Dog food and water issues are probably not something you may have considered when travelling in Europe with your beloved pet. Unfortunately, due to Brexit, hot weather and possible sensitive stomachs it is something you really need to look into.
Dog Food Allowed in to the EU
Now Brexit has happened and the UK has left the EU, certain rules have changed regarding what food (including dog food) you can take with you. You are no longer allowed to take meat or milk-based dog food including treats unless your Vet has given you written confirmation that your pet requires a certain dog food for medical reasons. With written permission, you may take packs that weigh 2kg. This means that your pet food needs to be fish or plant-based dried products such as those in vegan dog food or treats would be allowed. No more than 10kg in weight and should be sealed in the original bag.
Changing Dog Food Brands
As you are probably aware we have a Staffie, Pepper. She is now 6 years old and we have been travelling with her for the last 3 years. Although she eats snails, rabbit droppings and fur cones and is seemingly ok, her dog food when travelling can and has caused issues in more ways than one.
We found that if we changing her food to another brand can make her stomach sore and she has ended up being ill, both ways badly in the RV which as you can imagine is horrific.
We have since found that if we are unable to get her current brand of food we have to buy a similar quality and content food and mix it with her current food for a good few weeks to ensure it does not make her tummy bad.
Issues with Food in Hot Countries
We have also had issues with food not keeping well due to the hot weather. We used to use wet and dry food, but you can’t store that much, wet food in the fridge in an RV and in hot weather it sweats. This makes the fat separate and food go off quicker and also makes it stink. Due to this, we changed onto dry only food.
Though we had issues with dry food in hot countries too. Turns out that dry food in hot countries is prone to get infested with flies in the warehouses. They then lag eggs in the food which hatch out into maggots in the bags. Unaware of this issue we bought a 15KG bag of dry food and a few weeks into using it we found maggots crawling around in the food and in the storage locker. Took a good while to get rid of all of them too which was not nice, but we managed to feed some to our poor Pepper and she ended up with a very poorly tummy.
We now only buy small bags of dry dog food each week.
Water
We have also found that you have to be very careful with drinking water. If you wouldn’t drink it, then don’t give it to your dog!
Bowls left out for dogs in the streets and at cafés are a lovely gesture but can be there a while and have insects and bacteria in them. They are also visited by lots of other dogs, including strays and you have no idea if they carry any disease.
The best bet is always to bring water with you and give them clean fresh water you would be happy drinking wherever you’re staying.
I can highly recommend these travel bottles and bowls:
