Before we left, Scrappy’s diet consisted of a mixture of wet and dry food. We kept the wet food in the freezer and defrosted as needed before mixing it in with some dry kibble.
He had this morning and night with the wet food being rotated every now and then to keep it interesting.
He also had treats (Scooby Snacks!) and the occasional piece of fruit or vegetable depending on what we were cooking with.
Before moving onto the boat, we researched about what other dog owners did about food on board for their dogs whilst sailing long term. This is what we found, read more here, here and here.
There were many different answers to choose from.
We chose to stick as closely as we could with what he was used to – a mixture of wet and dry food. However, with no freezer on board, we’d have to start using tins or pouches of wet food instead.
We stocked up as much as we could of wet food pouches and dry kibble before we left but space is limited on our boat so we knew we’d run out at some point.
When we were close to running out, we bought new wet and dry food abroad. However, we couldn’t find what he was used to so we started introducing the new kibble into his diet slowly by mixing it into his current dry kibble a little bit more each day until he’d transitioned onto the new one.
We did this to help him try and avoid an upset stomach and it worked. I read that they changed dog food for their dog every time they ran out on SV Smitty on purpose so we weren’t too worried.
The wet food was easier to swop as we didn’t use that much for each bowl of food so just kept chopping and changing that whilst keeping the kibble as consistent as possible.
We did this the entire time we were abroad until we got to Jersey.
During our time there, I was looking a bit deeper into dog food to try and find the best kibble for him in the local pet shop as I wanted to buy much larger bags this time to stock up for him.
I ended up coming across this site.
I looked up all the different dog food that we’d been feeding Scrappy and realised that there were much better products out there that we could be giving him.
It was a case of what was the best food available that we could find in the pet shop to give him. We settled on this one for kibble and these and these for the wet food options.
We got two 20kg bags of kibble sent to the marina office and bulk bought a load of wet food trays. We prefer trays as he only gets a quarter or so of each one per meal with his kibble so as they only last for a few days, we’d waste anything larger like the tins (even though they work out cheaper to buy). For a big dog however, they’d make more sense!
While we were in Falmouth, we had to resupply with his kibble. We bought two more bags of the same stuff on Amazon. However, it seemed different and Scrappy wasn’t enjoying eating it.
The bag we kept it in turned very oily and was leaving marks in our cupboard.
We contacted the company to let them know and it turns out they’d changed supplier but kept the recipe the same. Maybe they had started using cheaper ingredients because it was definitely not the same as it used to be!
We began the search for a new kibble for him and bought a few different bags for him to try from Pets at Home.
Dave set out three mini bowls of kibble from the three different bags we bought and let Scrappy loose on them.
One was a clear winner…
It was Lily’s Kitchen.
Our boy has expensive taste!
We found the cheapest deal to bulk buy it on Amazon and bought a year’s supply. It is now stashed under our v berth and he’s working his way through it!
Our stocks of his wet food were getting low so we made the decision to phase him off it as we knew it would be hard to find abroad. We still have a few packs of it left but now he just has kibble 90% of the time. The rest of the time we add things we’re cooking with as a treat… eggs, chicken, veggies. He loves it!
Update: Sometimes we’re not able to get food that he’s used to or he’ll eat something for a while and then all of a sudden, he can’t tolerate it anymore. When this happens, we switch to a diet a vet we saw recommended (and he absolutely LOVES it!).
To help settle his stomach, we put 1 cup of rice, 1.5 cups of boiling water, about 6 carrots (depending on size), and 2-3 whole chicken breasts (again depending on size) into our 3 litre pressure cooker. (The carrot and chicken ratios aren’t set it stone, we eyeball it each time we make it.) We cook it on high pressure for 8-9 minutes then take it off the heat and leave it on the side until the pressure is released naturally and the float valve drops.
Once this has happened, we open it up and take out the chicken breasts. We put them into a bowl and shred the chicken before adding it back in with the rice and carrots and mixing it all together.
Once it’s done we put a couple of days worth of food into the fridge and freeze the rest, defrosting as needed.
When we feed this to Scrappy, it disappears very, very quickly! In comparison, his nuggets get nibbled throughout the day.
What does your dog like to eat?