Auggie Doggie & Doggie Daddy

Not sure what I was thinking with the title, just a kick back to the old Hannah-Barbera cartoons I grew up with I guess.

Anyways, today's subject is dogs, specifically dog food or rather the food we feed our dogs. This is a sampling of some of the ingredients listed in Purina One pet food:

Wheat, corn, barley, corn, corn gluten, barley malt, rice, brown rice, beet pulp, brewers yeast, cranberries, oatmeal, pea fiber, potatoes, powdered cellulose, soybean hulls, soy protein, sweet potatoes, turkey, chicken, lamb, beef, fish meal, liver, salmon.

Now some of these mind you are in their cat food, the website doesn't give specs for just the dog food but cats and dogs have fairly similar designs as far as foods they should eat. These are not all the ingredients though, there are a plethora of added vitamins and minerals which of course are added in powdered form.

Now I know there are far worse and far cheaper things that you could feed your pet but humor me for a moment and let's think about our pets as what they are-animals, specifically carnivores, that is, they are designed to eat the meat and bones and organs from other animals (you people who feed your pets vegetarian pet foods, don't even get me started). They have pointed teeth and jaws that move only up and down for grabbing pulling and tearing flesh which they then gulp down in chunks and slowly digest. That being said, let's think about the ingredient list above. Not a whole lot of animal products in there huh? yes a little bit, but the majority of the recipe is likely vegetable and grain fillers, especially corn and soybeans (just like our foods!).

I will admit that I myself do feed my pets this same stuff most of the time, it's cheap and it keeps them fed plus it's easy to store and has a shelf life of dirt (as if it would be around long enough to go bad anyway). However, in recent months I have been supplementing our dogs food with raw beef tongue, kidney, heart and treating him with raw beef leg bone sections with marrow intact. I can not afford to feed both pets raw meat daily, especially since the dog is of the "small horse" variety but I still make attempts to give them what they were made for. I have read a number of testimonials about how pets have improved or recovered from ailments of various types by switching to a raw diet (yes raw, animals have never been able to cook). Have I noticed any in my own pets? Well since there were no noticeable problems to begin with, no, I haven't. However, when you fill that bowl with raw meat that smells slightly of wild game (or occasionally is wild game at our house) there is a greater excitement in the pets eyes, their senses are more active, more sniffing and attentive watching until they get to dig in. The overall demeanor seems to be better as well although that could just be maturity. I have noticed one great benefit to the raw meat diet with our dog, less gas! Thank god! When you have an animal the size of a grown adult with bad gas walking around, you do what you need to in order to remedy the situation.

Here are some relatively inexpensive ways to obtain raw food for your pet, specifically a mid size to large dog.

1. Buy bone in or whole chicken at the store and feed the scrap bones to them i.e. wings or tips, backs, breast bone, giblets.

2. Make friends with a farmer, many times they have trouble selling hearts (actually a muscle not organ meat), kidneys, tongue, small femur bones. May even give a discount on bulk purchase like with chicken backs, necks and feet.

3. Save the scrap when you cut up meats like beef or pork, tendons, sinew, excess fat and gristle. You don't want to eat it but dogs are made for it. This way you are not only feeding yourself (for cheaper in the case of whole chicken) but you are getting more for your money by utilizing all that you bought, and the more meat they eat, the less they need to eat. Their bodies were designed to digest raw animal meat so it takes longer in their system while their digestive system extracts all the goodies, vegetable and grain products are no digested so thoroughly so they are in and out in a flash. More meat usually means less poop too and that may be the biggest plus to many pet owners (I hate litter boxes!)

And a final reason this could benefit our pets, there is less likelihood that they will become sick from contaminated food as has been a problem with pet foods lately, by feeding raw food you have better control over what does or does not go into their bowl. Purchasing from local farmers also helps reduce the risk of heavy pathogenic contamination like E.coli or Salmonella which has been more of a problem with food for people. Remember, most pets, at least dogs, spend enough time outdoors to be exposed to small amounts of cooties so they have a much stronger immune system than we do, I mean c'mon, you've seen where dogs put their noses and tongues and they still survive.