Chow & Diet

Topics, guidelines and tips for feeding Chow Chows.

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persival
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Location: Crete, Greece

Chow & Diet

Post by persival »

Hi there everybody, congratulations for the great forum and the huge amount of information gathered about our beloved friends.

I have some questions about the diet of my chow. He's 3,5 months old now.
I have read the information mentioned at the article, and I want to confirm some of them, I am a bit confused and my english are not very good :(

1. Most of the people here suggest "Solid Gold" dry food. Unfortunately here in Greece, it's not available. It's also not available in the whole Europe. I have contact the company directly but I have no any reply. According to most of the sites about dog food, I found out that "Orijen" is one of the best and also available here. Is this food good enough for chows?
2. Do I have to add water or boiled rice together with the dry food or is it good enough by itself?
3. In the article I see that it's not good to give them dry pig ears to chew and the alternative is cow hooves. Unfortunately, I can't find these here and if I want to buy from ebay I have to pay a lot for the shipment. Is there any other alternative "chewing" stuff?

Thanks in advance!
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Sirchow
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Re: Chow & Diet

Post by Sirchow »

Hello and welcome.

I also feed orijen and find it a good food though quite high in protein and if your chow struggles with the food you may need to mix it with something to take the protein content down to the ideal 30%. You will need to feed the large puppy food as small puppy is not suitable for the heavy boned chow and will make them grow too fast. I mix in Burns food as it was what I had in the house and seemed to suit my girl. That level of protein can produc a lot of wind and even upset their tummies. The good things about Orijen is availability for me in UK and that it has no grains or alergens in it.

I know there has been some problems with giving hide bones to chew but I suspect that hide bones in the UK are not the same as US ones as ours do not go soft and sloppy. That is what Bramble has had to chew (and our cavalier) all their lives and never choked but you would need to decide yourself if you were happy with them as chews. We never give pigs ears as they cause fights and upsets between the dogs and again sometimes upset tummies but I think everyone has their own opinions on things like that and to an extent it is trial and error.
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Siriol, Bramble, Izzie and Isla.
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