Our approach

What our dogs eat

Our dogs and puppies eat fresh raw food from Topdog, a specialist dog-food shop in Wetteren, Belgium. Topdog makes this food itself in its own butchery.

Why we chose it

• It is fresh meat, ground and frozen straight away. It contains no preservatives, colourings, flavourings or synthetic vitamins.
• Topdog uses only meat fit for human consumption. Bone, organs, vegetables and fruit are ground in, so the meal is complete.
• A dog is a meat eater, and raw food is the closest thing to what its body is built for.
• We tested it on our own dogs and agree with Topdog: good digestion, a healthy gut, small firm stools, a shiny coat and less smell.

• Why fresh food, explained by Topdog (in Dutch) → · machine translation
• The benefits of raw meat (in Dutch) → · machine translation

Topdog's explanation, in short +

Topdog's own pages are in Dutch. This is our summary of what they explain.

• A dog is a meat eater descended from the wolf. Its teeth and short gut are made for raw meat, and fresh raw food is the closest thing to what a prey animal provides: vitamins, minerals and digestive enzymes.
• Dry kibble was developed mainly for the owner's convenience: it keeps at room temperature and does not smell. It is made from ground meat remains and additives, then heated and dried at high temperatures, which largely destroys the vitamins, minerals and enzymes.
• In Topdog's view, additives make kibble and tinned food harder to digest, and the waste products can show up over time in the coat, the ears and the organs.
• Topdog's fresh food is meat that is ground and frozen at once, with nothing added. Carcasses and necks are ground in for calcium, together with vegetables, fruit and fibre.
• The benefits Topdog lists: good bacteria for the gut and the immune system, stronger stomach acid against parasites and bad bacteria, better digestion with less waste, less shedding and a shiny coat, less wind and fresher breath, and small, firm, almost odourless stools with fewer anal-gland problems.
• In practice: thaw a portion in the fridge a day ahead. Raw food is priced by weight and, according to Topdog, is not more expensive than dry food. Switch gradually, with advice.

Fleas and ticks

We give our dogs no flea or tick products as prevention. We check them, and we act when we find something.

Where the risk is real, we do use prevention, for example before travelling to a region where ticks or sandflies carry disease. Our Parasite Atlas shows that risk region by region across Europe.

Puppies are wormed on a fixed schedule. For adult dogs we advise a stool test first and treatment only when it finds something.

Cairn Parasite Atlas →

DNA tested with Embark

Every puppy is DNA tested with Embark, because we want healthy puppies. The test screens for inherited diseases and shows how genetically diverse a dog is.

Each puppy's Embark report goes home with it.

Embark is health information. It does not replace the DNA profile that Luxembourg requires for the pedigree, which a vet takes from blood.

The first weeks

Our puppies grow up in our house and are socialised from birth. They are weaned onto their first solid food, meet visitors, and get used to everyday sounds and different surfaces. These are the most formative weeks of a dog's life.

Our puppies get the standard vaccinations. We then confirm with a titre test that each puppy is protected against distemper, hepatitis and parvovirus.

Puppies staying in Luxembourg go home from 10 weeks. Puppies travelling abroad stay with us until 15 weeks, because they must be vaccinated against rabies first.