Ahhh, it is the weekend again and time to post good stuff. A lot of the above sounds soooo familiar with our situation for our both dogs, plus we had many other simultaneous symptoms occurring with our dogs, inconsistent stools, anal gland flare-ups, tooth/gum issues, we had been “fighting” the symptoms for so long it seemed we were destined for either living with it or changing the outcome. We were at the 4-year mark with our two cockapoos and I had enough of the personal ignorance and following everyone’s prescriptions including our Vet’s. So,… the long road on research and learning began (and it still continues), discussions with our Vet at a far more informed level (or at least the level I could study to), lots of webinars listened to given by licensed Vets with pet nutrition specializations, and reading reading reading. Talking to senior GOV nutritionists including the USDA, talking with pet consultant business owners, etc – you get the idea now that this was a lot of figuring out stuff that I could find in one condensed place. The secret we eventually (over an intense investigation period of months) came to was that we needed to take charge of the food data and get it done (science-based input = good results/output). The bottom-line in our case is that until we went to a complete raw food diet (this means really knowing first-hand what we were doing), we were destined on a course of mediocrity or worse and chasing symptoms which I (we) had enough of. The addition of ground bones and connective tissue with the raw diet addressed many issues (but that is just the beginning of the solutions). The experience, learning, demystification of misinformation, disinformation, and anecdotal information that is “out there” is staggering. This whole experience of ours is one that is very enriching and I am on a quest to tell everyone I can about the lessons learned, the solutions put into practice, the observations and iterations to make tweeks to the raw diet, etc needed to take control. On the money side, we have avoided thousands of dollars and or lots of worrisome situations with our two dogs. Because cost comes up regularly, our food cost ranges from an average of $1.00-$1.25 per dog per day (13.5 lb and 15.5 lb) not including time to plan, design, iterate, shop, prepare, manufacture, bag, clean up. And our Vet just smiles at us when we go in for the check-ups and tells us congratulations, you have broken some barriers of ignorance and have the data to back up your “program”. So, we are on the quest to get this project done and share the nutrition model (and all that goes into it) with those who want or need to start where we are and not have to recreate it. The model is in the final phase of designing the menu analysis section for supplements needed (or not needed) but it is based on nutrition data. Disclaimer: the model does not address any aspect of diet for treating diagnosed disease(s). The model is about proper diet and maximizing probability of prevention of problems that can be avoided by applying nutrition science.
