have issue with every commercial food I fed him. Poor thing ate nothing but boiled potato and egg for about 3 months before are because even the boiler chicken and fish caused issues. Rae chicken however is fine and since switch g to raw he's not had a single upset stomach. And his skin condition has improved massively.