Dog Food ..... seriously ....

[Haasman]

I have seen over the past eight to ten years quite a few friend's dogs passing away from some disturbing diseases ..... Mostly intestinal related and all seem to be directly related to what their owners are feeding their dogs (and pets).

I am no expert, but I wanted to offer or suggest that feeding our best friends the same dry food, day in, day out, may not be too good for them. At a minimum changing the brand of food, from one bag to the next, but even better, offer some real food to our buddies.

I do search out and pay for organic dry foods that are yes more expensive, but have to be better for them. They never get the same stuff, bag to bag. I also augment their food with lean scraps including fish, fish skins, and sometimes scrambled eggs! (OK we live on a farm part time).

Almost all dry pet food is manufactured in aluminum colanders and packing systems. There's got to be some transference of aluminum as the food slides along.

I imagine if all I ate was one food, from the same manufacturer for my whole life, I would also end up with pretty weird intestinal ailments.

We also try and give them probiotics like Kiefer, yogurt. As often as we can, bones. (Not chicken bones since they splinter so easily) but beef bones with the marrow intact. They are easily found at the local butcher shop. Often they can be cut up in smaller pieces.

I have throughly enjoyed the "Show your Dog" postings. They are our best friends.

Thought I'd pass these thoughts and suggestions along.

[RSTarga]

Hey, my wife cooks for our dogs, not for me. Organic chicken thighs, low fat meat chunks, carrots, basmati rice, squash.

[37yrold911]

buy a quality human-grade dog food - if it does not say human grade then it is liable to have all sorts of offal and crap in it, the stuff they would otherwise throw away

[setho]

Couldn't agree more. I can't believe how many dogs I see with fatty lypomas now..... 20 years ago you never saw them.

[LiveFromNY]

Eukanuba and three Beggin' Strips a day.

My dog is about to celebrate her 22nd birthday. I ain't changing a thing!

[Haasman]

BTW, Tux loves carrots. Whats with that? He's real happy to pull them out of the garden as well .... as long as they are at the proper size, of course!

[uai]

+1 can confirm
Our last dog suffered all her life from Crohn's disease. (she's been sitting 8 years in the rescue)
After changing to a very very high quality food and home coccking all symptoms are gone.

Our current dog is kinda even more met by his fate one-eyed, epileptic, kidney problems so he has to live on home cooked diet.

BTW, Tux loves carrots. Whats with that? He's real happy to pull them out of the garden as well .... as long as they are at the proper size, of course!

Carrots are common - all of our dogs loved them.

We've had quite some dogs with strange taste in the past, but our one eyed is on a different scale - he goes nuts for tomatoes.
As he's called Georg - his nickname now is Giorgio Pomodoro

[Peanut]

Eukanuba and three Beggin' Strips a day.

My dog is about to celebrate her 22nd birthday. I ain't changing a thing!

Wow. What breed of dog? Our beagle of 17 years died last year, and I thought he made it a long time.


Scott

[CurtEgerer]

This is an interesting homemade recipe, particularly the egg shells. I'd probably do it, but my wife 'won't let me'

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/wtY8-BniRGg?list=UUXZH45NxtVxcj42hTPP064g" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

* I'm not promoting Dinovite or other supplements. I think the recipe would work just fine without them.

[majordad]

Great thread ! I bought my Dog Sindy with my communion money in 1961. She was a Yorkie. I fed her on mince from our butcher mixed with half a Weetabix every day. She lived to 14yrs. She got rasher skins from our table occasionaly and a tiny piece of my chocolate bar. IMHO nowadays you take too much or the wrong care of your dogs. MIne got a lot of exercise too, runs every day.