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Search Results for 'raw diet'
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We’ve been feeding Loki, our, now 5mo Rott/GS mix, a raw food diet since we brought him home from the shelter at 3 months; been serving him mainly Stella & Chewy’s and also Primal Canine, he seems to love it, all varieties. Recently, our local Pet Food Express gave us an individual sample of “Tucker’s”, a new product they carry from a “local, USA company” and “the hook” was that it was “$10 less” per bag…!!! They have a very positive, “pat yourself on the back” web-site and Loki had no problem “wolfing” the sample down, either; was wondering if anyone else here has heard of them and tried their products, and if you have any feedback to share on your experiences….THANKS in advance, looking forward to any replies…!!!
Hi jacklyn –
The most effective thing you can do to repel fleas and ticks from your dogs is to boost their immune system. Vital dogs are less susceptible to parasites (both internal and external) than dogs with weaker immune systems. The first step to creating a strong immune system is by feeding a species-appropriate diet. For years I used chemical flea and tick topicals on my dogs (Advantix or Frontline Plus). Two summers ago was a really bad summer for fleas in my area, despite receiving a monthly dose of Advantix my dogs (I had two at the time – Gus was 6 and Gertie was a pup) got infested with fleas. When I say infested, I mean really infested – Gus had the hair chewed off both his hindquarters exposing the raw skin because he was chewing on himself so much and Gertie was just crawling with them, when I separated her hair I could just see fleas crawling. So in addition to the Advantix I put them on Trifexis (oral flea preventative, with heart worm preventative – took them off Heartguard) and set off flea “bombs” in the house. To no avail. I hired an exterminator to treat the yard and house – that didn’t do any good either. Finally I gave up and we all suffered through the summer and early fall until the temperatures dipped below freezing, then the fleas died off. That fall I switched my dogs to a raw diet (at the time of the infestation they were eating The Honest Kitchen and various 4 and 5 star canned foods). I read online many reports of dogs not requiring flea and tick treatments while on a raw diet because their immune systems grow so strong. It sounded bogus to me but I really didn’t like using chemicals on and around them (I had began learning more about chemical flea and tick preventatives and started to become scared of using them) and I figured it things couldn’t be worse than the previous summer. So that next summer (would have been last summer – 2012) I didn’t use any chemical preventatives. I used Sentry Natural Defense topical (chemical free – contains natural essential oils) and Earth Animal herbal flea and tick tincture (drops that I add to their food made with herbs known to make the dog’s natural scent/blood less appealing to fleas and ticks). I combed my dogs daily with a flea comb and did not find a single flea or tick the entire summer. I’ve been chemical-free ever since and so far so good for this summer too. I’ve been having a snap test (blood test for tick transmitted diseases) done prior to the start of tick season and after tick season and all my dogs have tested negative for tick transmitted diseases each time – ticks are bad in my area and last summer 4 individuals I know had their dogs (all of which were on either Advantix or Frontline Plus) test positive for lyme. I’m now a believer that healthy dogs are less susceptible to infestation.
Some information about the active ingredients found in many popular flea and tick preventatives:
FIPRONIL (active ingredient in Frontline)
“Journal of Pesticide Reform Factsheet: Fipronil”
-In tests with laboratory animals, fipronil causes aggressive behavior, damaged kidneys, and “drastic alterations in thyroid function.” The fipronil containing product ‘Frontline’ caused changes in the levels of sex hormones.
-The offspring of laboratory animals exposed to fipronil during pregnancy were smaller than those of unexposed mothers. They also took longer to mature sexually.
-The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency classifies fipronil as a carcinogen because exposure to fipronil caused benign and malignant thyroid tumors in lab animals.IMIDACLOPRID (active ingredient in Advantage)
“Journal of Pesticide Reform Factsheet: Imidacloprid”
-Imidacloprid is a relatively new, systemic insecticide chemically related to the tobacco toxin nicotine. Like nicotine, it acts on the nervous system. Symptoms of exposure include apathy, labored breathing, incoordination, emaciation and convulsions. Longer-term exposures causes reduced ability to gain weight and thyroid lesions.
-Pregnant laboratory animals exposed to imidacloprid experienced increased incidence of miscarriage and had smaller offspring than unexposed animals.
-Imidacloprid has been shown to increase the incidence of genetic damage called DNA adducts.PYRETHRINS (active ingredient in Bio Spot)
-According to CPI, from 2002 through 2007, at least 1,600 pet deaths related to spot-on treatments with the pyrethrins were reported to the EPA.
-According to the website “Bio Spot Victims”: Toxicological studies have linked this pesticide to serious acute and chronic health effects. The EPA has classified it as a possible human carcinogen because it increases the frequency of lung and liver tumors in laboratory animals. It suppresses the immune system. Permethrin is also suspected to have played an important role in the development of illnesses known as the Gulf War Syndrome.There is no such as thing as “too much protein” for a healthy dog. Size also has nothing to do with protein requirements – all dogs, regardless of size, have the same basic nutrition requirements. Dogs only require protein and fat, they have no dietary requirement for carbohydrates. Ideally – the diet for a healthy dog with a typical activity level should be high in protein, moderate in fat and low in carbohydrates.
My dogs eat a homemade raw diet that ranges between 45% and 55% protein, 30% and 40% fat and roughly 15% carbohydrates. My dogs are active and have trouble maintaining weight so I keep the fat content of their meals on the high side. For a less active dog or dog with an average activity level you would want to keep the fat level around half the protein level – so if you were feeding 50% protein you’d want fat at about 25%. You want to keep the carbohydrate level of the meal low. I wouldn’t ever recommend less than 30% protein or less than 15% fat for a healthy dog and I believe protein levels above 40% are ideal. It will be easier to achieve proper protein levels if feeding raw, fresh cooked or canned foods – all kibbles are fairly low in protein as they require a certain amount of starch in the formula to act as a binder.
Woodrow is an amazing 55 lb. 2-3 year old Cattle dog/ shar pei/lab mix rescue. He has issues with a few triggers that send him across the threshold. Woodrow and I are being coached by a positive trainer/behavior specialist. He has plenty of exercise throughout everyday. The trainer has suggested a low protein diet could possibly could help him. He is currently getting Acana Regionals grain free in the morning and Vital Essentials or Primal Raw in the evening. I mix the proteins with both the kibble and the raw. He has been on this diet for 1 1/2 years. She has also instructed the use of only kibble, no raw. Has anyone had any experience with this? And….what the heck would I feed him? Thank you.
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!
Topic: Chicken Foot humor….
Thought I’d share a funny, yet embarrassing, thing that happened to me tonight. I fed Bailey dinner tonight, her usual raw dinner. While I’m cleaning up and putting a bit of chicken that I still have left back in the fridge, I noticed I forgot to give her the last chicken foot with dinner. She had just finished up eating and was cleaning up her “eating area”, so I tossed it to her, and went about cleaning up. Anyways, I don’t think she chewed it up much before she swallowed it, you’ll find out how I know that in a second, lol! So, after she got done eating, I wanted to take her for a quick walk, because I was going to be leaving to go to dinner with my sister. So, we get a few houses down, to where Bailey’s boyfriend, the very handsome Pitbull, Nick, lives and they start running around playing and wrestling. Nick’s owner is an older gentleman who works on cars all the time in his driveway, and he had a few friends over. So, I’m standing there talking to them, Bailey is playing with Nick and then she comes over to me and starts acting like she’s gonna throw up. Well, you can guess what came up……the chicken foot, and that was it! All 4 guys that I’m standing there talking to, look down at what Bailey just yacked up and they look at me like I just grew 2 heads or something. I was so embarrassed! I then proceeded to explain that I feed Bailey a raw diet and I got a million questions, but OMG! How embarrassing! Oh, and fyi, Bailey is fine, just too much running around too soon after eating.
Hi DieselJunki –
If you’re feeding turkey necks at night I would recommend feeding a red meat grind in the morning. Dogs should get an even mix of red meat and poultry. Poultry is high in polyunsaturated fats, particularly linoleic acid (an essential omega 6 fatty acid) and a poultry only diet could easily supply an over-abudance of omega 6’s – omega 6’s are essential but they need to be balanced in the correct proportion with the other essential fatty acids. Red meat tends to be high in saturated fats and low in polyunsaturated fats – this means that a red meat only diet won’t meet the dog’s dietary requirements for linoleic acid (an essential omega 6 fatty acid) and alpha linolenic acid (an essential omega 3 fatty acid). Feeding red meat for one meal and poultry for another will help to ensure your dog receives essential fatty acids in the correct proportions. I also feel that the bulk of the organ content of a raw diet should come from ruminant sources as there is a much wider variety to choose from – the only poultry organs I’ve ever seen available for purchase are livers, for ruminants it’s possible to purchase liver, kidney, lung, pancreas, spleen, etc. Red meat and poultry also have different amino acid and mineral profiles so feeding both will help to fill in the gaps. Because you’re ordering from MPC and because calcium levels are a concern at this point, I would recommend feeding the Green Beef Tripe Supermix 5 mornings per week (This mix will have a low, but balanced calcium to phosphorus ratio due to the fact that it’s comprised of 50% green tripe. It also contains 40% whole ground young beef and 10% trachea and gullet – trachea and gullet are rich in glucosamine and chondroitin and good for the joints). The other two mornings I would feed their Ground Beef Organ Mix – this is 50% heart, 30% liver and 20% kidney (so, because heart is considered a muscle meat, this mix is 50% muscle meat and 50% organ meat). Feeding organ meat two mornings per week will ensure he’s received the appropriate amount of organ meat in his diet (if you are only feeding turkey necks for dinner the necks should balance out the high levels of phosphorus in the organ mix). To get him to gain weight, try adding a tablespoon of coconut oil to his grind every morning. Good luck!
First off – do your dogs have a health condition that would require them to be on a low protein diet? There’s a reason that all the “top” dog foods are high in protein – protein in the low 20’s is way too low for a healthy dog. Unless a dog has a health condition requiring a low protein diet, I don’t ever advise feeding a food with less than 30% protein. My dogs eat between 45% and 55% protein at each meal. All dogs, regardless of breed or size, have the same basic nutritional requirements and the majority will thrive on diets high in quality protein, moderate in fat and low in carbohydrates.
Second off – please don’t pick one food and feed it for life, that’s the worst thing you could do for your dogs. Dogs need variety. My dogs eat something completely different at each meal. I’d recommend picking several brands that have good ratings, testing them, and rotating through the varieties your dogs do well on. When feeding kibble it’s also important to add in some less processed species appropriate foods when possible – this could be a quality canned or dehdyrated food, healthy leftovers (lean meat, cooked low glycemic veggies), plain yogurt or kefir, tinned sardines, raw, etc.
Hope that helps!
Transitioning can be as slow or fast as you want but I would suggest going by how their output is. If your dog has only eaten one food for several years it might take longer to transition as they are not use to the different kinds of ingredients. I’ve even taken two months or longer on one of mine. Basically I got to 80% new/20% old for over a month but I was transitioning them to a high protein/fat diet – Instinct. I usually go with 25/75 for at least a week and if there stools look good then increase to 50/50 for another week until their stools look good, then 75/25 etc. I didn’t know about probiotics or digestive enzymes back then so those probably would have made transitioning easier. You can even feed a mix of kibbles. I usually feed 2 different kibbles together and mix them up in a 1.5 gallon container in different ratios everytime it gets empty.
Also are you feeding a grain food or grain free food? That might also factor in the transitioning. I went from 1 star food to 4 star food to 5 star food over the coarse of a year.
Of course my fosters get zero transition time. I have know idea what they ate in their previous life and what they ate at the vet. I just give them probiotics, digestive enzymes and ground psyllium and hope for the best. They might have soft stool for a few days and that’s it.
I have found that they transition well on Nutrisource grain free and even Nutrisca. Petflow (and probably other online retailers) offer free shipping when you order a certain amount. Petflow’s amount is $49 so a large bag is usually free shipping. I’d get two large bags at once. They’re packed in the box tighter than one single bag.
Once you know how to read ingredients on dog food, it should be the same for treats. I used to give Beggin Strips, Pupperoni and even cheese balls as treats. Even fed one of my fosters Moist and Meaty after jaw surgery not knowing any better. Right now I use Vital Essentials freeze dried nibblets and Dr Becker Bites and Nutrisca freeze dried for treats. For chewing treats I give dry roasted trachea and tripe chews (very stinky) and fresh chicken feet and fresh trachea.
http://i1326.photobucket.com/albums/u651/pugmomsandy/pictures%20for%20posting/IMG_4047600x450_zpsf34c6610.jpg
Just remember to cut the claws off!A whole sardine is an easy additon too.
Duck and turkey necks are great for chewing and cleaning teeth also. I can find small turkey necks at the health food store sometimes. Chicken necks are always at the ethnic grocery store and so are chicken feet and other kinds of feet.
I don’t think you even mentioned raw food so I’ll stop there!
Yes homemade jerky treats are a money saver. You can even use your oven. Set it to the lowest setting and bake for at least 3 hours thinly sliced strips of chicken or other meat/organs on a lightly greased cookie sheet. I guess the new silicone nonstick bakeware will work. Store in the frig.
Hi Cyndi –
I don’t ever recommend cutting up RMBs unless the dog is very small – this just makes the dog even more likely to gulp. Some larger dogs don’t chew small RMBs such as chicken necks and feet and for this reason it’s better to feed them larger RMBs only so they are forced to chew (i.e. turkey necks, chicken backs, etc.). Only crunching a few times is normal – dogs don’t finely chew their food like people do. As long as she’s not swallowing things whole I wouldn’t be concerned. If you scroll down through the raw food topics there’s a thread called “Eating Raw Meaty Bones” that I started. In the thread I have two videos posted (near the end) of one of my dogs eating RMBs so newbies can get an idea of what’s normal – check those out.
Hi brianb22 –
It’s great that you’re considering switching to a rotational diet – providing a wide variety of quality species-appropriate foods is the best thing we can do for our pets.
I currently feed a homemade raw diet with different proteins, different supplements and different fruits/vegetables at each meal. When I was feeding kibble, however, I switched to a new brand with a new protein source at the end of every bag (about every 3 weeks for my 110 lb. male bloodhound) – all the while adding a different canned food toppers daily. When you first begin a rotation diet you may find that it will be necessary to slowly transition between brands (because your dogs are used to eating the same thing daily), but once you do it for awhile and your dogs’ guts strengthen you should be able to switch brands with no transition.
Any of the 4 or 5 star foods would be good options to use in your rotation – which foods you choose will really depend on your budget. I used dry foods that were grain-free and had at least 30% protein, some of my favorites were: Orijen, Nature’s Variety Instinct and Acana. I picked canned foods that were grain-free, some of my favorites were: Nature’s Logic, Tripett, ZiwiPeak and Addiction.
I’d also recommend adding some fresh foods to your dogs’ meals occasionally. Some healthy fresh foods: plain yogurt or kefir (high in quality animal-based protein and probiotics for a healthy gut), tinned sardines or mackerel (high in protein and omega 3’s), eggs (high in quality protein and omega 3’s), lean leftover meat (high in quality protein) and steamed low glycemic veggies (high in antioxidants).
Good luck!
Recent Topics
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Easy Cat Pregnancy Calculator for Cat Owners
by 3 months ago
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How do I keep a dog entertained passively?
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Need healthier alternatives to Purina Moist & Meaty
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dog vitamins
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