Burns

...and my brother's dog. Burns Dog Food has helped these problems immensely; here I will explain a little about Burns Dog Food and how it has helped me…

Burns dog food is a hypoallergenic food for dogs of all ages, including seniors.
This means it contains no dairy products, wheat, Soya or beef, ingredients that may cause some food allergies in dogs and cats - bringing digestive tract, skin, coat and other problems. Burns is a ...
...vitality!

The Burns Product range is based on the natural goodness of brown rice, with battery-free chicken, ocean fish, free-range duck or New Zealand Lamb & Venison as a source of quality meat - naturally preserved and free of colours and flavourings.

HISTORY

Burns Real Food is based upon the homemade recipe that John Burns recommended to his clients whilst in Veterinary Practice, as he was concerned ... more

I have had dogs my whole life and recently came across a few problems with my own dog, and my brother's dog. Burns Dog Food has helped these problems immensely; here I will explain a little about Burns Dog Food and how it has helped me…

Burns dog food is a hypoallergenic food for dogs of all ages, including seniors.
This means it contains no dairy products, wheat, Soya or beef, ingredients that may cause some food allergies in dogs and cats - bringing digestive tract, skin, coat and other problems. Burns is a hypoallergenic food developed for the avoidance of food intolerance, but it has also been developed to ensure excellent health and vitality!

The Burns Product range is based on the natural goodness of brown rice, with battery-free chicken, ocean fish, free-range duck or New Zealand Lamb & Venison as a source of quality meat - naturally preserved and free of colours and flavourings.

HISTORY

Burns Real Food is based upon the homemade recipe that John Burns recommended to his clients whilst in Veterinary Practice, as he was concerned with the quality and type of ingredients being used in commercial pet foods, and the connection between good health and nutrition.

John Burns has always taken a more holistic approach to the health of pets - it is an approach which worked twenty years ago and still works well today! Burns Real Food will naturally maintain a healthy immune system, coat and skin, digestive tract, skeletal, respiratory and nervous system. It is also suitable for use where holistic veterinary treatment is being used in the nutritional management of disease.

For a number of years Robert Burns recommended his veterinary practice clients to avoid feeding proprietary pet foods but instead to feed a homemade diet of brown rice, vegetables and chicken, fish or meat sold for human consumption. Although a number of people were able to follow this recommendation and achieved remarkable improvements in the health of their pets, many found that preparing food at home for the dog was simply too daunting a task, and very time consuming.

Robert Burns eventually decided that to manage health through diet, food would have to be convenient and readily available. Burns Real Food is based on the homemade diet which he used to recommend to his clients. There are no secret or magic ingredients only that there are no added pharmacologically active supplements or ingredients. As the name implies, Burns Real Food is just that; a simple food which is intended to allow the body to function as it should. Burns is not intended to intervene in order to alter the normal metabolism of the body. The aim is to stand back and let the body get on with what it does best; to maintain the organ systems.

Burns products (other than high-energy foods) are low in fat and protein and high in carbohydrate. There are no chemical additives. This minimises the amount of waste matter that the body has to eliminate. When digested, carbohydrate produces less harmful toxic waste than protein and fat.

Many owners think that if their pet seems healthy there is no need to feed a good-quality food. It is true that some pets seem capable of thriving on poor quality food but this is the exception, not the rule. Many pet owners do not recognise symptoms of incipient health problems but accept them as normal conditions. To be honest, up until this year, my dogs had all been fed on Chappie with no problems so we never considered changing their food until the problems arose.

MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCE OF BURNS

My oldest Collie, Marley who is 2 was diagnosed with epilepsy earlier this year (I have written a review on this in case you are interested). Marley's epilepsy causes him to have a very poor condition to his coat, as well as having seizures every 6-8 weeks. A veterinary nurse at my vets suggested looking at the Robert Burns range of food. After contacting Robert Burns and explaining about Marley, they suggested a number of options. To cut a long story short they said that they have had many pet owners contact them regarding epileptic pets and that changing their diet to a Burns Diet has helped in controlling the seizures. I asked Burns if they would be able to provide any evidence of this and if I would be able to have 2 weeks worth of samples to see how Marley got on with the food. The lady on the phone explained to me that there was no scientific proof that Burns could help epileptic dogs, but they had a number of customers who had change their dog's food to Burns and had seen significant improvement. She explained that she would send me through an information pack and include correspondence from customers who had taken the same route as me. She said they would also include a few free samples and some money off vouchers. She said that it would not be of much use to use the food for 2 weeks with free samples and change the food again as you need to maintain the diet to see any improvement.

The information pack arrived and included in the information were various emails from customers. Due to data protection laws, they were unable to give me the names of the customers but I saw many letters from people with epileptic dogs stating that since they had changed their pet's food, their pet's seizures had either decreased rapidly or stopped altogether.
Keen to do anything to help Marley's seizures, I decided to switch to this food and see what happened. As Marley's medication for his epilepsy makes him have a massive appetite, he has put on weight in recent months. I decided to change Marley's diet to the High Oats range of Burns which is suitable for overweight dogs.

I made this change 13 weeks ago and to date (touch wood, fingers crossed) Marley has not had another seizure. Although Marley is on medication for his epilepsy, he still used to have seizures every 6-8 weeks since he has been diagnosed. This is the longest he has ever been without having a seizure so Robert Burns Food had helped dramatically with controlling his seizures and I would highly recommend this food to anyone with the same problems as me, you really have nothing to lose.

MY BROTHERS DOG

My brother got a Collie last year, which he called Lennie. Lennie was only 6 weeks old when he got him so he was not house trained etc. When my brother, Darryl tried training him, he found he has a very difficult 6 months ahead of him. Lennie would continuously mess in the house, even though he had only just been shown to the garden for the toilet. Sometimes Lennie would mess in the house 6 times overnight. It became apparent that there was something wrong with Lennie as it is not normal for a dog to have a poo 6 times in the space of 8 hours. We took him to the vets who explained he might have a sensitive digestive system. Our vet suggested trying Lennie on Robert Burns food as it contained all natural ingredients.

Darryl changed Lennie's food to the Chicken and Brown Rice range of Burns. Within 2 days, Lennie had made dramatic improvement. After a week, Lennie was going to the toilet 2-3 times a day, which is a lot more normal for a dog. He also went overnight without messing in the house.
This is another fine example of how Burns can help.

RANGE OF FOOD

Below is the range of Dog foods provided by Burns. They have quite a range of different flavours. Robert Burns also provide food for cat and rabbits.

FISH & BROWN RICE - For adult dogs of all ages including seniors - ocean fish (not farmed) and from a sustainable source.

CHICKEN & BROWN RICE - For adult dogs of all ages including seniors - no battery hen meat used and all the goodness of brown rice

LAMB & BROWN RICE - For adult dogs of all ages including seniors - NZ lamb, not intensively reared

VENISON & BROWN RICE - For adult dogs of all ages including seniors - NZ venison, not intensively reared

DUCK & BROWN RICE - For adult dogs of all ages including seniors - free range duck meat

PORK & POTATO- A hypo-allergenic diet for the avoidance of food intolerance - no wheat, Soya, rice or chicken

ORGANIC - 95%+ organic ingredients (unlike many so-called organic pet foods)

HIGH OATS - Ideal for overweight dog - - no battery hen meat used

ACTIVE - For the active working dog - - no battery hen meat used

BURNS HYPO-ALLERGENIC MIXER **New** - Time to stop thinking of Mixer as a cheap filler, and consider it as a Real Food! Can be used as part of a home cooked recipe, feeding raw food or with Burns dried complete foods (if advised by our nutritionists or your vet)

PRICE
I pay £37 for a 15-kilo bag. Although this is almost twice the price of the food I was previously feeding Marley, I believe that it is worth every single penny. After all, you can't put a price on your animal's health.

AVAILABILITY
The one disadvantage other than price is that Burns is not available everywhere like most commercialised dog food. On the plus side though, you can order food from the Burns website http://www.burns-pet-nutrition.co.uk. I am lucky as my local vets sell this food so I buy it there.

MY OPINION
I have only given a review based on my personal experience with Burns. I think that Burns food may be able to help with a number of conditions, overweight dogs, underweight dogs and so on but as I have not encountered any of these, I would not like to comment.
I found the Burns staff (when spoken to on the phone) are extremely helpful and take time to explain the benefits as well as listening to each individual case. I thought it was extremely helpful of them to send me some free samples, as well as money off vouchers and more importantly the correspondence from other pet owners like myself.
I hope this review has been useful to someone.
Thanks for reading. xx

 

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