James Wellbeloved - healthy dog food (James Wellbeloved)

Member Name: depurple2

Product:	James Wellbeloved
Date:	02/10/06 (6393 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Quality ingredients, lots of flavours and types available, good variety of pack sizes

Disadvantages: Expensive, doesn't suit every dog

James Wellbeloved is a reasonably upmarket brand of pet food. They make dog food and treats, cat food and ferret food, but it's the dog food I am going to review. It used to be made by an independent company, but this has now been bought by Masterfoods.


What is available?

The dog food is a dry complete feed (kibble). It comes in 4 different flavours - Lamb & Rice, Turkey & Rice, Duck & Rice and Ocean White Fish & Rice. It also comes in 4 different types - Puppy/Performance, Junior/Performance, Adult Maintenance and Senior/Light. The Adult version also comes in two different versions - regular and large (for large dogs).

The basic difference between the types of food is the amount of protein that they contain. Puppy contains the most, and Senior contains the least. Protein in dog food will help a growing puppy, but it will also give a dog lots of energy, and make it put weight on. For this reason, it is important to feed your dog the right type of food - if you feed your 3 year old pet dog puppy food, it may start bouncing off the walls!
Puppy/Performance - 30% protein
Junior/Performance - 24% protein
Adult Maintenance - 20% protein
Senior/Light -18% protein

As a guideline, the Puppy food should be fed up to 6 months, then change to either Junior (if the dog is very active) or Adult. Dogs should change onto Senior food when they are about 7 (or if they are getting fat!)


What the food contains

James Wellbeloved is a gluten free dog food, and doesn't contain any "E numbers", artificial preservatives or unspecified animal derivatives. It does contain some extra bits though, which are good for dogs:
Barley
Seaweed
Alfalfa
Yucca
The Adult large breed and Senior versions also contain glucosamine, chondroitin and herbs, which help to keep joints healthy and combat arthritis.

James Wellbeloved contains over 23% of meat/fish, and over 26% rice. It doesn't have any bulking ingredients like soya or cereals.


Where do you get it?

James Wellbeloved is available from most pet stores (but not supermarkets), or you can buy it online (www.wellbeloved.co.uk).
It comes in 3 pack sizes:
2kg - around £6
7.5kg - around £20
15kg - around £37
The junior version and fish flavour are usually about £1 more than the other versions.


My experiences:

My older dog has been eating James Wellbeloved for 6 years. She has the Lamb & Rice and Fish flavours. She isn't keen on the turkey or duck flavours. She has been very healthy on it, and has recently changed over to Senior as she was putting on weight.

I have found that although the food contains joint supplements (glucosamine, chondroitin), this is not enough to actually make much difference to her arthritis. I have started giving her extra supplements which has helped her a lot.

I have been very happy with this food for her.

My younger dog started off on Adult Maintenance (I got her at 15 months), but she was too thin. I changed her to Junior, but she was too energetic. It also hasn't been that great for her digestion (although it claims to be). I think it just isn't the right food for her. I now feed her a different brand, and she is doing much better on that.

One other observation that I have made is that since the company was taken over by Masterfoods, the food smells much more "artificial" when you first open the bag, although there are no noticeable ingredient changes.


I think that James Wellbeloved is a good quality food, but quite expensive. It contains only healthy ingredients, but I think it just doesn't suit all dogs.

Summary: If you have the budget, this is good to try, but be prepared to swap if it disagrees with your dog