Wouldn’t it be strange if your doctor told you to eat fortified Kraft dinner every meal, every day, from birth to old age? How many of us question the same advice for our animal companions. Although the pet food companies tell us that this is the only way to feed a balanced diet to our animal friends, isn’t it strange that there are no whole, fresh, unprocessed foods in this diet? Isn’t it questionable that despite their claims of crunchy food keeping teeth clean that veterinary dentistry is probably the fastest growing specialty?
So what are dogs designed to eat?
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Bug chows down on a raw chicken |
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Ricky plots the best approach to lunch. |
Dogs are scavengers so can survive on a greater variety of foods than cats can. Yet we feed them a diet of dried up processed grains and rendered meat, most of which is waste products, or that deemed unfit for human consumption.
In fact, many health problems disappear or are drastically improved by switching dogs and cats to a diet of fresh raw foods. This does not have to be expensive or time consuming. There are many diets on the market or you can buy the ingredients and prepare it yourself. No matter what you decide, you will still be doing a better job for your pet than the large scale commercial pet food industry as the foods will be fresh and not heavily processed or preserved with chemicals.
There is no one diet fits all. Some dogs do very well on a raw meaty bone diet, which is raw meat, bones and veggies. Some dogs, especially aging dogs or dogs with special health conditions, may actually do better on more plant based diets. We need to consider bioaccumulation of toxins in our meats these days, so perhaps feeding dogs such a high percentage of meat is not the best way to feed dogs with cancer, renal or liver issues. Dogs with gut sensitivities can also often do very well on vegan or vegetarian diets.
Let’s figure out what works best for yourcompanion and for your family.
