That's what I say when we feed Deuce - those two words make his eyeballs open so wide I'm afraid they are gonna pop out, and then he runs whining into the kitchen jumping and twirling around, then back to the sofa, then back to the kitchen. He makes me laugh.
So little J - my thoughts on feeding? Are you ready? This is going to be long (winded!) :).
I looked into BARF (raw meat) and home cooked, spoke to vets, holistic vets, dog nutritionists, and came up with a whole lot of confusion. Vets contradicted each other, though one vet actually told me they are not allowed to recommend raw feeding which would explain alot. I asked her a number of questions which gave some interesting feed back - lots of dogs come in with food poisoning, but the majority have nothing to do with raw feeding (more like eating poo in the park and varioius other gross things), lots of dogs get obstructions in their throats/stomachs, some are bone, some are rawhide, some are random things they ingest (bottle caps, underwear, etc). I should have asked her why it was they are not allowed to recommend, but I wasn't quite on the ball with that one. Ah well. Vet nurses told me I had to feed kibble or I would be harming my dog, a holistic vet told me I should only feed raw otherwise as kibble would harm my dog. I spoke to a dog nutritionist who recommends homeprepared food, and have a book by a DVM qualified author recommended (via his book) home prepared food (Dr Pitcairn, Strombeck).
So I did what I do when confronted with a myriad of varying opinions - I researched.
Firstly I found that there is no official qualification required of 'animal nutrionists', no overall governing body, people seem to come either from university courses with nutritional components (mostly aimed at ruminants), or holistic style vocational course with 'certificates'. I have a problem with both these - the first being that in looking into university courses on companion animal nutrition, (I am thinking of taking a course) I found a number of these are funded/sponsored by Purina, Iams etc. It is hard not to wonder how independent the research really is as a result - kind of like having Marlborough funding a study into whether or not cigarettes harm your health - would you rely on it 100% or take it with a pinch of salt? Maybe the scientists involved cannot be faulted, but the entire enterprise would cause me to wonder at the objectivity and ethics of it. I have found a number of 'colleges' that offer companion animal nutrition, but the ones that are the most 'official' are only certified/accredited by animal behaviour training groups. I did find someone with a DVM and PhD, and that would be Dr Richard Pitcairn who graduated from the University of California, Davis vet school, then did his Ph.D. in veterinary microbiology and immunology at Washington State University. And he recommends real food for dogs. But still, from my perspective, i wanted to feed Deuce 'real food' but still had concerns I would be hurting Deuce (eg missing out on nutrients) by not kibble/factory produced food. So my main burning question became not should I feed real food or kibble, but rather what actually are the nutritional requirements of a dog? This was the one thing that was a common theme in everyone's pronouncement on feeding dogs normal food at home: the nutritional balance of it all. No it isn't too hard to do (a vet nurse told me it would be very difficult to achieve the right balance, but then couldn't tell me what that balance was. hmph), but it takes a little research.
The AAFCO produces a list of required min and max amounts of nutrients dogs require (
http://www.petguide.org/dogfoodnutrients.htm). This is what all commercial dog food producers reference on their dog food (I think these are the parameters they are required by law to follow). I read that actually different dogs have different nutritional requirements, and that the AAFCO list which sort of good for generic application, is not so great for individual breeds as eg some dogs have lower tolerance for certain vit s and minerals whilst other dogs have higher tolerance. Still, the chap who wrote this didn't seem to base his findings on much other than historical geographical location (eg pugs are from tibet area, therefore should eat yak and millet). But it does make you think - pugs are different from say, afghans, or greyhounds. Different build, different size, different energy. It would make sense that energy requirements and say, calcium requirements for bone size and density would be different. But that was too much for me even. I reasoned that if commercial pet food is based on AAFCO and applies a one size fits all approach, then homefood with the min/max AAFCO requirements should also work for Deuce. I looked up all the stuff in the list, it's all amino acids and proteins, which I cross referenced to normal everyday food and found that a varied diet of liquified veggies (with certain no-nos, like rhubarb and onions) and fruits (again no grapes, no apple pips) should deal with most of the vits and minerals, whole sardines (tinned) and fish and cooked egg deal with the EFAs, and protein of some sort deals with the protein bit. A human grade pet multivitamin ensures things like iodine and selenium were incorporated. The only thing missing was calcium.
We can't get bonemeal here (legacy of the mad cow disease), so on Dr Pitcairn's advice I use a calcium supplement ground up to the amounts recommended and now have switched to ground egg shells I do at home from freerange organic eggs (about 1/4 tsp equivalent to 600mg of calcium a day for a puppy Deuce's size).
A few words on BARF - I did some research into this and came up with:1) Dogs, while related to wolves, are not wolves and should therefore not be fed on a diet for wolves (pretty obvious really). Similar DNA, but people DNA is similar to chimp DNA and you don't see nutritionists pushing bugs and worms on us as the ultimate food (though just you wait, i'm sure it will become a trend one day). 2) Wild wolves live shorter lives than wolves in captivity that are fed a controlled diet. 3) Pets are domesticated, have been for 100,000 years approx, and logically ought to have proper enzymes to eat both cooked and raw foods (in fact before the invention of commercial pet food in the late 1800s, that is just what they ate). But again, not having fabulously extensive fact based referenced material it is kind of hard to get anywhere. I did however find that looking at BARF diet and the actual recommended nutrients for dogs that the diet fell short.
So, kibble to me is evil of all evils, and with the recent food recalls (wheat gluten? Since when do dogs chow down on stalks of wheat? More like cheap filler= more profit for pet food companies) am so so happy we went down the food instead of dried rabbit poo path. With meats, I compromised. Anything I would eat rare, I feed raw (beef, lamb, sushi grade salmon, though am careful with that because of heavy lead contamination). Anything I wouldn't touch raw with a ten food pole (eg poultry) I cook. He gets organs once a week No bones. No rawhide. Deuce tends to swallow stuff without chewing and he has choked on chicken jerky treats (given by a friend, not me!) and i had to stick my fingers in to get it out. I'm getting him an antler when we're in the US as apparently that is a great and safe thing for dogs to chew on, gives them calcium with the right phosphorous ratio, lasts long and best of all doesn't smell awful (try sniffing a bully stick/bull's pizzle - dried up bull penis!!).
Okay long and rambling.... but in a nutshell:
Get Dr Pitcairn's Natural Health for Dogs & Cats, and Strombeck's is good reference too (Homemade meals I think is the title). Pitcairn is clearer and easier to follow. Kymothy Shultz's book is also good reference as it tells you things dogs should not eat (grapes, rhubarb in any form, onions, chocolate - all toxic to dogs). I don't however feed him wheat or corn. Sometimes quinoa, but i found it made his poop really bulky and smelly.
Get a really good pet vitamin. Usually the organic ones tend to be human grade and better absorbed.
Use your blender! We feed 1/3 protein, 2/3 liquidised veggies/fruit. And he really loves it. And once you have the vits and the calcium it really doesn't take very long to sort.
I'll post this now as am heading out for the day, but will reread it this evening to make sure it makes sense!
