Busy people generally tend to shy away from home prepared food for themselves as well as their dogs. But relying on others for your and your dog’s nutritional needs is likely to ensure your dog’s health will suffer, if not your own.
What it really boils down to, is time. You think preparing homemade dog food is not time efficient, perhaps messy, and how can you be sure it’s healthy? Don’t commercial pet food manufacturers know more than you do?
No. Commercial pet food manufacturers are chasing the mighty dollar, just as most people are. Generally, they have very little interest in good quality. By the time you have finished reading this article, you’ll know more than they do.
Is homemade dog food preparation going to be messy?
No, not once you have the hang of what you’re doing, which is where I come in. I’m here to help you every step of the way.
Does it take a long time to prepare homemade dog food?
No, once you’ve got the hang of what you’re doing, it incredibly quick and easy.
Just as it can be in preparing your own homemade food.
So I’ve knocked away some of the most common excuses for not preparing your homemade dog food. But, as you still hesitate, there may be one hurdle in the way, which we haven’t covered.
You have been accustomed to believe commercial dog food is better than anything else. Your vet may have told you. Your parents may have told you. You see people feeding commercial pet food all the time. Can they all be wrong?
Yes!
Because none of them are looking to their dog’s origins. Dog evolved in the wild over many thousands of years, hunting in packs in times of plenty and eating carrion or plant matter in times of famine.
In contrast, commercial dog food typically pellets, is not raw or of the quality a hunted animal is. Dogs digestive systems and nutritional requirements have not changed or adapted, just because they are now domestic.
The best way to ensure your dog maintains not just good, but excellent health is to make homemade dog food, based on a wild dog’s diet. Sure, it isn’t possible to exactly duplicate a wild dog’s diet, but we can come so close that it won’t affect your dog’s health.
When you’re shopping in the supermarket, it’s just as easy to buy raw meat and bones as it is to purchase a packet. You can buy enough to keep your dog going until the next time you shop. Freezing food is an acceptable way to keep it, as it is not so destructive as cooking. Three or four days of fresh food and the rest thawed frozen food will be absolutely adequate to maintain good health.
Once you’ve measured out the food the first time, it’s just a matter of routine.
Keeping all the ingredients together means it’s convenient.
By making your own homemade dog food, you have control over the quality and the ingredients. This is critical to your dog’s good health as many ingredients in commercial pet food is toxic, not natural, not nutritious and certainly isn’t raw.
Try your dog on raw meat and bones for a month and you’ll see a big smile on his face!
Couple that with his drastically reduced health bills, and you’ll be the next one grinning.
Warning: in older dogs there can be an initial clearing period. This is natural and normal, but can look alarming if you don’t know what’s happening.
Monday, February 16, 2009
Monday, February 9, 2009
Natural Choice Dog Food, Chosen by Your Dog
The most natural choice dog food currently is commercial dog food. That’s as far as a dog ‘owner’ is concerned. If it was up to your dog, that wouldn’t be the case. How would your dog choose?
I believe dogs are inherently intelligent and know, on a deep level, what is good and healthy for them. This natural ability is often upset, just as in humans, by the daily consumption of junk food, year in, year out. Your dog can become addicted.
But if your dog had the freedom to a natural choice dog food from a puppy, what would you see?
I had just that experience, when a dog came into my home, for the first time since becoming an adult.
I was by then, feeding my cats raw meat and bones, having made the conversion a couple of years before.
I hadn’t expected to get a dog, she catapulted into my life, so I was unprepared. I didn’t know what to feed her. Here was this abandoned, energetic puppy, about eight weeks old, who had made it very clear to me that I was the chosen one. She intended to live with me, so I’d better just get used to the idea.
Still racking my brains for a clue as to her diet, I decided to purchase a couple of tins, while I tried to work it out. After all, they were supposed to be ‘balanced’, ‘nutritionally complete’, ‘recommended by top vets’ weren’t they?
My dog knew better.
Even though I was feeding her separately from the cats, she knew what I was feeding them.
And she didn’t like what I was offering her.
Abandoned dogs have often suffered a lack in regular or sufficient food. Even so, she left her food and raced to where the cats were, whining and leaping about as only puppies can, desperately trying to tell me that THIS was her natural choice dog food.
I ended up throwing away a tin and a half of dog food. I capitulated and fed her the same as the cats, just more of it, until I could be sure of the correct amount and type.
She remained fit, energetic and healthy up to about eleven years of age, with absolutely no veterinary intervention of any sort except sterilisation at about six months. She kept her figure, was always interested in everything going on, had a lovely glossy coat.
Her natural choice dog food was raw meat and bones. She chose it. She never had any other type of dog food.
It was me who was the barrier to try initially. I had to sort out my prejudices, my beliefs, my ingrained ideas of healthy dog food that I had gained over the years, from childhood, through advertisements. That was my biggest hurdle to allowing my dog her right for her natural choice dog food.
I believe dogs are inherently intelligent and know, on a deep level, what is good and healthy for them. This natural ability is often upset, just as in humans, by the daily consumption of junk food, year in, year out. Your dog can become addicted.
But if your dog had the freedom to a natural choice dog food from a puppy, what would you see?
I had just that experience, when a dog came into my home, for the first time since becoming an adult.
I was by then, feeding my cats raw meat and bones, having made the conversion a couple of years before.
I hadn’t expected to get a dog, she catapulted into my life, so I was unprepared. I didn’t know what to feed her. Here was this abandoned, energetic puppy, about eight weeks old, who had made it very clear to me that I was the chosen one. She intended to live with me, so I’d better just get used to the idea.
Still racking my brains for a clue as to her diet, I decided to purchase a couple of tins, while I tried to work it out. After all, they were supposed to be ‘balanced’, ‘nutritionally complete’, ‘recommended by top vets’ weren’t they?
My dog knew better.
Even though I was feeding her separately from the cats, she knew what I was feeding them.
And she didn’t like what I was offering her.
Abandoned dogs have often suffered a lack in regular or sufficient food. Even so, she left her food and raced to where the cats were, whining and leaping about as only puppies can, desperately trying to tell me that THIS was her natural choice dog food.
I ended up throwing away a tin and a half of dog food. I capitulated and fed her the same as the cats, just more of it, until I could be sure of the correct amount and type.
She remained fit, energetic and healthy up to about eleven years of age, with absolutely no veterinary intervention of any sort except sterilisation at about six months. She kept her figure, was always interested in everything going on, had a lovely glossy coat.
Her natural choice dog food was raw meat and bones. She chose it. She never had any other type of dog food.
It was me who was the barrier to try initially. I had to sort out my prejudices, my beliefs, my ingrained ideas of healthy dog food that I had gained over the years, from childhood, through advertisements. That was my biggest hurdle to allowing my dog her right for her natural choice dog food.
Sunday, February 1, 2009
What You Need to Know About Commercial Dog Food Before Buying Any More
People tend to think that commercial dog food, especially if it has been recommended by their veterinarian is of good quality and is giving your dog the best chance in life. Right?
Wrong!
While vets should be the best people to advise about dog food, sadly they’re not. Why? Because the top commercial pet food manufacturers now financially contribute to many veterinary schools. They have a foot in the door. They can, and do, influence the students.
After all you generally don’t bite the hand that feeds you.
In most countries of the world, there are, at least some basic laws governing the quality of human food, whether it’s fresh produce, meat or fast food.
In no country are there laws (which are enforced) that insist commercial pet food manufacturers use quality ingredients. That means anything can, and does, go.
After all, if meat is of good quality, wouldn’t you sell it to the highest market - the human market? So, it’s only the poorest quality meat, more often meat by-products (such as hair, intestines and contents, chicken feet, brain, skin, grizzle, fat, etc) that goes for dog food.
This means that the overall nutrient quality is as poor as it gets, as different proteins have different nutritional absorbability.
Pet food is always bulked out with inert (or not as the melamine scam from China testifies) filler. Typically, this filler will be the current cheapest carbohydrate. There’s often a world glut of something, driving down the price. It may be sugar one year, wheat the next.
Do you think the addition of sugar into your dog’s diet will serve to improve his health?
Why do you think that diabetes in dogs is on the increase?
Dogs may bulk out their food in the wild, but it would be on fresh plant matter that’s available, such as fruit or leaves.
Cooking destroys many vitamins and enzymes which are critical to the overall health of your dog.
As most dog food is dried pellets, which keep indefinitely at room temperature, preservatives must be used. Some manufacturers claim they have not added preservatives. Look carefully at the wording. They did not add it. This may be true. But preservatives will always have been added to the meat before it was delivered to the manufacturers.
It’s impossible to keep meat products at room temperature indefinitely without the use of strong preservatives. Preservatives that would never be allowed in human food, because of their poisonous effect.
So your dog may be well fed as far as volume is concerned, but will be starving for quality food. How can your dog remain healthy if he’s fed garbage?
Most people would be appalled at the process that goes into the making of commercial pet food. That would be a really good incentive not to feed it. I’m attempting to give you a glimpse behind the scenes, so you can give your dog the best dog food available within your budget and within your time available.
Wrong!
While vets should be the best people to advise about dog food, sadly they’re not. Why? Because the top commercial pet food manufacturers now financially contribute to many veterinary schools. They have a foot in the door. They can, and do, influence the students.
After all you generally don’t bite the hand that feeds you.
In most countries of the world, there are, at least some basic laws governing the quality of human food, whether it’s fresh produce, meat or fast food.
In no country are there laws (which are enforced) that insist commercial pet food manufacturers use quality ingredients. That means anything can, and does, go.
After all, if meat is of good quality, wouldn’t you sell it to the highest market - the human market? So, it’s only the poorest quality meat, more often meat by-products (such as hair, intestines and contents, chicken feet, brain, skin, grizzle, fat, etc) that goes for dog food.
This means that the overall nutrient quality is as poor as it gets, as different proteins have different nutritional absorbability.
Pet food is always bulked out with inert (or not as the melamine scam from China testifies) filler. Typically, this filler will be the current cheapest carbohydrate. There’s often a world glut of something, driving down the price. It may be sugar one year, wheat the next.
Do you think the addition of sugar into your dog’s diet will serve to improve his health?
Why do you think that diabetes in dogs is on the increase?
Dogs may bulk out their food in the wild, but it would be on fresh plant matter that’s available, such as fruit or leaves.
Cooking destroys many vitamins and enzymes which are critical to the overall health of your dog.
As most dog food is dried pellets, which keep indefinitely at room temperature, preservatives must be used. Some manufacturers claim they have not added preservatives. Look carefully at the wording. They did not add it. This may be true. But preservatives will always have been added to the meat before it was delivered to the manufacturers.
It’s impossible to keep meat products at room temperature indefinitely without the use of strong preservatives. Preservatives that would never be allowed in human food, because of their poisonous effect.
So your dog may be well fed as far as volume is concerned, but will be starving for quality food. How can your dog remain healthy if he’s fed garbage?
Most people would be appalled at the process that goes into the making of commercial pet food. That would be a really good incentive not to feed it. I’m attempting to give you a glimpse behind the scenes, so you can give your dog the best dog food available within your budget and within your time available.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Healthy Dog Food - How do You Find One
Most people don’t stop to think about the food they are giving their dog. The colourful packs on the laden supermarket shelves are normally as far as people give dog food a thought. You may be one of them, but are now branching out and looking for something a bit healthier.
Believe me, the packs can look tempting and with smiling veterinarians and dog breeders on the cover, you’re not that hard to convince.
But stop for a moment and consider a wild dog’s diet. Dogs are naturally pack animals and so they hunt in packs. They can bring down a large animal, as large as a cow, with their combined efforts. Then they all gather round, with much growling and snarling and consume most of the carcass, bones and all. Probably the only parts left is the hide and hooves.
Whether or not you can accept this idea, that’s how dogs evolved. And the wild dogs still manage very well. This is the most healthy dog food. There is nothing that can beat it.
Man, with his puny pseudo scientific ideas of improving on the natural diet of dogs is going down a dead end. You can’t.
Period.
There is only one type of healthy dog food. And that is the one which so closely resembles a wild dog’s diet, as to be virtually the same as far as health benefits are concerned.
Lets look at some of the differences between a wild dog’s diet and commercial dog food, a diet most dogs exist on (I won’t say live, as it’’s hardly a life).
A wild diet, a healthy dog food, consists of:
A typical commercial dog food consists of:
So in your search for a healthy dog food, keep firmly in mind the diet of a wild dog. It’s OK to take your time to get used to the idea. If you find the idea repulsive, just go slowly. Try to replace one thing at a time. Just keep in mind that dogs have evolved over millions of years, on this diet. Humans have only been producing (poor quality) commercial dog food for a few decades.
If you don’t like the idea of raw meat for your dog, that’s your issue, not his.
I also suggest that you keep in mind the concept that most people are lured by price. With the best will in the world, if a commercial pet food manufacturer suddenly started to produce quality pet food, because it would be more expensive, do you think it would be a sell-out?
That would only be possible if people had already started to reject the current commercial dog food and were now looking for a healthy dog food, so were prepared to pay a little more.
However, if you make your own dog food, you won’t need to find the extra cash. Not only is a homemade, healthy dog food economical to produce, it has an enormous impact on the health of your dog, often beyond your wildest dreams.
Believe me, the packs can look tempting and with smiling veterinarians and dog breeders on the cover, you’re not that hard to convince.
But stop for a moment and consider a wild dog’s diet. Dogs are naturally pack animals and so they hunt in packs. They can bring down a large animal, as large as a cow, with their combined efforts. Then they all gather round, with much growling and snarling and consume most of the carcass, bones and all. Probably the only parts left is the hide and hooves.
Whether or not you can accept this idea, that’s how dogs evolved. And the wild dogs still manage very well. This is the most healthy dog food. There is nothing that can beat it.
Man, with his puny pseudo scientific ideas of improving on the natural diet of dogs is going down a dead end. You can’t.
Period.
There is only one type of healthy dog food. And that is the one which so closely resembles a wild dog’s diet, as to be virtually the same as far as health benefits are concerned.
Lets look at some of the differences between a wild dog’s diet and commercial dog food, a diet most dogs exist on (I won’t say live, as it’’s hardly a life).
A wild diet, a healthy dog food, consists of:
- raw food
- lots of raw bones
- internal organs are consumed, but these are scarce compared with the muscle meat
- carbohydrates which are limited to the stomach contents, so is small in the overall content
A typical commercial dog food consists of:
- cooked food (many vitamins, enzymes and other nutrients are destroyed by cooking)
- the meat is of poor (often extremely poor) quality (humans get the good stuff)
- carbohydrates, in particular sugar, are a major part of the food - it’s cheap and bulks out the ‘meat’
- the food is fortified with strong preservatives (not allowed in human food for their dangerous impact on health) - DESPITE WHAT THE LABEL SAYS
- to try to redress the nutritional imbalance, isolated and synthetic nutrients are added - nutrients which can’t be properly absorbed and utilised when they are in isolation, or if they are synthetic
So in your search for a healthy dog food, keep firmly in mind the diet of a wild dog. It’s OK to take your time to get used to the idea. If you find the idea repulsive, just go slowly. Try to replace one thing at a time. Just keep in mind that dogs have evolved over millions of years, on this diet. Humans have only been producing (poor quality) commercial dog food for a few decades.
If you don’t like the idea of raw meat for your dog, that’s your issue, not his.
I also suggest that you keep in mind the concept that most people are lured by price. With the best will in the world, if a commercial pet food manufacturer suddenly started to produce quality pet food, because it would be more expensive, do you think it would be a sell-out?
That would only be possible if people had already started to reject the current commercial dog food and were now looking for a healthy dog food, so were prepared to pay a little more.
However, if you make your own dog food, you won’t need to find the extra cash. Not only is a homemade, healthy dog food economical to produce, it has an enormous impact on the health of your dog, often beyond your wildest dreams.
Monday, January 19, 2009
Raw Dog Food - How Can You Be Sure It’s Healthy?
Most people feel reassured by the pictures of smiling veterinarians and dog breeders paying tribute to the commercial pet food they feed their dog. Or perhaps, you’ve been convinced by your own vet that the food they sell is sure to be nutritionally balanced.
For your dog’s sake, be a bit suspicious. Don’t be convinced by anyone (including me) that what they are trying to sell you is necessarily in your dog’s best interest.
Instead, it may be in their own best interest if they gain a sale from convincing you.
If you’re having a problem getting your head around the idea of raw dog food, then I suggest it’s your problem, not your dog’s.
Dogs evolved on a diet of raw food over millennia. Humans have only recently taken an interest in making dog food.
Do you really imagine, for one moment, that humans have been able to change the domestic dog’s digestive and immune system in fifty odd years?
You may well say that humans have had an impact on the way dogs look, with all the different breeds. Yes, that’s true. But have you also noticed that pedigree dogs are also the most unhealthy? What I call a Heinz 57 dog, is normally much healthier.
So in breeding a selective type of dog, humans have gone against nature, by isolating one or more traits, until the breed becomes what the breeder wants.
And so it is with food. Humans tinker about with food, under the guise of ‘science’. I call it junk science, because there’s nothing scientific about commercial dog food. The word ‘science’ has come to be revered by the majority. Just as the word ‘natural’ is currently enjoying popularity.
So a clever commercial dog food manufacturer will incorporate the word ‘science’ and/or ‘natural’ in the advertising, to lure you in.
That doesn’t mean there’s anything of quality within the packet or can It could be anything. You have no way of knowing how the food was prepared or what is in each pack.
Raw dog food, on the other hand, contains all the nutrients essential to a healthy dog.
I appreciate that it may take you time to get your head around the idea, because you’ve probably been brought up on the idea that commercial pet food is the healthiest way to go.
If that was true, how cum that dogs health invariably improves when a switch from commercial to raw dog food is made? The only way you’re really going to find out for sure is to try it out yourself.
You may be worried about parasites and bacteria in raw dog food.
Neither of these are an issue for dogs, whose digestive system is very robust, with powerful digestive juices. Dogs aren’t carnivores, they’re omnivores, which means they can eat anything (as long as it’s raw), including vegetation and rotting carcasses.
In fact, you will notice that when you feed a raw dog food, fleas and worms decrease and almost disappear.
Dogs have problems with unnatural foods - those that are cooked, those that contain preservatives. Neither of these are natural. Cooking destroys many vitamins and denatures other nutrients.
I can genuinely assure you, that your dogs health will improve considerably when you start feeding a raw dog food. There may be a ‘de-toxing’ period initially, but this is normal, natural and only takes a short time to go through.
Why not try it for a month and see for yourself? What have you got to lose?
For your dog’s sake, be a bit suspicious. Don’t be convinced by anyone (including me) that what they are trying to sell you is necessarily in your dog’s best interest.
Instead, it may be in their own best interest if they gain a sale from convincing you.
If you’re having a problem getting your head around the idea of raw dog food, then I suggest it’s your problem, not your dog’s.
Dogs evolved on a diet of raw food over millennia. Humans have only recently taken an interest in making dog food.
Do you really imagine, for one moment, that humans have been able to change the domestic dog’s digestive and immune system in fifty odd years?
You may well say that humans have had an impact on the way dogs look, with all the different breeds. Yes, that’s true. But have you also noticed that pedigree dogs are also the most unhealthy? What I call a Heinz 57 dog, is normally much healthier.
So in breeding a selective type of dog, humans have gone against nature, by isolating one or more traits, until the breed becomes what the breeder wants.
And so it is with food. Humans tinker about with food, under the guise of ‘science’. I call it junk science, because there’s nothing scientific about commercial dog food. The word ‘science’ has come to be revered by the majority. Just as the word ‘natural’ is currently enjoying popularity.
So a clever commercial dog food manufacturer will incorporate the word ‘science’ and/or ‘natural’ in the advertising, to lure you in.
That doesn’t mean there’s anything of quality within the packet or can It could be anything. You have no way of knowing how the food was prepared or what is in each pack.
Raw dog food, on the other hand, contains all the nutrients essential to a healthy dog.
I appreciate that it may take you time to get your head around the idea, because you’ve probably been brought up on the idea that commercial pet food is the healthiest way to go.
If that was true, how cum that dogs health invariably improves when a switch from commercial to raw dog food is made? The only way you’re really going to find out for sure is to try it out yourself.
You may be worried about parasites and bacteria in raw dog food.
Neither of these are an issue for dogs, whose digestive system is very robust, with powerful digestive juices. Dogs aren’t carnivores, they’re omnivores, which means they can eat anything (as long as it’s raw), including vegetation and rotting carcasses.
In fact, you will notice that when you feed a raw dog food, fleas and worms decrease and almost disappear.
Dogs have problems with unnatural foods - those that are cooked, those that contain preservatives. Neither of these are natural. Cooking destroys many vitamins and denatures other nutrients.
I can genuinely assure you, that your dogs health will improve considerably when you start feeding a raw dog food. There may be a ‘de-toxing’ period initially, but this is normal, natural and only takes a short time to go through.
Why not try it for a month and see for yourself? What have you got to lose?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
