A Raw Diet by Pamela Dennison
I very firmly believe in the benefits to feeding a raw
diet to my dogs. I have fed my dogs raw food for the past
3 years with wonderful results - minor vet visits, pearly
white teeth, beautiful skin and coat. (YES, Chicken WITH
the bones! Raw food is pliable and will not do damage to
your dogs. It is COOKED bones that are dangerous.)
I have also seen behavior changes for the better when the
diet is changed. Being a dog trainer, this of course, is
a wonderful thing! I also do not vaccinate my dogs other
than the required rabies. I "titer" my dogs, which means
every two years I get blood drawn and checked to make sure
each dog's antibodies and immune systems are up to snuff.
So far, so good! I am finding that behavior changes for
the worse due to over vaccination and I am seeing more and
more physical problems that relate directly to over vaccination.
I am not a veterinarian, but I do have a brain - do we
vaccinate ourselves every year for every possible disease?
No, of course not. Would you let your pediatrician stick
your kids full of drugs they didn't need? No, of course
not. So, please don't blindly follow your vet's advice!
Learn, read, make your own decisions, ask questions - what
are the side effects, does my dog really need this, what
major organs does this drug affect and will my dog's quality
of life be better without this drug? Example - the Lyme
vaccine causes more harm than good, it has adversely effects
the liver AND it doesn't prevent the dog from getting Lyme!!!
Because this is my website, I can say whatever I want to 
! Why do vets recommend all of
these things - vaccines, commercial dog food, etc.? Who
subsidizes the vet schools? Drug companies and commercial
pet food companies. Do vets have any training in nutrition?
No. They have training in drugs. Also they make tons of
money on these "cocktail" vaccinations (which by the way,
the dosage for a Great Dane is the same for a Chihuahua).
So, research, learn how to keep your pet healthy and know
that booster shots ARE NOT mandatory and NOT necessary!
For those of you that may be interested in learning more,
the following links should keep you busy for some time to
come!
Disclaimer: The information
presented on this page is for illustrative purposes,
to demonstrate how I feed my own dogs on a typical
day. It is not meant as instruction on how you
should feed your pets. Should you choose to "BARF" your
own pets, great! But please arm yourself with
as much information and knowledge as you can before
plunging in. That way you avoid unnecessary discomfort
for your pets as well as accidentally creating
a nutrient imbalance, deficiency, or toxicity.
If you are interested in obtaining further information
or assistance with switching your pets to BARF,
the web site above is a good starting place, with
links to other sources. You may also want to subscribe
to an online email group, such as the K9 Nutrition
list. There is a link below, along with a description,
if you'd care to check it out--come join us, we
don't bite!
Raw Feeders Diet
Sites & FAQs
Sample Raw Diet
RULES:
- Don't mix proteins
- Don't mix grains and proteins
- All foods to be fed raw
You can feed your dog once or twice per day. I am
trying to feed 2X per day - a vege/other meal in the
morning and raw chicken in the evening.
Chicken:
Wings or backs or turkey necks. I feed my 40 pound dogs 1 or two
per meal. You need to watch your dog - if he gains weight, cut
back and if he loses weight, add to it. Every dog is different
in terms of breed requirements, age, metabolism. Cody and Shadow
actually gets ½ of what Beau does and Beau weighs less
than they do.
Other types of meals:
Vegetables: this is what I use: carrots, cauliflower, sweet potato,
zucchini, yellow squash, mushrooms and a leafy green vegetable.
You can use any vege except tomatoes and onions. Don't use too
many brussel sprouts or other gas producing vegetables….
You can use peppers, green beans, brocolli (although that should
be steamed), whatever strikes your fancy. I try to hit all of
the color groups! Also add in one clove (NOT the whole bunch!)
of garlic when juicing the veges. (make sure you juice the veges,
and then mix the pulp and juice back together)
- Chicken or turkey hearts
- Cottage cheese (do not mix with any
other protein)
- Plain yogurt
- Canned pumpkin
- Oatmeal soaked in water for a few hours,
coconut and some raw honey. I do this
sparingly - once or twice per month. Billinghurst
has changed his mind somewhat on feeding
grains. You can also use spelt or amaranthe
- I have no idea how to cook those - ask
health food store.
- Canned mackeral or salmon, although
you can feed the actual fish.
- Beef liver
- Chicken or turkey hearts
- Chicken gizzards
Use these last 3 sparingly.
SAMPLE MENU:
Monday - morning - veges and cottage cheese
Monday - evening - chicken backs
Tuesday morning - yogurt & hearts
Tuesday evening - chicken backs
Wednesday morning - veges and pumpkin
Wednesday night - chicken wings
Thursday morning - liver and yogurt
Thursday night - turkey necks
Friday
morning - veges, fish, pumpkin
Friday night - chicken backs
Saturday
morning - yogurt & veges
Saturday night - chicken backs
Sunday - day of fasting. No food, only water. I
have to be honest, I KNOW I should fast my dogs
once per week and I can't bear to do it but it
really is healthier.
Question: I personally
have never heard of fasting animals. What is the point?
Answer: All the
proponents of natural diet, from Levy to Pitcairn
to Billinghurst, recommend a weekly fast day, to mimic
the fact that dogs and cats did not evolve in environments
that allowed them to eat twice a day. No predator,
no matter how skilled and no matter how abundant the
prey in their territory, hunts successfully every
day. Since dogs and cats are carnivores, they evolved
consuming diets high in meat. This can put a fair
strain on the kidneys and other organs, and by fasting
them now and then, you give these organs a rest and
let the body tend to its housekeeping. Digestion is
work and takes energy, remember! The idea of the weekly
fast is extremely common in holistic rearing circles,
and if the animal tolerates it, I highly recommend
it.
SUPPLEMENTS
Probiotic powder (must be refrigerated)
Flax seed oil (must be refrigerated)
Kelp (tiny amount)
Vit. C
Vit. E
B complex
I use chondroitin/glucosamine because I compete
with my dogs and it helps build "strong bodies."
I
also use Nupro - a supplement that has other types
of good things in it. You can get this from Pride
'n Groom 908-689-2575 - John and Cynthia in Washington,
NJ
What's Really
for Dinner? The Truth About Commercial Pet Food by
Tina Perry
Cow brains. Sheep guts. Chicken heads. Road kill.
Rancid grain. These are a few of the so-called nutritionally
balanced ingredients found in the commercial pet food
served to companion animals every day.
More than 95 percent of US companion animals derive
their nutritional needs from a single source: processed
pet food. When people think of pet food, many envision
whole chickens, choice cuts of beef, fresh grains,
and all the nutrition that a dog or cat may ever need
-- images that pet food manufacturers promote in their
advertisements. What these companies do not reveal
is that instead of whole chickens they have substituted
chicken heads, feet, and intestines. Those choice
cuts of beef are really cow brains, tongues, esophagi,
fetal tissue dangerously high in hormones, and possibly
diseased and even cancerous meat. Those whole grains
have had the starch removed for corn starch powder
and the oil extracted for corn oil, or they are hulls
and other remnants from the milling process. Grains
used that are truly whole have usually been deemed
unfit for human consumption because of mold, contaminants,
poor quality, or poor handling practices. Pet food
is one of the world's most synthetic edible products,
containing virtually no whole ingredients.
Pet food manufacturers have become masters at inducing
companion animals to eat things cat and dogs would
normally spurn. Pet food scientists have learned that
it's possible to take a mixture of inedible scraps,
fortify it with artificial vitamins and minerals,
preserve it so that it can sit on the shelf for more
than a year, add dyes to make it attractive, and then
extrude it into whimsical shapes that appeal to the
human consumer. For this, pet food companies can expect
to earn $9 billion in sales in 1996.
Scraps and Byproducts
For years, many care givers have tried to avoid feeding
their companion animals people food leftovers, having
been warned by veterinarians about the heath problems
they can cause. Yet much scrap material from the human
food industry is ending up in dogs and cats dinner
bowls. What the consumer purchases and what the manufacturer
advertises are often two entirely different products,
and this difference threatens the animals healthy,
especially as they age. Learning to read ingredient
labels and taking the time to read them carefully
is crucial to making an educated choice when purchasing
pet food. Ingredients are listed in descending order
of weight (heaviest first) under standards established
by the Center for Veterinary Medicine for the Food
and Drug Administration (FDA). The name of the product
(in most states) is dictated by the regulations of
the American Association of Feed Control Officials
(AAFCO). The trouble is, AAFCO standards can lead
to deceptive product names due to the weight and volume
variations between wet and dry ingredients. Also,
the average consumer has no idea what the definitions
for the listed ingredients mean. Preservatives, vitamins,
minerals, flavorings, and cereal make up most of what
the companion animal eats.
It is not happenstance that four of the top five
major pet food companies in the United States are
subsidiaries of major multinational food production
companies: Colgate Palmolive (which produces Hills
Science Diet), Heinz, Nestle, and Mars (see The Corporate
Connection). From a business standpoint, multi-national
food companies owning pet food manufacturers is an
ideal relationship. The multinationals have captive
market in which to dump their waste products, and
the pet food manufacturers have a direct source of
bulk materials. Both make a profit from selling scraps
that originate from places far worse than the dinner
table. In his 1986 book Pet Allergies, veterinarian
Al Plechner sums up what goes into companion animals'
food: Condemned parts and animals rejected for human
consumption are routinely rerouted for commercial
pet foods. A similar fate applies to so-called 4-D
animals. These are food animals picked up dead, or
that are dying, diseased, or disabled, and do not
meet human-food qualifications. They are processed
straightaway for companion animal consumption. Little
goes to waste. Says Plechner, food processing refuse
of all sorts winds up in your animals' dinner bowls.
Moldy grains. Rancid foods. Meat meal. The latter
is ground-up slaughterhouse discards often containing
disease-ridden tissue and high levels of hormones
and pesticides, the very things that may have contributed
to the death of the steer or hog. A decade later,
his words still apply. When cattle, swine, chickens,
lambs, or other animals meet their ends at a slaughterhouse,
the choice cuts -- lean muscle tissue and organs prized
by humans -- are trimmed away from the carcass for
human consumption. Whatever remains of the carcass
(bones, blood, pus, intestines, ligaments, subcutaneous
fat, hooves, horns, beaks, and any other parts not
normally consumed by humans) is, according to the
pet food industry, perfectly fit as a protein source
for cat and dog food.
The Pet Food Institute, the trade association of
pet food manufacturers, acknowledges in its 1994 Fact
Sheet the importance of using byproducts in pet foods
as additional income for processors and farmers. The
purchase and use of these ingredients by the pet food
industry not only provides nutritional foods for pets
at reasonable costs, but provides an important source
of income to American farmers and processors of meat,
poultry, and seafood products for human consumption.
Many of these remnants are indigestible and provide
a questionable source of nutrition. The amount of
nutrition provided by meat byproducts, meals, and
digests varies from vat to vat of this animal protein
soup. A vat filled with chicken feet, beaks, and viscera
is going to make available a lower amount of protein
than a vat of breast meat. James Morris and Quinton
Rogers, professors with Department of Molecular Biosciences
at the University of California at Davis Veterinary
School of Medicine, assert that there is virtually
no information on the bioavailability of nutrients
for companion animals in many of the common dietary
ingredients used in pet foods. These ingredients are
generally byproducts of the meat, poultry and fishing
industries, with the potential for wide variation
in nutrient composition. Claims of nutritional adequacy
of pet foods based on the current AAFCO nutrient allowances
(profiles) do not give assurances of nutritional adequacy
and will not until ingredients are analyzed and bioavailability
values are incorporated. Meat byproducts, the catch-all
term of the pet food industry, is a misnomer because
these byproducts contain little if any meat. Byproducts
contain little if any meat. Byproduct are animal parts
leftover after the meat has been stripped from the
bone. Chicken byproducts include heads, feet, entrails,
lungs, spleens, kidneys, brains, livers, stomachs,
noses, blood, and intestines free of their contents.
What the pet food manufactures fail to mention is
that most byproducts, digests, and meals are also
filled with other substances, such as cancerous tissue
cut from the carcass, plastic foam packaging containing
spoiled meat from supermarkets, ear tags, spoiled
slaughterhouse meat, road kill, and pieces of downer
animals.
Canned Cannibalism
Another source of meat that isn't mentioned on pet
food labels is pet byproducts, the bodies of dogs
and cats. In 1990, the San Francisco Chronicle reported
that euthanized companion animals were found in pet
foods. Although pet food company executives and the
National Renderers Association vehemently denied the
report, the American Veterinary Medical Association
and the FDA confirmed the story. The pets serve a
viable purpose by providing foodstuff for the animal
feed chain, said Lea McGovern, chief of the FDA's
animal feed safety branch. Because of the sheer volume
of animals rendered and the similarity in protein
content between poultry byproducts and processed dogs
and cats, rendering plant workers say it would be
impossible for purchasers to know the exact contents
of what they buy. In fact, Sacramento Rendering cited
by inspectors five times in the past two years for
product-labeling violations.
Grease and Grain
The most nutritious dry pet food is no better than
the worst if an animals will not eat it. Pet food
scientists have discovered that spraying the kibble
or pellets with a combination of refined animal fat,
lard, kitchen grease, and other oils too rancid or
deemed inedible for humans makes an otherwise bland
or distasteful product palatable. Animal fat is mainly
packing house waste or supermarket trimmings from
the packaging of meats. Animals love the taste of
this sprayed fat, which also acts as a binding agent
to which manufacturers may add other flavor enhancers.
The pungent odor wafting from an open bag of pet food
is created by this concoction. Restaurant grease has
be a major component of feed-grade animal fat over
the last 15 years. n held in 50-gallon drums for weeks
or months in extreme temperatures, t grease is usually
kelp outside with no regard for its safety or further
us The rancid grease is then picked up by fat blenders
who mix the animal and vegetable fats together, stabilize
them with powerful axidants to prevent further spoilage,
and then sell the blended products to pet food comps.
Rancid, heavily preserved fats are extremely difficult
to digest and lead to a host of animal health problems,
including digestive upsets, diar, gas, and bad breath.
Once considered a filler by the pet food industry,
the at of grain products included in pet food has
risen over the last decade a the American population
has focused its attention away from consuming beed
toward a healthier diet of grains and vegetables.
Commonly two of the the top three pet food ingredients
are some form of grain products. For instanc Alpo's
Beef Flavored Dinner lists ground yellow corn, soybean
meal, and poy byproduct meal as its top three ingredients.
9 Lives Crunchy Meals listound yellow corn, corn gluten
meal, and poultry oduct meal as its top three ingredients.
Of the top four ingredients of Purina's O.N.E. Formula
-- chicken, ground yellow corn, ground wheat, and
corn gluten -- two are corn-based products from the
same source. This is an industryctice known as splitting.
When components of the swhole ingredient are listed
separately (ground yellow corn and corn gluten meal)
it appear that there is less corn than chicken, even
when the whole ingredient may weig more than the chicken.
Soy is another common ingredient in many pet foods.
Itused by the manufacturers to boost the claimed protein
content and add bu so that when animals eat a product
containing soy they will fell morted. Tofu is suitable
for humans, but most forms of soybean do not agrith
a dog or cat's digestive system. Like many other pet
food ingredients, is virtually unusable by an animal's
body. Being obligate carnivores, have little ability
to digest any nutrients from soy. The problem irse
for dogs because they lack the essential amino acid
to digest soy pcts. Soy has also been linked to bloat
and gas in many dogs.
Additives andcessing
Pet food industry critics note that many of the ingrediensuch
as corn syrup and corn gluten meal) used as humectants
to prevent oxion also bind water molecules in such
a way that the food actually sticksthe animal's colon
and may cause blockage. Blockage of the colon may
caan increased risk of cancer of the colon or rectum.
Two-thirds of the pet f manufactured in the United
States contains syntc preservatives added by the manufacturer.
Of the remaining third, 90 percent includes ingents
already stabilized by synthetic preservatives. Because
most pet foontains large percentages of added fat,
a stabilizer is needed to maintaie quality of the
food. Sodium nitrite, often used as a coloring agenixative,
and preservative, has the ability to combine with
natural ach and food chemicals (secondary amends)
to create nitrones, powerful cancer-causing agents,
according to A Consumer's Dictionary of Food Additives.
Many pet foods advertised as preservative-fro not
contain preservatives. Almost all rendered meats have
synthetic preservatives adde stabilizer, but manufacturers
aren't required to lireservatives they themselves
haven't added. Premixed vitamin additives can also
contain prvatives. In the 1003 Journal of the American
Veterinary Medical Associati veterinarian Philip Roudebush
reported finding low concentrations of synth antioxidant
preservatives in all analyzed samples of products
labeled as ical free or all-natural. Other types of
additives depend on whether pet food is semi-moist,
dry or canned. Because semi-moist food contai5-50
percent water, antimicrobial preservatives must be
used. Prope glycol was frequently used in cat food
until it was pulled in 1992 for cng a variety of health
problems. Processing greatly alters the nutritiovalue
of the food ingredients. Veterinarian R. L. Wysong
states in Ratie for Animal Nutrition: Processing is
the wild card in nutritional valuet is, by and large,
simply ignored. Heating, freezing, dehydrating, can,
extruding, pelleting, baking and so forth, are so
commonplace thaty are simply thought of as synonymous
with food itself. Because the ingrnts that pet food
companies use are not wholesome, aarsh manufacturing
practices destroy what little nutritional value the
food may have in the first place, the final product
must be fortified with vitamins and minerals.
Questionable Nutrition
How, then, can any pet food be guaranteed to be 100
per complete or nutritionally adequate? As long as
it meets the AFFCO minimumndards, such a guarantee
can be on the label. Yet in 1994, feed tests condd
by the New York State Agriculture Department showed
7 percent of all peods analyzed failed chemical analyses
for guaranteed nutrients. Other state report similar
findings, with failure of analyzed feed ranging from
to 12 pet. Even if a pet food meets AAFCO standards,certain
nutritional requiremen (for example, lysine) can vary
between species b much as seven-fold. Although manufacturers
clam that millions of companion animals canive on
a diet consisting of nothing by commercial petd, research
and an increasing number of veterinarians implicate
processed pet food as a sou of disease or as an exacerbating
agent for a number of degenerative disea For example,
kidney disease is on of the top three killers of companion
als. According to Plechner, the extra protein and
harsh ingredients of mant foods place an overload
on the kidneys. Left untreated, the toxicldup leads
to vomiting, loss of appetite, uremic poisoning, and
death. Wy adds, in the last few years, large statistical
studies have shown the linkween the diet (of processed
foods) and a variety of degenerative diseases, uding
cancer, heart disease, allergies, arthritis, obesity,
dental die, etc. After extensive research, the Animal
Protection Institute (API) pubed a Pet Food Investigative
Report to educate companion animal care givebout pet
food ingredients, ingredient definitions, labeling,
and dietary ants resulting from processed commercial
pet food, including the most comm know brands. Yet,
whether such food is purchased at the supermarket,
petre, or from a veterinarian, it makes little difference
in terms of the qty -- only in the cost. Since the
report was published earlier this year, has conducted
more research on holistic pet care and pet food alternatives,
still claims that the vast majority of pet foods available
on the market t provide less that optimum nutrition
for companion animals.
It is sad to think that the food provided by animal
carvers to their four-legged friends could be hazardous
to the animals' healnd longevity. Care givers should
assume responsibility for providing as heful a diet
as possible for the animals in the care. Consumers
should be infd: speak with a holistic practitioner
or herbalist, or consult your vetarian (but be aware
that a veterinarian's knowledge of nutrition may be
led to the two weeks of nutrition he or she had veterinary
school 20 years a Although the ideal solution would
be for companionmals to be fed only wholesome homemade
and/or vegetarian diets, this is not an optician foeryone
-- the cost and time commitment is sometimes prohibitive.
By takmore moderate steps, however, care givers can
still greatly improve a cnion animal's diet and quality
of life.
Tina Perry is an animal advocate with the Animal
Protection Institute. Reprinted from The Animals'
Agenda Nov/Dec 199