Fagan has recently been tested for food allergies, its come out that he is "intollerant" of duck and chicken.  Until now he has been fed on raw, as I found complete was giving him wind, im assuming now that the reason being was because of the chicken in most complete foods.  Fagan also has issues with keeping weight on, he has had loads of tests done at the vets which are clear so we are assuming its just high metabolism.  My other boy is fed on Burns because his problem is putting weight on (and because we win it doing cani-cross!!) I would like to put Fagan on burns too but the only "active" one they have has chicken in it !!  I was wondering if anyone knew of a food for active dogs which does not have chicken in it ? From looking at some even some "fish" ones have chicken in them !!

Burns do a high energy lamb kibble. It's aimed at puppies but also described as suitable for underweight dogs. Might be worth getting in touch with them and seeing if they think it would be suitable for Fagan?

Some foods described as suitable for sensitive dogs do have chicken fat in them - this shouldn't be a problem though as it's the protein that causes the intolerance/allergy, so it's usually just the meat itself you want to avoid.

I'm not clued up on many of the newer completes around (like you with Fagan, I prefer to go with raw in the main) it's hard to keep track of all of the "new", then "improved" and rapidly followed by "now the best ever" claims LOL.  I also have found that many contain chicken or poultry fats, meal etc despite the bags saying something quite different .......

Could you
(a)not continue with raw but miss out chicken?
(b)use an adult sensitive maintenance brand of your choice with say lamb or fish as the meat protein and mix in tripe, eggs, offal, minced meat etc ?
(c) if that's not ideal use either something like Nature Diet Puppy or a kibble puppy variety of the same diet for extra calories?

regards, Teri

Naturediet Puppy is chicken based...

Im worried about feeding raw as Fagan wont eat bones, and im worried as to whether there is enough bone in the meat (I use berriewoods - he started to turn his nose up at landywoods meat for some reason) so I do top up with SA37 tablets just to be on the safe side.  I would prefer to use a complete, im going to have to soak it and mash it in with some form of meat anyway just to get him to eat it !!

He wont eat naturediet and he is a bit of a big dog to be eating puppy kibble.  I will be phoning burns tomorrow to claim our latest winnings so will ask them what they think.

Whoops LOL - thanks killickchick

and I only had to walk into the kitchen and read the packet

Thats exactly what I did  ....got a half a big box he wont touch anymore

Hi ClaireyS

possibly Burns will have you sorted as I see from zarah's post they now have another line

Re continuing raw, egg shells or powdered bone meal added to his meat should cover the calcium content - both preferable to some of the ingredients in SA37 but if you'd prefer to switch to the commercial route hopefully you've already found your answer!

best wishes, Teri

Do you know, I didnt even think of what was actually "in" SA37, just that it was a supplement !!  I will see how it goes with burns when I call them tomorrow.

I would recommend Pro Plan Sensitive (with Salmon and Rice) as it has no wheat, soya, beef, chicken, egg or dairy products and is all natural. It's also really great for skin and coat, but has good protein levels to help active dogs with high metabolisms. A friend of mine with Huskies changed her dogs onto this as they couldn't keep the weight on having tried pretty much everything out there, and it has worked a treat - plus it tastes great so the dogs loved it!

I have spoken to Burns and they are sending me a sack of active lamb to try him on, if he doesnt work out with this then I will give something else a go

I used to have my GSD pup on this until 6 months as he was loosing weight on their 'normal' stuff.  It was decent sized kibble and we thought it was good.