[Hound Dog Mom]

Hi Bigcoco –

1) 30% bone is way too much. As Patty said, bone should comprise 10% of the diet. The calcium to phosphorus ratio needs to be between 1:1 and 2:1 (ideally around 1.2 – 1.3:1). When the diet is 10% bone, 10% organ meat and 80% muscle meat the calcium to phosphorus ratio is right within that optimal range. A diet of 30% bone will be throwing that ratio of balance.

2) I checked out the product website and I can’t see where organs are included in the mixes? All I see is where they state 70% meat and 30% bone. If organ meat is not included in adequate quantities in the 70% “meat” you’ll need to feed organ meat. Organ meat should comprise 10% of the diet – 5% being liver and 5% being other organs (kidneys, lungs, spleen, pancreas, brain, etc.). Organ meat provides crucial vitamins and minerals that aren’t provided by muscle meat.

3) I can’t find where the level of vitamin e in the Bravo salmon oil is stated on their website and often the amounts added to fish oils are too low. I checked out the Pet Naturals of Vermont Daily Best supplement and there is little vitamin e in that either. Small dogs should get 50 – 100 IU per day, medium dogs 100 – 200 IU per day and large dogs 200 – 400 IU per day. Vitamin e requirements increase when fish oil (omega 3’s) is being supplemented, if adequate quantities are not received with omega 3 fatty acid supplementation the dog will eventually develop a vitamin e deficiency.

4) It’s also possible your dog could be deficient in certain trace nutrients – it’s hard telling without a nutrient analysis but because the Pet Naturals supplement is designed to be fed with a complete and balanced commercial food the amounts of vitamins and minerals are very low (as they are with most pet supplements). To ensure your dog is getting all the trace nutrients he needs I’d recommend either supplementing with a human multivitamin – base the dosage off a 100 lb. person (i.e. 25 lb. dog gets 1/4 human dosage, 50 lb. dog gets 1/2 human dosage, 75 lb. dog gets 3/4 human dosage, 100 lbs.+ gets human dosage) – or adding whole food supplements. I prefer to avoid synthetic supplements for my dogs so I feed a variety of nutrient-dense whole food supplements like kelp, alfalfa, bee pollen, spirulina, wheatgrass, glandulars, sprouted nuts & seeds, etc.

“Unlocking the Canine Ancestral Diet” by Steve Brown is a fantastic resource for raw feeding. It’s a really great book for beginners – short and easy to understand and includes AAFCO compliant recipes. You may want to checkout this book. It was a constant resource for me when I first started feeding homemade raw.