# Unable to buy good dog food



## judyou (Aug 5, 2012)

Hi Guys 

I was wondering if anyone can give me some advice.

I live in Egypt (on the beach not in Cairo!) and it's impossible to buy good quality dog food here. The kibble sold is mostly for large dogs as most folks here prefer large breeds and it looks and smells disgusting anyway!
Canned food once again is imported, very expensive but poor quality.

Since I got my chi Bambi 9 months ago, I've been feeding her homemade food - mostly boiled chicken/turkey, rice and a few veggies - 75% chicken, 15% rice and 10% carrots or zucchini.
Sometimes I've given her some chicken liver/heart for a change.
I give her a good dog vitamin supplement which I brought back from London.

Her breeder gives her chis whatever she is having and I was shocked to see them eating chicken in tomato sauce (with onions and garlic) which is of course full of salt too! They also have pieces of her croissant dipped in coffee for breakfast! :nshocked1:

She's a very picky eater and I would like to make sure that she has enough variety in her diet.
She is a perfect weight by the way and is a happy and healthy little girl. Nice shiny coat.


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## pigeonsheep (Nov 8, 2008)

ok from my experience on homemade meals...i have fed dex on that for about 3 years...it literally damaged his liver and he lacked lots of nutrition even if i was givin him treats that had vits and such. i still give him chicken but only a small portion since he is so used to it and refuses to eat just dog food...i finally got him to eat wellness dry dog food and is happy that he eats it a couple times a week. just wanted to give u a heads up just incase she gets some surprising vet results like i did one day...it was a shocker and a wakeup call

i hope u find her some good food :albino:


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## 20887 (Mar 16, 2011)

What about a raw diet? A home cooked diet is very difficult to balance and can be harmful if not fed correctly. Most home cooked diets require a lot of supplements. Check out the raw feeding sticky on the forum- it has a lot of information about a prey model raw diet.


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## Wicked Pixie (Oct 14, 2011)

I would give raw a go, cooking just takes nutrients out of the meat. Welcome to the forum, I have a Bambi too.


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## AussieLass (Mar 1, 2012)

By cooking you are destroying every single enzyme in any of the foods, even heating kills enzymes, and destroying some vitamins and minerals too.

You're in the perfect position to feed just plain old raw, easy peasy, and the best possible food you can feed them anyway - needs to be 80% meat (different types), 10% digestable raw bone and offal/secreting organs - there's loads of information on this forum about raw feeding and many of us do it with huge success. Some of us do half raw and half ZiwiPeak which is dehydrated raw pure meat from New Zealand which you can import.


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## judyou (Aug 5, 2012)

Thanks for the advice everyone! Will check out the raw feeding info on the forum here.

I'd read about it before but there's so many conflicting opinions on the net and I was unsure whether or not to give it a go.
At least on here you all know what you're talking about!

Bambi is my first chi (though have had dogs all my life - larger breeds plus cats and cockatiels!) and I want to do the very best for my adorable little girlie.
I also have a 10 month old puginese (pug x peke) from the same breeder. I'm sure that she'll do fine on the raw diet too.

I'll let you know how it goes.


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## LostLakeLua (Sep 6, 2009)

Wonderful, keep us updated! Raw is the way to go and what nature intended. Kibble has really only been around the last 50 years or so... cereal was cheap to make. Oh and if you go with it don't forget to take pics! We love raw feeding pics, haha.


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## woodard2009 (Aug 4, 2010)

Hi & welcome!! I'm so excited to see some from Egypt!!! Seems like such a beautiful place!! Can't wait to see pics of your chi (animals) & maybe some nature shots!! I was going to do homemade until I researched it! You would have to have a balance of minerals, vitamins, protein & everything for your dog to get any benefit out of it. Since you have internet access, can't you order food online? Raw is definitely the best way to go, but that needs to be in variety too. (You just can't feed chicken all the time). There are some pretty good foods on the market today because more & more people are demanding them. I feed a combination of raw, Ziwipeak & The Honest Kitchen.


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## judyou (Aug 5, 2012)

So - I presented Bambi with a raw meaty chicken wing at dinner time. First she sniffed and licked it but didn't think that it was serious food and walked away.
I snipped off some meaty bits and made cuts into the main piece. She ate the loose bits with gusto but remained mighty suspicious of the bony part! 

Having read lots of links about raw feeding from here, I realise that it's going to take a bit of time for her to get used to it but I'm more than willing to persevere.

Sadly getting anything - and I mean anything! - by mail here is well nigh impossible! 
Everything is treated as a potential threat and all packages are ripped open and investigated and if they discover that it's not explosive/narcotic or generally harmful they levy a huge Customs tax on it.

I have to wait till I make one of my trips to my native London to get stuff and bring it back in my luggage, so obviously I can't get hold of enough of this great sounding ZiwiPeak that you're all recommending.

Thanks for the welcome by the way!


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## pigeonsheep (Nov 8, 2008)

wow JUDY...u have a very interestin life. i skimmed through ur blog a bit and loved it. its a shame about that fish meal u ordered haha :lol: and also about the fishing in the private beach  loved all the beautiful pics, it looks really nice there! very crafty u are too with ur polymer clay and painting! :albino: goodluck on raw!


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## AussieLass (Mar 1, 2012)

pigeonsheep said:


> wow JUDY...u have a very interestin life. i skimmed through ur blog a bit and loved it. its a shame about that fish meal u ordered haha :lol: and also about the fishing in the private beach  loved all the beautiful pics, it looks really nice there! very crafty u are too with ur polymer clay and painting! :albino: goodluck on raw!


Huh? What Blog? Where Blog? Want to see Blog, Egypt is one of my fave countries, I even took Egyptian History at school and actually turned up to class, unlike every other class 

Re chicken, she'll get used to it Judy, she may be a good starter with the very end tips of the wings, even my teeny, weeny little pup decimates them in just a minute or two. Also the chicken carcass, there's a lot of really fine, soft bones & gristle on them which make it easy to start them off on their great new adventure.

I'm currently looking to buy an old 2nd hand chest freezer so I can throw a whole lamb or goat carcass into into it (cut up by the butcher of course) and a few chooks etc.


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## judyou (Aug 5, 2012)

> Huh? What Blog? Where Blog? Want to see Blog, Egypt is one of my fave countries, I even took Egyptian History at school and actually turned up to class, unlike every other class


 :laughing6:

It's in my signature - handcrafted jewellery and paintings by arty judy

Ok then - tippy tips of wing is it today!


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## judyou (Aug 5, 2012)

Whoops! Ignore the link I just gave in my last post handcrafted jewellery and paintings by arty judy as it's only a link to my old website. My proper blog address is the one in my signature - 
sand between my toes | the life & times of a beach dweller


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## AussieLass (Mar 1, 2012)

Oooh I can't stop reading and looking, I love it all! Smiled at your garden shot with the antique'ish' looking gate and formal garden squares galore - having created & maintained many English gardens in my time, I now live in a region that will not support roses, hollyhocks & foxgloves so I flatly refuse to have garden at all. I'd rather perish than have lantana & oleanders in my field of vision. Lantana is actually declared a very noxious weed in Australia, as well it should be the ghastly, hard, nasty, prickly thing it is.

Your babies are just gorgeous and I laughed heartily at your respective descriptions, especially the fly swatting part.


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## EmberLuvu (Oct 24, 2011)

LostLakeLua said:


> Wonderful, keep us updated! Raw is the way to go and what nature intended. Kibble has really only been around the last 50 years or so... cereal was cheap to make. Oh and if you go with it don't forget to take pics! We love raw feeding pics, haha.


Kibble has been around (actually) for about 150-200 or more years. It was introduced in the mid 1800s. Nature's Variety has been out for roughly 150yrs.
So I would say around 200 years at least, believe it or not.


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## AussieLass (Mar 1, 2012)

EmberLuvu said:


> Nature's Variety has been out for roughly 150yrs.


Where did you see that??? I've searched & searched and cannot find any mention of that anywhere. Methinks that's possibly a little bit of poetic licence and corporate lies to be honest. It does happen, heck, Harley-Davidson couldn't even get the year of their own 100th Anniversary correct lmao.


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## whipandchi (Aug 7, 2009)

I think with a few additions what you are feeding now is fine. You do need to add calcium (I use ground up eggshells - 1 tsp/lb of meat) and some fish or fish oil would be beneficial as well. Vary your protein source and veg so as to give a good variety of nutrients, whatever is available to you. I feed homecooked and use beef, chicken, lamb, salmon, eggs, a small amount of organ meat and a variety of vegetables - broccoli, carrots, squash, green beans, spinach, tomatoes - really anything but onions. I also use a supplement that adds vitamins, minerals, some fatty acids,etc.

There seems to be some bias against homecooked but it has worked very well for me. My dogs (ages 9, 11, and 15 years) have been fed homecooked for 6 years - everyone is very healthy and I get compliments on their beautiful glossy coats whenever we go out and people do not believe that they are the ages that they are.

Here are a couple of good resources for homecooking:

Dogster Forums - Home Prepared Food & Recipes

DogAware.com: Diet & Health Info for Man's Best Friend


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## lulu'smom (Jan 4, 2012)

I am so sorry that I cannot add one thing to the food problem, but you are in good hand already on that one. I just wanted to say--Egypt--too cool! Will visit the sites that were posted and any other pics of the area where you live are OK by me.


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## AussieLass (Mar 1, 2012)

whipandchi said:


> I think with a few additions what you are feeding now is fine. You do need to add calcium (I use ground up eggshells - 1 tsp/lb of meat) and some fish or fish oil would be beneficial as well. Vary your protein source and veg so as to give a good variety of nutrients, whatever is available to you. I feed homecooked and use beef, chicken, lamb, salmon, eggs, a small amount of organ meat and a variety of vegetables - broccoli, carrots, squash, green beans, spinach, tomatoes - really anything but onions. I also use a supplement that adds vitamins, minerals, some fatty acids,etc.
> 
> There seems to be some bias against homecooked but it has worked very well for me. My dogs (ages 9, 11, and 15 years) have been fed homecooked for 6 years - everyone is very healthy and I get compliments on their beautiful glossy coats whenever we go out and people do not believe that they are the ages that they are.
> 
> ...


Sorry, but adding calcium can be very counterproductive, even dangerous, if a dog is receiving enough via the fresh meaty bones it should be getting regularly and the rest of its diet.

The second you cook meat and vegetables you destroy every single enzyme in them (even heating kills enzymes), as well as totally destroying many of the nutrients present. Additionally, unless fruit & veg have been put through a blender, they are of absolutely no benefit whatsoever to dogs and could only be considered as "filler" in a homecooked stew of sorts.

There was a gal on here just recently who was saying her beloved dog died, or very nearly died, from eating her carefully prepared home cooked meals because she had no idea they were completely nutritionally bankrupt. Frankly, I'd rather feed a dog kibble, and I despise the stuff!

There's a reason for bias against anything be it cooked or raw etc. Cooked is because the food has literally been killed turn into cardboard - we KNOW lifeforce comes from raw, for dogs, humans and everything in between!!!! 

The bias against raw is those possible little germie wermies - no big deal, don't lick the chopping board or stick your tongue down your dog's throat - their digestive system is geared up to kill all those nasty "food poisoning type bugs" i.e. samonella etc.


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## judyou (Aug 5, 2012)

So - Day 2 of raw feeding!

Started Lucie my puginese on it too which helped a lot as she's a glutton who will tackle anything with gusto so my chi Bambi watched her with interest. 
I thought it best to give Lucie a largish piece as she's been used to swallowing her soft cooked food whole and I wanted her to deal with her first bone with her teeth! 
She did very well, beginning by licking the skin but after a few minutes she got the hang of chewing through it and eventually did a great job of demolishing it all including the bones.

Bambi had up till now just eaten little bits of raw chicken and had ignored the bone but having seen Lucie getting such enjoyment out of it I heard a little "crack" as she tackled her first tiny bone! 
I gave her a small leg bone afterwards (see pic) and she proudly carried it around for a while but hasn't connected yet with the idea that she can gnaw on it too! 

I'm so glad that I've gone down this route. 
Thanks for the advice!


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## AussieLass (Mar 1, 2012)

Oh well done you (and babies too, of course)!!! 

Wait for a couple of weeks, you'll be patting them and think the houseboy washed & conditioned them in silk & henna. They'll have Angel Breath and you'll be astounded at the difference in their poo - tiny & odourless. 

Only one word of warning, _Beware The Flatulation_!!! Do not suffer Dutch Ovens silently, I don't.


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## whipandchi (Aug 7, 2009)

AussieLass said:


> Sorry, but adding calcium can be very counterproductive, even dangerous, if a dog is receiving enough via the fresh meaty bones it should be getting regularly and the rest of its diet.
> 
> The second you cook meat and vegetables you destroy every single enzyme in them (even heating kills enzymes), as well as totally destroying many of the nutrients present. Additionally, unless fruit & veg have been put through a blender, they are of absolutely no benefit whatsoever to dogs and could only be considered as "filler" in a homecooked stew of sorts.
> 
> ...


Well, I guess my dogs should be dead then since they have been eating this way for 6 years and are disgustingly healthy, as are many other dogs that I know that have been fed this way. If cooked food is so bad for living beings how do humans survive on it? We have been cooking our food (and sharing it with our dogs for a very long time) and we are still here.

The OP stated she was feeding boiled chicken, veg and rice, a diet that is deficient in calcium and must have calcium added if it is fed over the long term. She made no mention of fresh meaty bones that would provide the needed calcium so it needs to be added to what she is feeding. Of course, adding additional calcium to a diet that already contains calcium would not be a good thing to do but I was not advising that - I was telling her to add calcium to a diet that needs to have it added.

I don't have a bias against raw feeding. I don't choose to do it because I have had an food borne intestinal infection that caused permanent damage to my gut and I can't risk another infection. Personally, I think a little more care is required than "don't lick the chopping board or stick your tongue down your dog's throat" to prevent contamination but that may be because I have experienced the consequences of unsafe food handling.

My intent here is to share with the OP what has worked for me when feeding homecooked food to my dogs. I don't want to enter an argument for or against any method of feeding a dog. That is a personal decision to be made by each dog owner. I don't think my method of feeding is superior to any other - I am merely giving information, which is what the OP asked for.


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## ChiliMonsters (Jun 28, 2012)

How about buyin it online?

found this shop on google Adult Dog Dry Food - Pet Shop Egypt

The have royal canin (what I use) and Nutra Nuggets wich I have heard great tings about from other breeders (don't know the other brands) try contracting them 
From other owners I have heard great tings about 

Or if you wish to feed you chi a certain brand, then contact the head office of the brand and I'm sure the will help you find a distributor


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