The Post Your Pets Thread

[spicysaurus]

^Science diet is not a very good brand. They put lots of fillers in their food. For a dog, I'd go with something made only from meat, poultry, veggies, and grains, in that order (maybe a bit of fish and fruits). Merrick is a pretty good brand. My cats eat Before Grain, but as I understand it dogs tolerate grains better than cats.

 

[nsx_23]

Hmm, haven't seen Merrick around anywhere over here....

 

[flydiscovery]

I totally agree Science Diet is seriously overpriced crap (unless you have the prescription foods for a diagnosed condition, that stuff is usually ok). I do NOT understand how they get away with charging what they do for what they give you. I remember people saying it's hard to find good food for any pet in Australia. The import restrictions make it difficult and expensive. You want at LEAST the first 2 ingredients to be meat meal or meat, so like chicken meal, beef, lamb, etc, first 3 is even better. You know, stuff you can pronounce and not be repulsed by. Dogs are much more omnivorous than cats, they have flat grinding teeth too, but definitely see if you can get him on something healthier. You'll be glad down the road. I can ask someone from another board if you're interested in a recommendation.

 

[nsx_23]

Science diet is the only half-decent dog food I can find around here. I suppose there's pedigree, but......

Yeah, any recommendations would be greatly appreciated. My little JR is my first dog, so I still have a lot to learn.

Sometimes, when I'm cooking chicken, I will make some extra for the dog. He also gets the occasional bone to chew on.

 

[flydiscovery]

Plain cooked chicken is great for them, but you know NO chicken bones, ever right? They can splinter and cause all kinds of problems. Beef bones only and for a JR, widdle beef bones.

I'll ask what's good and available in your area.

 

[2Billion]

I almost got a kitten today, does that count? I was in the SPCA (doing my job, not looking for a pet) and it kept jumping on my jacket, and was generally awesome, but I dunno if getting a cat is a good idea.

Some jerk also left puppies at the side of the road, though some nice people found them and brought them in.

 

[flydiscovery]

Cats are great! But they live upwards of 15 years and will destroy your stuff for at least the first year as you train them. (Declawing is evil). You cool with that? Got disposable income for the vet and stuff? If so, totally adopt him! The adoption rate for cats is usually 50-75% less than that for dogs. <removes rescuer hat>

 

[Racin]

I was just wondering if he might not be enjoying his current brand of dog food (Science diet) since he's been eating that ever since I adopted him, and he's been fine with it.

Well, you could try switching brand after some months. I do it from time to time but the little bugger doesn't seem to care much

If you use Hill's Science I would recommend that you use the Adult Active, 'cause the other products is all low on fat and high in carbs and little low on proteins. Adult Active has a nice composition though.
The ideal composition is atleast 25% proteins, atleast 35% fat and at most 36% fat and the main protein source should be meat of somekind.

I use Royal Canine and would recommend it

 

[2Billion]

It is tempting, but I'll have to move pretty soon so I'm not sure if it's a good idea. But this cat is so awesome I'm sure anyone who goes there will be bound to take this one, given how awesome he is. I did tell the SPCA woman that if nobody took him I would, knowing their adoption rates. And for the record, this is the cat:

My job involves taking pictures of animals for the SPCA, as you might have guessed.

 

[nsx_23]

Plain cooked chicken is great for them, but you know NO chicken bones, ever right? They can splinter and cause all kinds of problems. Beef bones only and for a JR, widdle beef bones.

I'll ask what's good and available in your area.

Oh yeah, definitely no cooked chicken bones. Just plain, big bits of chicken which he goes psycho over :lol:

Thanks for your help. Science diet is pretty expensive over here =(

 

[Heathrow]

It is tempting, but I'll have to move pretty soon so I'm not sure if it's a good idea. But this cat is so awesome I'm sure anyone who goes there will be bound to take this one, given how awesome he is. I did tell the SPCA woman that if nobody took him I would, knowing their adoption rates. And for the record, this is the cat:

My job involves taking pictures of animals for the SPCA, as you might have guessed.

I have visions of little moggie mug shots, like the cops use for the felons, with the numbers across the bottom.
Awww! :lol:

(Cute kitteh, btw)

 

[flydiscovery]

<SNIP adorable tabby kittens>

My job involves taking pictures of animals for the SPCA, as you might have guessed.

Dude, that's HARD work. That was my job at the shelter, only I didn't get paid. I have a computer full of crappy pet pictures.

Oh yeah, definitely no cooked chicken bones. Just plain, big bits of chicken which he goes psycho over :lol:

Thanks for your help. Science diet is pretty expensive over here =(

No prob. It'll be tomorrow most likely. The traffic there is modest and there are only a handful of Aussies.

Edit: I lied! Just got a response (below in quotes). They're all good brands so you can price them out and compare to the SD. Of those listed, I'd expect Nutro to be the cheapest but also the lowest quality although they make 3 tiers of food so read the labels. I do think the quality is better than or at least comparable to SD though and likely much cheaper.

"You *can* get Innova in Australia, it's sold at the dodgiest pet store though (Pets Paradise) and it's incredibly expensive...think $40 for the SMALLEST bag!

Eagle Pack Hollistic is sold at Pet Stock + Pets at Home (dog + cat)

You can buy Ziwipeak and Artemis here:

http://www.naturalpetstore.com.au/index.php (and the prices are fairly good too!)

You can also buy Nutro at Pets at Home."

 

[2Billion]

Dude, that's HARD work. That was my job at the shelter, only I didn't get paid. I have a computer full of crappy pet pictures.

Depends on the animal really. Some are pretty good, some dogs are a bit crazy and love licking camera lenses.

I don't actually work at the SPCA, we just try to get people in there adopting stuff so we give them free publicity. It's an "pet of the week" deal (though that cat's not going in, since a bunch of puppies came in last minute so the SPCA lady said maybe it'd be a good idea to get people looking at dogs.)

 

[flydiscovery]

Depends on the animal really. Some are pretty good, some dogs are a bit crazy and love licking camera lenses.

I don't actually work at the SPCA, we just try to get people in there adopting stuff so we give them free publicity. It's an "pet of the week" deal.

That's really cool of yall. It really does help. At least 50% of the time I was trying to hold the animal and photograph at the same time with a modest P&S so I ended up with a lot of this:

 

[2Billion]

You kinda need an SLR to do it, since a P&S is just too slow. It's also always good to focus on the eyes, I've found.

The unfortunate thing is I dunno how we're going to crop this week's since on further inspection the dog had a poo and it's in frame (six week old puppy, so it's not unexpected really, but still poo).

 

[spicysaurus]

Here are my beautiful babies:

Lovely Ling

Playful Miya

And Taka, who died 2 years ago

 

[flydiscovery]

^Awe, pretty kitties.

 

[Austere]

I was just wondering if he might not be enjoying his current brand of dog food (Science diet) since he's been eating that ever since I adopted him, and he's been fine with it.

I wish to echo the sentiment that that brand is shithouse. I think I'm right in saying that the main ingredient is corn. Corn.

Fuck that.

I went to the veterinary clinic to buy dog food from them and that was all they had and they had the gall to recommend it to me! And it's expensive.

It can be very hard to find good quality dry dogfood here but honestly, you can get better stuff than Science Diet in the supermarket for less money. I use Purina One dry dog food and a canned meat called Optimum (Puppy Formula)

I keep the dry dog food a tupperware container and I don't have the bag it came in so I can't list the ingredients. I know it's not great but it's slightly better than that Hills Science stuff.

The ingredients of the Optimum are: Chicken, beef, lamb and pork; rice, egg, vegetable oil... and then it gets down to stuff like 'gelling agents'... but the main ingredients are real meat.

 

[flydiscovery]

Purina One is the best of the so called "grocery store brands" IMHO. Best stuff you can get without schlepping to a specialty store or buying online. The other kinda tolerable one is Iams but they have a nasty reputation for animal cruelty of all things. They used to be really great and then went mass market and got crap.

 

[Racin]

Here's Kalle, 7 months old and weighing 6 kilos.

Not pleased with F1:

Wet and less fluffy