About Us

About The Dogs Choice Ltd

My name is Caroline and like a lot of people, dogs have been a part of my life for as long as I can remember.

I started The Dogs Choice Ltd after deciding I wanted to do something I was passionate about and after struggling to get regular availability and delivery plus the variety of raw dog food I wanted for my dog at a reasonable price; I decided to set myself up in the business.

Growing up in the Cotswold’s we always had dogs in the family, it was ‘normal’ back then for our pets to be fed scraps…there were not that many commercial dog foods around and people generally didn’t pay for dog food, scraps were given for free from the butcher, we had rabbits from the farmers, pheasants heads/necks/feet etc from shoots in the area, I remember my mum & friends parents preparing the birds to eat; also there were not as many supermarkets around then either.

For our dinner we would have stuffed hearts, steak & kidney home-made pies and liver and bacon regularly, like most people in our village, Dad had an allotment and we picked fresh veg daily. It was a ‘meat and 2 veg’ era and the scraps from the hearts, liver, kidneys and meat/ birds were always fed to our dog. This was normal practice for that decade and our dogs lived long and happy lives.

In fact I was watching a documentary not so long ago about Murray Walker and how the commercial for Pal dog food came to be. Murray came up with the slogan ‘Prolongs active life’. He was asked to come up with something that would convince the public to alter their habits of feeding their dogs by using advertisements with catchy slogans. These were specifically designed to convince the public to change from a relatively free option costing nothing or very little from the butcher or leftovers as it used to be back then, to actually start spending money on dog food!!

The general population don’t live that way any-more and we are of course more aware these days of what is nutritious for us. We also realise that processed food for us and our pets is never going to replace a natural healthy diet. We now know and have learnt more about our beloved pets and their dietary needs.

I was (in my younger years) a member of the German Shepherd rescue society and all my ‘girls’ and boys’ were fed meaty bones and fresh tripe, we used to buy tripe back then in massive carpet like rolls from the abattoir. This was about 10-12ft long, which we then had to break it up into portions and package it and freeze it – a very smelly job I can assure you.

I have in the past (again like most people) fed dried food to my dogs, thinking as many do that I was giving them a healthy diet; of course now with more knowledge gained throughout the last 30 years I have chosen to feed a balanced Raw food diet and will never go back to commercial foods.

I spent a couple of fabulous years working in a dog groomers with a lovely group of people and my knowledge grew in general about breeds of dogs, diets, allergies and skin problems and other dog related things.

Affordability & Quality

From there I briefly got involved working for a raw meat outlet which really sparked my original thoughts and interest and the desire to get the message out there and that’s when The Dogs Choice was born.

There are not a lot of places in our surrounding area where good quality, affordable raw food is to be found.  This is the reason I decided to start to set up my business and offer a selection of  high quality, ‘Raw Dog food’ for collection or local delivery.

Much research went into the companies I use and their sources, packaging control and ethics, enabling me to offer quality minces and bones at a great price.

Our dog Ernie

Several years ago I was lucky enough to give a home to ‘Ernie’ my gorgeous Cairn terrier, he had really unpleasant sores on his paws and his general skin condition was not great. Ernie the Cairn Terrier

He had been fed on a well regarded dried food… I switched to raw straight away and within 3 weeks he was like a different dog, all the sores on his paws gone and lovely skin plus a shiny healthy coat. I was also told he had a problem with his back leg if walked for too long he would develop a limp, since being on the raw; we slowly increased his exercise over the first year and although we didn’t come across any leg problems, we have never looked back or been concerned. In fact I was told by our Vet that he had superb muscle definition, looked fit and was an excellent specimen. He now walks miles and miles each week and runs behind us when we are out cycling for 10 miles + with ease and still wants to play ball when we get home, now it’s me that gets tired first – maybe I should try raw 🙂

So please feel free to give me a call for advice or just a chat about the raw diet (or you can go to The Dogs Choice Contact page) and I will help all I can.

Thanks

Caroline