Tastier Looking Dog Food! (Bakers Complete)

Member Name: angeelu

Product:	Bakers Complete
Date:	13/10/04 (1910 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Reasonably prices, Looks appetising (not that I'd try it!), Complete food

Disadvantages: Honestly can't think of any

To me, dog food is pretty much all the same... All different brands make all different promises about how their food provides your dog with much needed this that and the other, but really they're all pretty similar so far as I'm concerned.

In August my black labrador puppy joined the household. The original owners of the litter advised they'd been feeding all the pups on dry dog food as it supposedly makes the mess easier to clean up as it's less likely to me sloppy! (You know what I mean!) This in mind I decided to keep him on dry food when he moved in!

He started off on Pedigree Chum Complete for puppies... He seemed to enjoy this and he stayed healthy and grew quickly like you'd expect a puppy too, but unfortunately it had a bit of a nasty side-effect... not for the puppy, for anyone else in the household! Let's just say he had bad wind. Following this, we tried IAMS puppy food. Again, no problems, he enjoyed it, he looked healthy, but IAMS is a bit more on the pricey side, and for some reason despite supermarkets seeming to regularly do offers on the IAMS adult dog food, the puppy dog food was never on any sort of offer that I came across.

So... on to the next brand. This time, I chose Purina Bakers Complete Puppy/Junior dog food. My main reasons for trying this brand were that it looked a reasonable price, and I recalled seeing advertising for it. I just bought a 1kg box to start with to see how pup took to the food.

The Food
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The food itself is the first complete dried dog food that I've come across that is anything other than just brown bits of kibble. It almost looks appetising. This I presume is solely to make it look better in the eyes of the owner, because as far as I'm aware dogs aren't particularly interested in what the colour or presentation of their food looks like! Still, it looked good.

Apparantly there are other flavours in the range for adult dogs, but the puppy version just comes with 'mini-beef morsels and select vegetables'. The puppy/junior version is apparantly 'ideal for puppies and junior dogs from 6 weeks to 24 months, and for small adult breeds'. The packaging is as you'd expect with the Bakers logo taking pride of place with a picture of the food itself in the centre. The smaller 1kg version comes in a box about the size of a box of cereal, whereas the bigger 6kg or 12.5kg versions come in plastic bag style packaging.

The food contains a mixture of five different types of kibble.
Round yellowy pieces are apparantly crunchy corn packed with carbohydrate for energy.
Round green pieces contain vegetables for important vitamins and minerals.
Heart shaped brown pieces contain iron for healthy blood and charcoal for fresh breath.
Little bone shaped pieces are enriched with calcium for healthy teeth and strong bones.
Small cylindrical brown pieces are the fresh moist meaty morsels (try saying that quickly) rich in protein for growth and development.

The difference between this and the adult version is that the puppy/junior version has smaller kibbles and extra meaty morsels to ease chewing and maximise enjoyment; increased protein for healthy muscle development; and higher energy content for active growing dogs.

How much you feed your dog (and therefore how long the pack will last) depends entirely on the age and breed of your dog. Being a labrador pup mine gets through a small box (1kg) in just a few days, so it's more economical to splash out and buy the 12.5kg bag version. The 1kg version can be bought for about £1.76 whereas the 12.5kg version is about £10.49.

The Verdict
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I guess the real guide as to whether it's any good is whether the dog enjoys it. Well, it certainly seems to go down well! Puppy doesn't take many seconds to wolf down a bowl full and would more than likely happily polish off a second or third helping if he was allowed. From a human perspective it does have the advantage of looking nicer than some other brands, which, for some perculiar reason makes me feel as though I'm giving him nicer food, though in reality I'm pretty certain that it tastes all the same to him.
The fact that it is reasonably priced in comparison to some other brand names such as Pedigree and IAMS means that you're not paying out more for this fancier looking food. I can't fault it at the moment, and it hasn't had the unpleasant smelling side effect with my pup that the Pedigree food had.

All dogs are different though, so there's bound to be someone out there who's had or knows of a dog who this food didn't suit. Also, for those people with strong feelings about boycotting Nestle I guess this another product to add to your list as Purina are part of the Nestle brand, but from me personally, it gets top marks!

Five stars * * * * *

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