Pet food.....TOTALLY off topic...and long

Thank you so much for posting this. It will makes things much easier when I pick a new food for the doggies. I thought I was doing them good by giving them Science Diet :-(
 
<<Once or twice a week I feed them canned salmon with bones (don't use raw salmon) which I mix with brown rice and veggies, that's pretty easy to prepare. They also get organic yogurt once or twice a week to substitute one meal.>>

I've used canned mackerel in a similar fashion as well. All my dogs have loved it!
 
My sister has her two dogs on a completely raw food diet, bones and all. She claims that it has drastically improved their coat quality etc.... I have to tease her though when she says one of the reasons she switched was to give them something closer to what they would really eat in the wild! Anyone ever see a weiner dog or juggle (pug/jack russel mix) take down a cow or turkey in the wild? If any of my doxies were released into the "wild", the first place they would show up would be the McDonald's drive thru! My DH and I have our dogs on an organic all natural diet that we get through a local pet store - no dyes, preservatives, etc... I can never remember the name of it (will post it later), but our dogs love it and are doing really good on it. We had them on Iams before, but the baby Montana was having a lot of skin issues and ear infections with that food. We think it was allergies.
 
I've seen a dachsund take down a huge rat before. The dog looked as fierce as any dog ten times his size. Truth be told - it was a little unnerving to see a cute little doggie get so down and dirty!

My understanding is that *raw* bones are OK for dogs. It's the cooked ones, without all the moisture, that can be problematic.

We get our beef bones from the deli at our grocery store. The damn things are as big as my forearm and the DDg (dear dog;)) will gnaw on it happily for hours! Then she'll chew on it for days, even after all the best stuff has been licked, slurped, and torn clean.


BTW -
Happy 10th, Carola!

Susan L.G.
 
If you take a chicken leg "raw" it will bend. Cook it and it will snap right in two.

My german shepherd gets raw meaty bones also...knuckles or something like that. If I give a rawhide or something similar, his belly gets upset. I guess it's all in what they get used to sometimes.
 
Ditto what Susan and Tina said.

Cooked bones get brittle and can splinter and this can get stuck in the dog's intentines. Raw bones usually don't splinter.

I have fed my dogs raw bones for over 10 year, I only had one incident about 9 years ago, where I gave a bone to my German Shepherd Mix, Cody and it was only a 1" beef marrow bone and it got stuck between his teeth and had to be removed with a little bit of elbow grease }(

Lesson learned don't give too small beef marrow bones to big dogs!

Carola

Thanks for the well-wishes, Susan!!
 
Liann - I'm thinking of putting my 2 doxies on by Nature Organics. It looked pretty good. If you do get a chance, I'd be interested in knowing what type you feed yours. Also, have your dogs had any back issues? Are they jumpers? I'm scared to death mine are going to get hurt.

Kim
 
>Liann - I'm thinking of putting my 2 doxies on by Nature
>Organics. It looked pretty good. If you do get a chance, I'd
>be interested in knowing what type you feed yours. Also, have
>your dogs had any back issues? Are they jumpers? I'm scared
>to death mine are going to get hurt.
>
>Kim

No back issues yet, but I really worry about it too. Especially since most of mine do not believe in using the last 2 stairs. :( They normally run down the stairs and then leap off of the 3rd stair from the bottom like they are "superwienie" or something. Scares me to death. We are thinking about buying them their own "stairs" too for the couch and bed.
 
I have the "couch" stairs...good luck with that. One wouldn't go near it and the other jumps off the bed, counch, chair OVER the stairs. He jumps everywhere: on and off furniture, off the deck (which is only about 2 feet thank goodness). He goes 100 mph all the time. Hopefully that will slow down as he gets older. I wish I could post a picture but have no idea how.
 
I have a german shepherd and I wondered about getting him the stairs for our bed. But my boy thinks everything is a piece of agility equipment so I was afraid he'd make a bigger jump over them off the bed. Dogs are so funny, such clowns aren't they:+
 
I had to have my German Shepherd put to sleep last August due to bone cancer. I miss her!!!!! We had her cremated because we were in the process of moving and I couldn't stand the thought of burying her in the back yard and then leaving her there!! She, and my other dog that died 3 weeks later, are both in matching urns up on a plant shelf in my kitchen with a picture of them on top and a plant in between. I know some may think that's gross or morbid, but I still feel like they are with me. I still talk to them sometimes too :p
 
I think it's very sweet! How old was your Shepherd? It's so hard to lose them. I feel for every person that posts on these forums about losing their pet:(
 
She was 12. The Doberman was 11. She had cataracts and was mostly deaf. She started limping one day and I took her in the the doctor, NEVER even thinking it could be something more than a pulled muscle. It was much more. I couldn't keep her on pain meds with the dr saying there was no way to know how fast it would progress. I would've been doing it for me, so I could have her a little longer. That would'ne have been fair to her. I still get upset when I think about it. The Doberman died 3 weeks to the day afterward. She had congestive heart failure but may have been missing her friend too.
 
Yeah, I've been horrified by the stories of what they put in commercial dog food... my vet told me that she had done some research that indicated that some of the food (namely, Beneful) might actually contain the corpses of euthanized animals from vet clinics and shelters. (Oh My God Yuck!!)

Anyway, my vet is a strong believer in organic/natural/unprocessed foods, and now we have my two dogs (a Maltese/Lhasa Apso mix and a Boston Terrier) on a twice-a-day diet as follows:

Brown rice or couscous (they prefer the couscous) with olive oil
Peas, carrots, asparagus, cucumbers, tomatoes (various combos)
Lean protein like eggs, lowfat beef, nonfat chicken (all organic)
Nutro dry kibble (Lamb and rice formula)

They LOVE it! My Boston has always been a "bleh" eater... he could take food or leave it. Since we started this diet, he RUNS to his food bowl, he's leaner, more energetic (which is sometimes a blessing AND a curse!), he doesn't have the bad gas problems he had before, and he's more "regular" (he's always had issues with going potty). My Lhasa/Maltese mix has never been terribly picky, but he is a huge fan of the new food, and he also is more energetic, and they BOTH sleep much better.

I tried a similar thing with my cats, but they REFUSE to eat anything but their Purina One kibble. They're very picky... they won't eat canned/wet food, and they don't have any interest in bits of meat (which is weird, for carnivores). So, that didn't go well, so I'm just keeping them on the Purina, despite my misgivings. Feeding them an organic, unprocessed diet does you no good if they're not eating it!

Anyway, good luck with the food exploration! :)
 
I use hollistic dog food and mix it with cooked rice, Ground Turkey, and some canned pumpkin with NO spices in it. My dogs love the rice combo more than the dog food, but I also hear canned food is bad for dogs, Also in bagged dog food is not that good for dogs some will contain to much corn. also watch with the veggies, some are toxic to dogs I have a list of things that are toxic to dogs if interested in it let me know and I will post it.
 
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