Food

We adopted our rescue dog about a year ago. She had been a stray, and at the time we adopted her the vet thought she was about ten months old. Ever since we’ve had her she has had the same symptoms – she doesn’t seem to be able to properly digest her food. She is ravenously hungry all the time. She will eat unlimited amounts of anything – fruits, vegetables, yogurt, bread, anything she can get her paws on. And her stools are not normal; she has about four bowel movements per day, and they get progressively softer throughout the day.

For thousands of years, Mother Nature has fed her dogs and cats raw food. Their wild cousins continue to dine on freshly captured prey, but most American dogs and cats eat commercial pet foods from cans and packages or home-cooked grains and meats. The result, say a number of veterinarians and nutritionists, is deteriorating health in our canine companions. In response is a growing trend toward home-prepared diets for our dogs, away from cooked food and toward more natural fare.

The Whole Dog Journal often contains articles about the benefits of feeding dogs a natural diet for optimum health. I want to share a story about my wire-haired fox terrier, Spike, which portrays the extreme benefits of not only feeding your dog a natural diet, but also of treating your dog holistically. Spike’s experiences before and after we started him on a natural diet (at the age of 10) astounded me, and I hope his story can be a good example for the rest of the Whole Dog Journal readers!

Most animal lovers know that dogs need high quality protein, fat, and a complete complement of vitamins and minerals in their diet to remain healthy. We know that the foods our canine companions eat should come from clean, wholesome sources, and that a good diet must be combined with ample exercise and a healthy living environment. But when planning a diet for a companion animal, many of us overlook some very important aspects of what constitutes complete nutrition for an animal.

On April Fool's Day 1996, my soon-to-be-husband took me to get a puppy. We already had one dog, Ladybird, but she was getting older and we felt a young friend would encourage her to be more playful. We also hoped Ladybird would pass on some of her fine qualities to the puppy. We drove out of town to a place where people play paintball. There were more than a dozen young dogs running around, and the owner told us to take our pick. One young female seemed to want my attention more than any of the others, and I fell in love with her pretty face. We took her home and named her Cheyenne.

It’s been a little more than a year since we last examined dog treats, but, oh, what a year! It’s amazing (and fortunate for our dogs) how quickly the “healthy dog foods” consciousness is rising, and how many more healthy treats are available than there were last year. For example, we’re seeing far fewer treats that contain propylene glycol, or artificial preservatives and colors, and far more treats containing nothing but healthy, whole foods. “A rising tide raises all boats,” goes the old saying.

It seems self-evident (to me, anyway) that dogs can live perfectly healthy, long lives and never ever eat a commercial dog food. Why this fact is so shocking to some dog owners is beyond me; the commercial dog food industry is only about 150 years old! (Dogs have been with us a few thousand years longer.) But maybe it makes so much sense to me because I already went through this with my son. Sure, there are thousands of prepared baby foods on the market – dried flakes, moist purees, and liquid formulas –and you can raise a baby to toddlerhood on nothing but these foods.

When it comes to label claims and product descriptions, dog food makers pull out all the stops. We suggest you resist advertising manipulations.

but they are not likely to be any less destructive to the nutrients.

Nonetheless

There are countless pet food manufacturers calling their foods “premium” these days, but were you aware that the word doesn’t actually mean anything? That is, there are no official requirements that a manufacturer has to meet in order to call its food “premium.” And, unfortunately, there are also countless dog owners being taken in by this appellation – people who want “the best” for their dogs, and trust that a high price tag and the word “premium” on the label means they are buying the best food their Buddys could ever want.

Why pet food industry lobbyists spend small fortunes to influence regulators about the definition of chicken.

Dog food as we know it today – that is, either crumbly bits of kibble packaged in bags and boxes or gloopy meat-based concoctions sealed into cans – was invented in 1860. Think about that for a moment. Our great-grandparents and great-great-grandparents raised dogs completely without the benefit of Purina. Before 1860, no one poured a pile of chow from a bag marked, Dog." Everyone who had a dog knew what dogs ate and how to feed them. "