I adopted a puppy back in September and he has not eaten very well since I adopted him. He would graze all day long and has actually lost weight since I brought him home. On one of my recent trips to Petco, I asked a salesperson if he had any recommendations for dog food. He asked me what I was feeding my dog (Chester). When I told him that I was feeding him Iams puppy food, he said "That stuff is junk". So, I asked him, "What do you recommend"? The bottom line is I tried Natural Balance Sweet Potato & Duck. He lapped it up all in one sitting! Why do I share this with you? Well, after a closer look at the ingredients, his new kibble is grain free! Could it be that dogs shouldn't eat grains either? One other thing that they promote is L.I.D. which stands for Limited Ingredient Diets. Sound familiar? So, my dog is not eating grains, he is eating "clean" and we are both much happier and healthier!
Gwen, I adopted around the same time, and we've only fed her the good stuff. We tried the science diet we got from Paws originally, but she hardly ate for three days. Then we bought a bag of Fromms and I swear she charged from across the apartment to chow down. As she does day-in-day-out. It DOES have brown and white rice, as well as oatmeal, but besides that, I'd eat everything in there myself.
ReplyDeleteI feed my dog Core grain free by Wellness. It came recommended by DT/Joel's wife who is a vet and my dog loves it as well.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.wellnesspetfood.com/categories.aspx?pet=dog&cat=2
Nice post Gwen, after I did the paleo challenge, I had the same thoughts for my dog Maddie.
I also give Maddie some coconut milk and random scraps from my paleo meals. She loves the acorn squash, it's like a little treat for her.
My wife rules! The only thing I'd say is that there are definitely some things my wife (again, a vet) hasn't let me feed our dogs in the past that are fine/paleo for us to eat. e.g. bacon. Dogs are not humans, after all. I'd check with your vet before giving Roofus scraps.
ReplyDeleteAlso, our dogs loved grain free food... until they didn't. They just wouldn't eat it after a month or so and just gave us a "wtf is this?" look. I guess this is pretty common. Hopefully your dogs continue to enjoy grain free meals forever though.
I agree with Joel! Our little pug used to get little bits of scraps of our meals (well, mostly mine) and after I started paleo she got super sick. $100s of dollars later we found out that the food we had been sneaking her gave her pancreatitis! Good food is definitely better for dogs (and humans) but they're little bodies can't handle our rich amounts of meat!
ReplyDeleteDogs are meat eaters. I am not sure why dogs would get sick eating meat. Do wolfs, dingos, and other wild dogs get sick after taking down a moose? I think not.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.barfworld.com/
Doogie, you are attacking a position that nobody stated. This is called a straw man argument.
ReplyDeleteNobody said meat or raw meat was bad for dogs. I mentioned bacon. Jonina mentioned pancreatitis from, I'm guessing, high fat meats. In fact, April's can relate several anecdotes of treating pancreatitis because of a high fat diet or increased fat intake.
I guess you will have to research canine pancreatic function as to why, but it seems dangerous and stupid to just say "I don't get it, does this happen to wild dogs? I think not." when the health of people's animals might be on the line.
OK... I swore to myself I wouldn't take too long on this so forgive me for the brevity...
ReplyDeleteMy friends down in GA, Charles and Jules, were the jumping off point for my nutrition. Their bulldog, Buzz, was the start of nutrition for my bully. Here is a link to a posting they did on the topic. (The BTB Nutrition blog is a really good one for all kinds of info. Jules is very helpful and I'm certain you can contact her if you have any questions)
http://www.btbfitness.com/nutrition-and-performance/2010/3/25/paleo-for-pets.html
I still feed Barlee Blue Ridge Beef... it has bone ground into it.
I also know that I have read a study recently about raw meat drastically shortening the life expectancy of pets. I'll try and post that here also.
Was it raw bacon or cooked? Penny only gets a few scraps of raw when I'm preparing. Raw bacon has had no effect on her, although I've heard that cooked meat can mess with a dogs digestive.
ReplyDeleteDole, my impression was it was the fat content not the cooked or uncooked nature. I guess you'll have to follow up with someone who knows more like your vet, but I'm unable to find any references on the web that suggest bacon is safe for dogs.
ReplyDeleteJ-Po, sounds cool, hope your bulldog is doing well on his raw diet. I hadn't heard anything about raw diet shortening life expectancy though and that goes against what I would have thought... interested to read your link.
I would be interested to see the correlation of bacon and fatty foods on a dog vs. human diet, especially with how the pancreas handles these types of foods over time. Yes, we are all pro paleo/fatty foods today, but will we be in 20 years? As well, I wonder if the aging difference between dogs and humans (1 yr of life = 7 years) has anything to do with their digestion of these types of foods?
ReplyDelete