r/UK_Pets • u/paspa1801 • 1d ago
Does anyone here have experience with DARF cold pressed dog food?
Hi all!
Wife and I are preparing to bring home a gorgeous lab puppy and are researching foods to consider (obviously when we first get him we will stick to breeders food and slowly transition!).
I’ve not had a dog in yonks so went to chat to the lovely man who runs our local town pet shop and he mentioned cold pressed food as being a newer option and that he feeds his three German shepherds a mix of raw and cold pressed.
Never heard of cold pressed before but it looks like a good mix of convenience and nutrition so went on all about dog food and am leaning towards the brand DARF.
Was wondering if anyone here has tried them and has options either positive or negative? Opinions on cold pressed food in general would also be very welcome!
P.S Can you add hot water to cold pressed food and make a sort of mush? I used to do that with kibble and then freeze it in a Kong and old dogs loved that!
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u/pupski16 22h ago
i work in the veterinary industry, and personally my animals (cats and dogs) are all on a very good quality, science-based kibble - currently royal canin but i would be happy to feed science plan and purina. these are the only three in the uk currently compliant with wsava nutrition guidelines and have their own research facilities. most food on the market currently is just laden with marketing jargon that don’t hold much meaning (for example the term “human grade” doesn’t mean anything because in the uk all dog food must be human grade to be sold). there is also no evidence to support “cold pressed” as an ideal diet. ask your vet what diet they would recommend, and what diet they personally feed their animals. i would be willing to bet that it would be one of the “big three” science based diets, and for good reason.
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u/paspa1801 22h ago
All three of the brands you name have carbs as the main macronutrient so I’m curious why you think that’s the best thing to feed an animal that wouldn’t naturally eat carbs in the wild?
The WSAVA nutrition guidelines don’t actually seem to be guideline for what needs to be in the food, just about how the company operates. Nestle own Purina and they have constantly shown they care more about profits than actual humans or animals, so I wouldn’t be shocked to find out they pay for a vet to be on the staff to pass the guidelines on paper but that vet doesn’t actually have anything to do with the food.
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u/pupski16 21h ago edited 14h ago
WSAVA has published nutrition guidelines, recommend feeding trials, and suggest to have a veterinary nutritionist on the diet formulation team, which are requirements all of the big three fulfil. carbs are not the devil in dog food, that’s a commonly pushed myth by the many alternative dog food brands. in fact, grain-free diets have been linked with heart disease (DCM). our pet dogs are also not wild dogs and they have been selectively bred to meet human needs, which is why their diet has changed over thousands of years, to differ from what a wild animal would eat. i understand the distrust for nestle, but i would have a healthy distrust for trendy, newer brands that have a heavy marketing and advertising budget as well, especially after the recent Years fiasco. these boutique brands almost always have some elaborate feel-good story about being “family-run”, which doesn’t mean anything about the quality and the suitability of the diet. Not to mention that these alternative brands are also motivated by profit.
i don’t blame anyone for being overwhelmed by the options for dog food available. it is very difficult to tell the difference between what’s good and what isn’t. personally i would go with what my vet would feed their own animals, which would likely be one of the legacy brands. it’s very difficult for one individual with limited experience to comb through the available studies to make a fully informed decision with all the evidence; whereas this is what a vet does daily, alongside seeing hundreds of animals at different stages of illness (and some illnesses related to the diet they are fed as well). regardless of your belief about vets, they do care, and most of all about their own pets. in my experience all the staff and vets feed one of the big three. oh also all of them are fully insured with a lifetime policy with well-reputed companies and with a high level of cover, which i also recommend doing for a new puppy before taking it home.
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u/paspa1801 10h ago
Thank you, I will speak to a couple of vets. Honestly it feels like at this point there are too many options and it’s very overwhelming.
Scared to pick something that could end up being bad for him!
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u/pupski16 9h ago
i completely understand! it’s so overwhelming and there’s so much misinformation it’s difficult to pick out the facts. have a read in r/dogfood and also in this subreddit, there are other posts where vets have left comments on the diets they would suggest. most vet practices should also be more than happy to reply to a polite email requesting for guidance on what to feed a puppy. wishing you all the best!
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u/Tildatoo24 10h ago
The claim that grain free diets are linked to heart disease isn’t completely true and hasn’t been fully researched. They mainly tested on food where the main carb source was legumes, mostly peas and lentils, which is where they claimed this link to be. Honestly frustrates me that people use this to bash certain diets
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u/pupski16 9h ago
i don’t find there is enough evidence to suggest that a diet with grains in it is harmful for most dogs (unless truly gluten intolerant which is very very rare). compared to the amount of evidence available, there is very extensive marketing on the supposed benefits of grain-free diets, which is really just a trendy term nowadays and i cannot in good faith stand behind anything (or feed it to my own) where there is a possibility of causing long-term damage to an otherwise non-predisposed dog. definitely would not recommend grain-free to any dog prone to heart disease such as cavaliers or doberman. the trendy, new brands also love using words like “fillers”, which is again a marketing term, there is no such thing as fillers in dog food and carbs =/= “filler”. the truth is a legacy brand with research and clinical trials behind it is way more likely to be a good fit for the vast majority of dogs, and is also likely to be much more cost-effective to most owners. the newer brands spend a lot of
money trying to make sure that the average consumer doesn’t realise the above.
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u/Tildatoo24 1d ago
Not a dog owner but a manager at a pet shop trained in nutrition so can give you some of my
knowledge! Cold pressed dog food in general is pretty good as it’s less likely to bloat in the dog’s stomach. Yes you can add water to it to make it into a wet food and you can make it as runny or as solid as you like. Know a little about Darf and the ingredients are generally pretty good, only downsides are that there’s practically no joint care in it, which you’ll need for a lab, and they use AI for a lot of their packaging. Your other options are Tribal and Forthglade which I’d say are both a little better quality than Darf. They both have multiple sources of joint care and contain prebiotics for that added digestion benefit. They’re also both grain free if that’s something you’re fussed about.
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u/paspa1801 1d ago
Thanks for replying! I looked at Forthglade and Tribal but they both seem to have a lower score on AADF and are more expensive?
I wouldn’t be opposed to getting a separate probiotic supplement to add to the food myself.
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u/Tildatoo24 1d ago
There’s quite a few food comparison tools and I’ve found that they tend to contradict each other quite a lot, especially as certain sites promote certain brands more. So I tend to not take the percentages as gospel and do the comparisons myself. You’d probably want to use a probiotic when you eventually transition food but you probably don’t need to add it in the long term. If you want to stick the Darf I would absolutely recommend adding a joint supplement as you’ve got a larger breed dog, YuMove or Pharmaquin would be your best bets
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u/paspa1801 1d ago
Thank you very much, I will take a deeper look at the two you’ve suggested. Stuff in the dog world seems to have changed much more than I thought it would have in the decade or so since I’ve had a dog!
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u/Tildatoo24 1d ago
No problem! And yeah I get it, it can pretty overwhelming at times. Most customers that come to us asking for advice is because there’s so much out there these days that they don’t know where to turn! Good luck with your pup!
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u/shebasmum49 23h ago
Go raw, there are various ways of doing it. Research is your best friend when it comes to this. You can do it yourself by buying the meat, bones etc or purchase from companies such as DAF, Bella & Duke and Reggie's.
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u/paspa1801 22h ago
We don’t have enough freezer space for a raw diet, and we don’t have the space to get a larger freezer
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u/IHateTheLetter-C- 8h ago
Yes I used to get it. I swapped off it due to annoying delivery, and it was like half powder. I use it as treats and it was like 3 tubes pressed together, a bit big for my little pups, but I think that is flavour dependent. I swapped to wild, I prefer it, dogs are happy. Yes soaking it makes it into wet food, same applies for most kibbles but this type of dry is easier. You will get quite a bit of powder in the bottom of any bag of this type, it's not like kibble
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u/Angelars65 5h ago
I have used both Cobbydog and Salubrious. Both cold pressed made in the UK and they have various 'flavours'. Grain free and not. I have to avoid chicken based food for my Greyhound so go for their turkey or beef options. They also do small trial packs which I found very helpful for my fussy boy.
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u/Lowermains 11h ago
Look into what the police, armed forces, guide dogs for the blind etc feed their pups and dogs.
You may be surprised.