[Hound Dog Mom]

Hi beagleowner –

According to Dr. Karen Becker:

“Lipomas are benign fatty masses that are incredibly common in dogs. The traditional veterinary community believes there is no breed, sex or age predisposition for the development of lipomas. And it’s true any dog can grow a lipoma – young, old, spayed, neutered, obese or thin.

However, holistic veterinarians believe there’s a correlation among the quantity and size of lipomas, the vitality of a dog, and how well she metabolizes fat. If a dog doesn’t have a vibrant, thriving metabolism, what tends to happen is that dog lays down fat in what I call ‘glumps.’

When you or I gain weight, we tend to gain it in several places on our bodies. When a dog with inappropriate fat metabolism gains weight, he adds glumps of fat in one spot. These glumps of fat are lipomas, or benign fatty masses.”

Dr. Marty Goldstein believes that high carbohydrate, processed (species-inappropriate) commercial foods cause some dogs to lose the ability to metabolize fat, resulting in lipomas. He recommends feeding dogs as close to their natural diet as possible.

Dr. Shawn Messonier recommends supplementing the diet of dogs having lipomas with immune-strengthening herbs such as alfalfa, burdock, goldenseal and thistle.

On Holistic Pet Info, Dr. Colleen Smith claims that there is a correlation between high carbohdyrate diets and lipomas.

Given this information, I would say that you’re on the right track by moving towards homemade food and high protein, grain-free kibble. However, the homemade diet you described above is extremely unbalanced and in the long term will likely cause more harm than good. If you’re going to continue to feed this recipe keep it to no more than 20% of your dog’s total intake and feed the grain-free kibble as the other 80%. If you would like to venture into an entirely homemade diet (which would be wonderful!) I’d recommend checking out some balanced recipes. There are many wonderful books available on homemade diets – “Unlocking the Canine Ancestral Diet” by Steve Brown, “Real Food for Healthy Dogs and Cats” by Dr. Becker, “Optimal Nutrition Raw and Cooked Canine Diets” by Monica Segal and many more (check out Amazon – look for books that are written by veterinarians or nutritionists or that contain AAFCO compliant recipes). Dogaware.com is a great resource on health issues and on homemade diets. You could also utilize a pre-mix (i.e. The Honest Kitchen’s Preference, Urban Wolf, See Spot Live Longer Dinner Mix, Birkdale PetMix, Dr. Harvey’s, etc.) – pre-mixes contain all the nutrients your dog needs, all you need to do is add fresh meat. I’d also look into supplementing whatever food you decide to feed with immune-boosting herbs, as mentioned above. Good luck!

• This reply was modified 11 years, 11 months ago by Hound Dog Mom.