Hmmmmm.....
Very interesting.
Bump for replies.
From the article:
In North America, ‘mammalian meat and bone meal’, a key animal component in pet food, has been shown to include the ground-up remains of euthanised cats and dogs – flea collars, name tags, microchips and all.
How is this allowed?
CC
I’ve long heard that a raw diet is best. I just don’t know how to do it.
Anyone?
I can understand not wanting to feed your animals or your family so much processed food.
I think it will be interesting, since her dog works among animals -sheep, it appears from her photo-, if the raw meat diet gives her dog a taste for lamb (if you know what I mean).
I’d like to hear her discuss with vegetarians, their glowing reports of how well their dogs do on a vegatarian diet.
I noticed that in the comments section, most people who didn’t have their dogs eating commercial food, were cooking meat - not giving it to them raw - and also adding rice and vegetables - not exactly what wild dogs would do.
Commercial dog food hasn’t been around very long. My parents’ generation fed their dogs table scraps and rarely went to the vet - then again they rarely went to the doctor themselves.
All in all, I think she’s going off the deep end with the raw meat diet - though by writing this article, she’s probably pulling a few in with her.
I’ve never been much in favor of commercial dog food. Dogs have been sharing our meals for 10,000 years and doing just fine. In my opinion commercial dog food was invented as a way to sell scraps and floor sweepings illegal to sell for human consumption.
Dogs and cats, just like people, are living longer than they ever have. The dog next door is almost 20 and has always eaten commercial food. My last dog made it to almost 15. We had to feed him ground turkey, rice and eggs, because of a genetic condition.
My current dogs, both five, eat mostly commercial food, Wellness. We tried the raw diet for many months and they hated it. It made my one dog puke all the time.
I think people like to worry about everything.
Here is a longer list: Alpo Prime Cuts / Score 81 C Artemis Large/Medium Breed Puppy / Score 114 A+ Authority Harvest Baked / Score 116 A+ Authority Harvest Baked Less Active / Score 93 B Beowulf Back to Basics / Score 101 A+ Bil-Jac Select / Score 68 F Blackwood 3000 Lamb and Rice / Score 83 C Blue Buffalo Chicken and Rice / Score 106 A+ Burns Chicken and Brown Rice / Score 107 A+ Canidae / Score 112 A+ Chicken Soup Senior / Score 115 A+ Diamond Maintenance / Score 64 F Diamond Lamb Meal & Rice / Score 92 B Diamond Large Breed 60+ Formula / Score 99 A Diamond Performance / Score 85 C Dick Van Patten’s Natural Balance Ultra Premium / Score 122 A+ Dick Van Patten’s Natural Balance Venison and Brown Rice / Score 106 A+ Dick Van Patten’s Duck and Potato / Score 106 A+ EaglePack Holistic / Score 102 A+ Eukanuba Adult / Score 81 C Eukanuba Puppy / Score 79 C Flint River Senior / Score 101 A+ Foundations / Score 106 A+ Hund-n-Flocken Adult Dog (lamb) by Solid Gold / Score 93 B Iams Lamb Meal & Rice Formula Premium / Score 73 D Innova Dog / Score 114 A+ Innova Evo / Score 114 A+ Innova Large Breed Puppy / Score 122 A+ Kirkland Signature Chicken, Rice, and Vegetables / Score 110 A+ Member’s Mark Chicken and Rice / Score 84 C Merrick Wilderness Blend / Score 127 A+ Nature’s Recipe / Score 100 A Nature’s Recipe Healthy Skin Venison and Rice / Score 116 A+ Nature’s Variety Raw Instinct / Score 122 A+ Nutra Nuggets Super Premium Lamb Meal and Rice / Score 81 C Nutrience Junior Medium Breed Puppy / Score 101 A+ Nutrisource Lamb and Rice / Score 87 B Nutro Max Adult / Score 93 B Nutro Natural Choice Lamb and Rice / Score 98 A Nutro Natural Choice Large Breed Puppy / Score 87 B Nutro Natural Choice Oatmeal / Score 101 A+ Nutro Natural Choice Puppy Wheat Free / Score 86 B Nutro Natural Choice Senior / Score 95 A Nutro Ultra Adult / Score 104 A+ Pet Gold Adult with Lamb & Rice / Score 23 F Premium Edge Chicken, Rice and Vegetables Adult Dry / Score 109 A+ Pro Nature Puppy / Score 80 C Pro Plan Natural Turkey & Barley / Score 103 A+ Pro Plan Sensitive Stomach / Score 94 A Purina Beneful / Score 17 F Purina Dog / Score 62 F Purina Come-n-Get It / Score 16 F Purina One Large Breed Puppy / Score 62 F Royal Canin Boxer / Score 103 A+ Royal Canin Bulldog / Score 100 A+ Royal Canin Natural Blend Adult / Score 106 A+ Science Diet Advanced Protein Senior 7+ / Score 63 F Science Diet for Large Breed Puppies / Score 69 F Sensible Choice Chicken and Rice / Score 97 A Solid Gold / Score 99 A Summit / Score 99 A Timberwolf Organics Wild & Natural Dry / Score 120 A+ Wellness Super5 Mix Chicken / Score 110 A+ Wolfking Adult Dog (bison) by Solid Gold / Score 97 A Besides the criteria that you listed, one other thing you have to look out for is whether or not the manufacturer uses ethoxyquin as a preservative for fats and fish meals. It is not allowed in human food, but is allowed in pet foods, and it is a carcinogen. To further complicate matters, you can’t just look on the ingredients list to see if ethoxyquin is there. If they source fish meal with it already added by their supplier, they do not have to list it in the ingredients because they didn’t add it themselves. Also, some dog food manufacturers claim that it is destroyed in processing, while others claim it is definitely NOT destroyed and remains in the food. I frequent a discussion board for Yorkshire Terriers, and someone there contacted every manufacturer they could to find out if ethoxyquin was in their dog food. Most of them gave very direct answers. What I found notable was that Diamond said that they had it in their dog food, and they were at the epicenter of the fiasco regarding melamine contamination of dog food. Besides their own brands, they also contract manufacture for four premium brands — Artemis, Canidae, Taste of the Wild, and Dick Van Patten’s Natural Balance. The first three — Artemis, Canidae, Taste of the Wild — all readily admitted that their foods contained ethoxyquin. However, Natural Balance danced all around the issue, and after several emails, never gave a direct answer. They are one of the brands that claim the carcinogen degrades during processing. I would never feed any of those four brands, even though they are otherwise, outside of the ethoxyquin issue, very good foods. The brands I found that meet the criteria as excellent are Acana, Merrick, Evo, Fromm, Honest Kitchen, Innova, Wellness, California Natural, and Nature’s Variety. (This is not an all-inclusive list, it’s just the ones I’ve been able to find locally). I’ve also found that feeding the super premium foods is actually cheaper than feeding the grocery store crap. The grocery store crap is full of fillers (like corn) that don’t satisfy a dog and pass right through them, so a dog has to eat a much larger serving size to get satisfaction and get the amount needed for proper nutrition. So much more waste. The super premium bag might cost more, but the bag lasts a lot longer and I save money in the long run. (As an example, Iams recommends feeding a 25 lb dog 4 cups per day, on Solid Gold they would only need 1.5 cups per day). You can actually SAVE money by feeding the premium brands. Right now I’m feeding the Prairie line from Nature’s Variety. There are five different “flavors” (beef, chicken, lamb, venison, and salmon) kibble, and six flavors in their wet food, as well as frozen raw. You can switch between any of these without transitioning and they never get bored. I have a senior that gets bored easily, and she readily eats this stuff. It’s “All Life Stages,” so I can give the same food to my four month old pup. Here is another good site for dog food comparisons: http://www.dogfoodanalysis.com/
After I lost a third dog to bone cancer, I asked the vet what was causing it...he said, it’s the dog food. Some years ago my mother in law had a dachshund who lived to be 18. She ate only what my mother in law cooked for her, which included raw hamburger/beef, rice, and wheat germ.
Sounds like a reputable source. yeah.
Bump
My agility instructor feeds her dogs homemade food, has for years, and competes with them, so after a talk with my vet I went to the nutritionist she uses. She examined the dogs and interviewed me about their age, history, activity level, etc, and came up with a diet.
I chose to go with cooked meat, as I feel it is safer. Wild canines may survive on raw, but I have domesticated dogs.
I spend about 10min every four days making their stew.
If I buy all the ingredients at the grocery store, it costs about $0.75 per day per 3yr old, 60 pound, highly active dog. That is just a little bit cheaper than Iams Large Dog bought on sale, with coupon, and when they put out the 48lb bags in place of the 40lb bags. However, I actually make my own bone meal, use veggies from the garden or stuff that I'm not going to eat in time (can't finish a bag of spinach before it turns), buy veggies marked down for quick sale, and buy meat when it's real cheap (I have three freezers), so it turns out to be pretty cheap.
It's nice to know what is in their food. The treats I make them actually taste pretty good. I haven't tried the stew, but only because I don't think I'd like it.
I stopped reading right there.
I will tell you what happened to me.I’ve mostly been a stay at home wife for all of my years married but a little over a decade ago I decided to go back to work for a while when we wanted to buy some land etc and thought I’d help out.I went and applied at a temp agency when placed me in the local dog food factory we have here.I don’t want to mention names but it is one of the big brands and not an off brand.The first 2 days were ok hard work but ok.On the thrid day I was sent to reselect where they opened boxed packages of some of their premium dog food that is in individual packs and you grabbed the opened ones out while the still closed ones went on to be repacked.I did that for about 1 hour before I started to get so sick I could barely stand.I made it 1/2 way home before I ended up having to pull over and get sick.I just kept getting sicker.I’ve never been so sick in my life and it lasted for the better part of 5-6 days.No one else was sick around me or at work so that told me it had to be the exposure to that food.I do not feed that food and would never feed that food!
I wanted to thank all of you for the suggestions. I’ve looked for the suggested books and links. Very helpful. Videos on YouTube show chihuahuas eating raw food enthusiastically.
This morning I picked up 4 free range drumsticks. Free range only because it was a small pack and on sale.
The suggestions were to give him 2% to 4% of his weight ... is this twice a day? He is only a little over 6 pounds and 2% [recommended for weight loss] is about 2 ounces.
I got home and pulled the skin back on one drum, and I cut to the bone on one side to give him a head start. He chewed on it for about 5 minutes making very little headway. For the last 15 minutes he is sitting by the drumstick growling [he doesn’t normally do this]. Why is he not eating, but growling? Does it have to do with it being raw?
Fidel is naturally finicky. He OFTEN will not eat at all if he does not like what I give him. He actually waits til the next day.
Ideas?
My Aussie will cheerfully eat aluminum foil, toy soldiers, socks, horse poop and crayons. He tried a towel once, but threw it up before much was swallowed.
The wild coyotes around here will eat plants, seeds, small dogs, pack rats, and any moldy stuff I toss into my front yard. I’m pretty sure if I put dried dog food out, they’d line up and sing for their meals. The idea that wild canines eat beef is just silly.
My dogs have all lived to old age in good health with dried dog food. I see no reason to switch from what works, and works well.
Only the dogs of paranoid owners.