The best raw dog food, treats and collars from South African makers

The listing calls it complete and balanced, built on chicken with organ meats, vegetables and fruit. That is the claim you want from a staple meal rather than a topper, and it is the one Raw Fed Pets repeats across the Doggobone range.

The numbers are what settle it. More than a hundred shoppers have rated it, averaging 4.7. Nothing else in this category comes close on volume, and volume is what turns a good average into something you can lean on. It is also the cheapest item in the whole candidate list, which means a dog can actually eat it every day.

Start here, and branch out to the other proteins once you know your dog gets on with it.

The catch. Chicken is the most common protein in dog food, so it is the least useful place to start if your dog already reacts to something in its bowl.

Ostrich is the novel protein of the bunch, and the listing leans on that, calling it high-protein and hypoallergenic. Treat the marketing claim with the usual caution and talk to your vet about it, but the practical point stands: a dog that has only ever eaten chicken and beef arrives at ostrich fresh.

Shoppers rate it 4.8 across more than fifty ratings, the second-strongest showing in the range. It costs a little more than the Classic, which is to be expected for ostrich and is still well under a rand a gram of nothing much.

The catch. It sits at the top of the Doggobone price range, so feeding it exclusively costs noticeably more than the Classic over a month.

Pooch Parcels keeps the description short and factual. Air-dried beef biltong, savoury, high protein, for adult dogs. No grand claims, which we take as a good sign.

It is priced at the upper end of the snack shelf here, roughly what you pay for a tub of raw food, but biscuits stretch a lot further than a meal does when you are rewarding a dog every few minutes on a walk.

The catch. No shopper ratings yet, and the listing does not say how big the pack is, so you are buying on the description alone.

The listing sells them on chew time and enrichment, which is the honest reason to buy a chew. A determined jaw needs something that lasts, and a kilogram bag lasts a while.

Shoppers give it 4.8, though from a small group of fifteen. Against the marrow bone and the dried chicken feet, it is the most chew for the money by weight.

If you would rather start smaller, the dried chicken feet come in a pack of six and cost less than half as much.

The catch. Only fifteen ratings so far, and raw necks need freezer space and supervision in a way biscuits do not.

Check whether a raw meal says complete and balanced, or just lists a protein. Complete means it is built to be the whole dinner. Anything else is a topper or a treat, however good it smells, and swapping it in as a full meal is how dogs end up on a lopsided diet. The Doggobone tubs mostly state it plainly.

Rotate proteins once you know what agrees with your dog, and keep one unusual protein in reserve. Chicken, beef, lamb and turkey are everywhere; ostrich, duck and venison are the ones worth saving for when a dog starts reacting to the common stuff. Buying one tub of something new is a cheap experiment.

On collars and leads, price runs from modest to eye-watering, and the expensive end usually means leather, hand finishing and a quick-release buckle. Fair enough, but insist on knowing the width, the size range and the hardware before you commit. A leather listing with no description tells you nothing, no matter how nice the photograph looks.

Bandanas and bowties are pure fun and should be priced like it. Reversible cotton, machine washable, slides onto the collar you already own. If one costs more than a week of dinners, ask what exactly you are paying for.