C A R E: The following is not intended to offer medical advice but is for informational purpose only. Always consult a Veterinary Consultant concerning your dog's health.
DIET
The most important element in ensuring the continuous good health of your Great Dane puppy and adult, is nutrition. Great Danes are notorious for having a sensitive digestion and particular attention needs to be given to their nutrition, which is the building block towards a healthy dog.
The most important element in ensuring the continuous good health of your Great Dane puppy and adult, is nutrition. Great Danes are notorious for having a sensitive digestion and particular attention needs to be given to their nutrition, which is the building block towards a healthy dog.
January 2006 ©
Diet guide for domestic dogs and cats by Tom Lonsdale Veterinary Surgeon Dingoes and feral cats keep themselves healthy by eating whole carcasses of prey animals. Ideally we should feed our pets in the same manner. Until a dependable source of whole carcasses becomes available, pet owners need a satisfactory alternative. The following recommendations, based on raw meaty bones, have been adopted by thousands of pet owners with excellent results. The diet is easy to follow and cheap, and pets enjoy it. • Fresh water constantly available. • Raw meaty bones (or carcasses if available) should form the bulk of the diet. • Table scraps both cooked and raw (grate or liquidise vegetables, discard cooked bones). Puppies and kittens From about three weeks of age puppies and kittens start to take an interest in what their mother is eating. By six weeks of age they can eat chicken carcasses, rabbits and fish. During the brief interval between three and six weeks of age it is advisable to provide minced chicken, chicken carcasses or similar for young animals (as well as access to larger pieces that encourage ripping and tearing). This is akin to the part-digested food regurgitated by wild carnivore mothers. Large litters will need more supplementary feeding than small litters. (The meat and bone should be minced together. Meat off the bone can be fed, but only for a short time, until the young animals can eat meat and bone together — usually about six weeks of age.) Between four and six months of age puppies and kittens cut their permanent teeth and grow rapidly. At this time they need a plentiful supply of carcasses or raw meaty bones of suitable size. Puppies and kittens tend not to overeat natural food. Food can be continuously available. Natural foods suitable for pet carnivores Raw meaty bones • Chicken and turkey carcasses, after the meat has been removed for human consumption, are suitable for dogs and cats. • Poultry by-products include: heads, feet, necks and wings. • Whole fish and fish heads. • Goat, sheep, calf, deer and kangaroo carcasses can be sawn into large pieces of meat and bone. • Other by-products include: pigs’ trotters, pigs’ heads, sheep heads, brisket, tail bones, rib bones. Whole carcasses • Rats, mice, rabbits, fish, chickens, quail, hens. Offal • Liver, lungs, trachea, hearts, omasums (stomach of ruminants), tripe. Quality — Quantity — Frequency Healthy animals living and breeding in the wild depend on the correct quality of food in the right quantity at a correct frequency. They thereby gain an appropriate nutrient intake plus the correct amount of teeth cleaning — animals, unlike humans, ‘brush’ and ‘floss’ as they eat. Quality Low-fat game animals and fish and birds provide the best source of food for pet carnivores. If using meat from farm animals (cattle, sheep and pigs) avoid excessive fat, or bones that are too large to be eaten. 2 Dogs are more likely to break their teeth when eating large knuckle bones and bones sawn lengthwise than if eating meat and bone together. Raw food for cats should always be fresh. Dogs can consume ‘ripe’ food and will sometimes bury bones for later consumption. Quantity Establishing the quantity to feed pets is more an art than a science. Parents, when feeding a human family, manage this task without the aid of food consumption charts. You can achieve the same good results for your pet by paying attention to activity levels, appetite and body condition. High activity and big appetite indicate a need for increased food, and vice versa. Body condition depends on a number of factors. The overall body shape — is it athletic or rotund — and the lustre of the hair coat provide clues. Use your finger tips to assess the elasticity of the skin. Does it have an elastic feel and move readily over the muscles? Do the muscles feel well toned? And how much coverage of the ribs do you detect? This is the best place to check whether your pet is too thin or too fat. By comparing your own rib cage with that of your pet you can obtain a good idea of body condition — both your own and that of your pet. An approximate food consumption guide, based on raw meaty bones, for the average pet cat or dog is 15 to 20 percent of body weight in one week or 2 to 3 percent per day. On that basis a 25 kilo dog requires up to five kilos of carcasses or raw meaty bones weekly. Cats weighing five kilos require about one kilo of chicken necks, fish, rabbit or similar each week. Table scraps should be fed as an extra component of the diet. Please note that these figures are only a guide and relate to adult pets in a domestic environment. Pregnant or lactating females and growing puppies and kittens may need much more food than adult animals of similar body weight. Wherever possible, feed the meat and bone ration in one large piece requiring much ripping, tearing and gnawing. This makes for contented pets with clean teeth. Frequency Wild carnivores feed at irregular intervals. In a domestic setting regularity works best and accordingly I suggest that you feed adult dogs and cats once daily. If you live in a hot climate I recommend that you feed pets in the evening to avoid attracting flies. I suggest that on one or two days each week your dog may be fasted — just like animals in the wild. On occasions you may run out of natural food. Don’t be tempted to buy artificial food, fast your dog and stock up with natural food the next day. Puppies, cats, ferrets, sick or underweight dogs should not be fasted (unless on veterinary advice). Table scraps Wild carnivores eat small amounts of omnivore food, part-digested in liquid form, when they eat the intestines of their prey. Our table scraps, and some fruit and vegetable peelings, are omnivore food which has not been ingested. Providing scraps do not form too great a proportion of the diet they appear to do no harm and may do some good. I advise an upper limit of one-third scraps for dogs and rather less for cats. Liquidising scraps, both cooked and raw, in the kitchen mixer may help to increase their digestibility. Things to avoid •Excessive meat off the bone — not balanced. •Excessive vegetables — not balanced. •Small pieces of bone — can be swallowed whole and get stuck. •Cooked bones — get stuck. •Mineral and vitamin additives — create imbalance. •Processed food — leads to dental and other diseases. •Excessive starchy food — associated with bloat. •Onions, garlic and chocolate — toxic to pets. •Grapes, raisins, sultanas, currants — toxic to pets. •Fruit stones (pits) and corn cobs — get stuck. •Milk — associated with diarrhoea. Animals drink it whether thirsty or not and consequently get fat. Milk sludge sticks to teeth and gums. Take care • Old dogs and cats addicted to a processed diet may experience initial difficulty when changed on to a natural diet. • Pets with misshapen jaws and dental disease may experience difficulties with a natural diet. • Create variety. Any nutrients fed to excess can be harmful. • Liver is an excellent foodstuff but should not be fed more than once weekly. • Other offal, e.g. ox stomachs, should not exceed 50 percent of the diet. • Whole fish are an excellent source of food for carnivores, but avoid feeding one species of fish constantly. Some species, e.g. carp, contain an enzyme which destroys thiamine (vitamin B1). • There are no prizes for the fattest dog on the block, nor for the fastest. Feed pets for a lifetime of health. Prevention is better than cure. Miscellaneous tips Domestic dogs and cats are carnivores. Feeding them the appropriate carnivore diet represents the single most important contribution to their welfare. Establish early contact with a dependable supplier of foodstuffs for pet carnivores. Buy food in bulk in order to avoid shortages. Package the daily rations separately for ease of feeding. Refrigerated storage space, preferably a freezer, is essential. Raw meaty bones can be fed frozen just like ice cream. Some pets eat the frozen article; others wait for it to thaw. Small carcasses, for example rats, mice and small birds, can be fed frozen and complete with entrails. Larger carcasses should have the entrails removed before freezing. Take care that pets do not fight over their food. Protect children by ensuring that they do not disturb feeding pets. Feeding bowls are unnecessary — the food will be dragged across the floor — so feed pets outside by preference, or on an easily cleaned floor. Ferrets are small carnivores which can be fed in the same way as cats. For an expanded description of dietary requirements, including the potential hazards, please consult the books Raw Meaty Bones: Promote Health and Work Wonders: Feed your dog raw meaty bones. Further information, links and RMB Newsletters: IMPORTANT: Note that individual animals and circumstances may vary. You may need to discuss your pet’s needs with your veterinarian. This diet guide may be freely copied and circulated |
Vonhapsburg Danes
from B-Naturals Newsletter by Lew Olson, PhD Natural Health Diets for special health Needs Senior dogs and special Need Carbohydrates Good or Bad? Changing Diets Digestion and Gastric Problems FAQ Pampered Paw Canine Nutrition K9Joy Education Feeding your Dog Shirley's Wellness Cafe Nutrition. Natural Rearing Diet DogAware Health and Nutrition Lowchen Australia Diet & Health links Raw feeding Myths For those who want to feed a good quality kibble http://k9joy.com/education/feedyourdog.php |
The Minimum number of types of meat question
This comes from a visit Ian Billinghurst made to the Dutch forum Voernatuurlijk a few days ago.(March 2009)
www.voernatuurlijk.nl/forum/viewtopic.php?t=23380
It was one of his answers which he gave permission to be "repeated elsewhere". You may find the whole visit interesting - it starts at
www.voernatuurlijk.nl/forum/viewforum.php?f=59
Especially interesting is the statement by the team from Voernatuurlijk, concerning IB's decision NOT to answer several of the questions posed.
www.voernatuurlijk.nl/forum/viewtopic.php?t=23564
scroll down for the translation to English.
***
The Minimum number of types of meat question
This is another question about 'rules.'
I have seen dogs do fine all their lives with only one type of meat fed – so long as it was in the context of a properly balanced programme of evolutionary nutrition. By balance, I mean – in terms of meat to bone to organ meat to vegetables etc.
On the other hand, consider Australia's wild dog, the dingo. Dingos in Australia will spend months eating a very mixed diet with twenty or more protein types. At other times they will eat nothing else except young kangaroos, if that is all that is available. In some seasons and some years, the dingo will eat a diet of insects only for months at a time. However, no matter what the situation, ao long as the food is plentiful, they do well. They are, by instinct (their genome telling them what to do with what is available) following an evolutionary programme of nutrition.
In my experience, in the context of the home situation, it is far more important to get the over-all balance right than to stress out over ensuring a supply of many different meats.
However, I do understand that every one wants rules – it makes them feel comfortable, safe and happy. So four types of meat seems like a reasonable compromise. Having `allowed' (as the authority) that level of meat differentiation, then stress and strongly emphasise the importance of evolutionary balance!
The whole prey animal question
You have raised the question or the opinion that whole prey feeding is the most natural way that we can feed pets; and you asked me whether or if I thought that feeding whole prey animals is the `ultimate' diet to feed to dogs and cats.
This I think is a very good question, because, like so many questions, it raises some important issues. I will try, as best I can to address some of those issues.
Are the dogs we live with today animals that have evolved to be ONLY whole prey eaters: Definitely not! Do I think a whole prey diet is the closest diet possible to our dogs' evolutionary diet? No, it is simply one possibility and a very good one; in fact, it might be the best we can, in a practical sense put together. However, I have to say that there are many reasons that it is not necessarily the `ultimate' diet; included among those reasons is the fact that our dogs are not pure carnivores, they are not purely hunters. Yes, they almost certainly have descended from wild canids (wolves in all probability) that were predominantly hunters and carnivores, however, they have evolved away from that mode of life; they are now more omnivores and scavengers and less hunters and carnivores.
When our dogs evolved from wolves, they did so, almost certainly on the rubbish heaps of early humankind. Here they changed from being principally hunters to being principally scavengers – it is a long story and the biologist Raymond Coppinger tells the story very well in his book "Dogs." ISBN 0-684-85530-5 Scribner 2001.
In other words, the ultimate diet for dogs must reflect those evolutionary facts.
The point is, dogs are not exactly wolves, they have moved on from that point. That does not mean that a whole-animal feeding paradigm is not a good one – it might even be the most practical and accessible method, by which we are able to approach the ideal or gold standard diet, given our limited resources, but, it is not necessarily the ultimate, nor is it necessarily the best in terms of mass appeal. Additionally, I must also make the point that I am not even sure that an ultimate evolutionary diet exists for any creature as there are (in nature), an infinite number of possibilities.
Now, I am well aware that there is this argument (often quite vehement) regarding the best way to structure a modern raw food diet for dogs (and cats).. And let us suppose that I agree with you that feeding a wide variety of freshly killed whole animals might be the best way of ensuring our dogs get a diet that comes closest to their genomic requirements. Does that mean I will advise against the method of feeding an evolutionary diet based on feeding meat and bones and organ meat and crushed raw vegetables? Most definitely not!
If I had suggested in 1993, in my book `Give Your Dog a Bone,' that people should source and feed their dogs with fresh warm carcasses of birds, mice, rats, guinea pigs etc., there would not be the huge raw food movement we see today. This movement would not have spread across the globe; there would not be literally thousands of raw food companies throughout the world producing evolutionary style food products for pets. We would not be seeing the major pet food companies sitting up and taking notice of this movement, and even attempting to adjust their own dreadful products to bring them into some sort of line with the evolutionary ethos (not that they understand this movement in those particular terms!)
In other words, if I had insisted in my book that people feed only a whole, prey-food-style diet, evolutionary-style nutrition would not have become the major force in companion animal nutrition that it is today. My book would have sold very few copies, it would have struck a chord with only a tiny minority of people and the many healthy raw fed dogs we see today would still be kibble eaters, with the obvious consequences.
In 1993, when this concept was simply an idea in my mind, I had to find a way to make this form of eating, cheap, acceptable, easily understood and widely available – for anyone and everyone – it had to be a method that would eventually lend itself to mass production on a commercial scale. So while I do not dispute that the way you feed your dogs (and cats) is, in all probability an extremely healthy method (dependent very much on the health of the prey animals!), it is most certainly, not for everyone! The whole prey method is not one that will ever gain popular appeal or support and this is the principle reason I push for a more appealing, accessible and available method.
My concern was and is to make healthy food for dogs (and cats) an easily learnt technique (take the power away from the food manufacturers and put it back where it belongs, in the hands of the pet owners), a feeding programme that is accessible for all, and one that has maximum appeal. We are never going to see a situation, where a young family, with young children, will breed, and/or keep guinea pigs and rabbits and other small mammals, and birds such as chickens and ducklings as food for their companion cats and dogs. For a whole variety of reasons including costs, aesthetics and problems associated with gut-borne pathogens, we will not see a situation where such food becomes commercially available on a large scale.
As a veterinarian in practice, who sees young families daily, I can assure you that these little creatures, which you see as food for your companion animals, are seen as treasured pets, and not only by children!
I know that the only reason there has been a shift away from processed food towards real food, and the only way it can continue, with the greatest number of dogs and cats eating this way, is for evolutionary style food to be cheaply and locally available in an acceptable form. Events subsequent to my initial concepts regarding this style of feeding, have shown that it has to be a form of feeding that lends itself to commercial production, and it ideally, should do so as cheaply as possible.
My agenda in "Give Your Dog a Bone" was to spread the knowledge, including the simplicity of this method of feeding, as widely as possible, and that agenda remains today – one hundred percent unchanged. For my part, I am so happy, that this dream is being realised. However, in my naïveté, I did not foresee the anger, the conflict and the politics that would develop from my simple ideas; none of this from me – let me add. However, with an older and wiser head, I now see that such conflict is almost inevitable, given the nature of human beings – and that in reality, the conflict has its own unique value – as all publicity is good publicity – as the saying goes!
And my hidden agenda, was and still is, is for people to see the value in evolutionary style nutrition and to realise that whole food eating should become the key to their own health. As a veterinarian in practice, dealing daily with people, that hidden agenda is bearing fruit. For such people, their companion-animals are leading them into health, their companion animals have truly have become their best friends!
Important: I don't mind if this statement of mine regarding the feeding of whole prey animals is repeated elsewhere – so long as it is repeated in full and no quotes are taken from it and quoted out of context.
The question about supplements
You asked …
"Do I think, in general, that some supplements are really necessary."
I will repeat my answer to a previous question. "It is my experience, that where people feed their dogs and cats an evolutionary type diet, consisting of a wide variety of fresh, whole and raw foods in evolutionary balance, there is little need for supplementation."
The question about frequency of feeding
Yes I agree; in my experience, a lot of dogs eating real food will only want to eat every couple of days – and we should respect their wishes!
The question about commercial raw diets that are not up to standard
Once again I agree with you. The point is, the more a dietary programme fails to live up to evolutionary norms, the more likely it is to result in problems. What we do about such matters is another thing altogether and for that I do not have a complete answer. We cannot `bludgeon' the makers of these sub-standard products into producing a better product. We can however, through educational programmes teach people with less understanding than ourselves, what they should be looking for, when they seek to feed their dog with a raw commercial product. Any drop in sales will force the manufacturer to re-think his or her philosophy – they will either, produce a better quality product that people want, or they will go out of business.
At the end of the day, it is up to people like yourself (and myself), at the `coal-face' (so to speak), to make a real difference through positive and helpful education. And please note once again, that it is no good insisting that people adopt a method such as whole prey feeding, if that tactic simply turns them back to kibble. "Purist' thinking of this sort is of no value to anyone, least of all the helpless dogs and cats, whose feeding programme and responsibility, lies entirely with their owners/caregivers.
I believe that people like myself and yourself, with a genuine understanding of canine (and feline) nutrition, have a responsibility to help people understand the simple steps they can take to make healthy food for dogs and cats; show them the easily learnt techniques that will take the power away from the pet food manufacturers. I believe it is important that we put the power back where it belongs, in their hands, and that includes the power involved in making sensible choices when it comes to selecting a raw commercial product. That is the only way we can get the greatest number of dogs (and cats) eating this way.
And as I said, the hidden agenda is for our companion animals to lead the way and show their carers that whole food eating should become the key to their (the carers) own health.
Cheers
Ian Billinghurst
This comes from a visit Ian Billinghurst made to the Dutch forum Voernatuurlijk a few days ago.(March 2009)
www.voernatuurlijk.nl/forum/viewtopic.php?t=23380
It was one of his answers which he gave permission to be "repeated elsewhere". You may find the whole visit interesting - it starts at
www.voernatuurlijk.nl/forum/viewforum.php?f=59
Especially interesting is the statement by the team from Voernatuurlijk, concerning IB's decision NOT to answer several of the questions posed.
www.voernatuurlijk.nl/forum/viewtopic.php?t=23564
scroll down for the translation to English.
***
The Minimum number of types of meat question
This is another question about 'rules.'
I have seen dogs do fine all their lives with only one type of meat fed – so long as it was in the context of a properly balanced programme of evolutionary nutrition. By balance, I mean – in terms of meat to bone to organ meat to vegetables etc.
On the other hand, consider Australia's wild dog, the dingo. Dingos in Australia will spend months eating a very mixed diet with twenty or more protein types. At other times they will eat nothing else except young kangaroos, if that is all that is available. In some seasons and some years, the dingo will eat a diet of insects only for months at a time. However, no matter what the situation, ao long as the food is plentiful, they do well. They are, by instinct (their genome telling them what to do with what is available) following an evolutionary programme of nutrition.
In my experience, in the context of the home situation, it is far more important to get the over-all balance right than to stress out over ensuring a supply of many different meats.
However, I do understand that every one wants rules – it makes them feel comfortable, safe and happy. So four types of meat seems like a reasonable compromise. Having `allowed' (as the authority) that level of meat differentiation, then stress and strongly emphasise the importance of evolutionary balance!
The whole prey animal question
You have raised the question or the opinion that whole prey feeding is the most natural way that we can feed pets; and you asked me whether or if I thought that feeding whole prey animals is the `ultimate' diet to feed to dogs and cats.
This I think is a very good question, because, like so many questions, it raises some important issues. I will try, as best I can to address some of those issues.
Are the dogs we live with today animals that have evolved to be ONLY whole prey eaters: Definitely not! Do I think a whole prey diet is the closest diet possible to our dogs' evolutionary diet? No, it is simply one possibility and a very good one; in fact, it might be the best we can, in a practical sense put together. However, I have to say that there are many reasons that it is not necessarily the `ultimate' diet; included among those reasons is the fact that our dogs are not pure carnivores, they are not purely hunters. Yes, they almost certainly have descended from wild canids (wolves in all probability) that were predominantly hunters and carnivores, however, they have evolved away from that mode of life; they are now more omnivores and scavengers and less hunters and carnivores.
When our dogs evolved from wolves, they did so, almost certainly on the rubbish heaps of early humankind. Here they changed from being principally hunters to being principally scavengers – it is a long story and the biologist Raymond Coppinger tells the story very well in his book "Dogs." ISBN 0-684-85530-5 Scribner 2001.
In other words, the ultimate diet for dogs must reflect those evolutionary facts.
The point is, dogs are not exactly wolves, they have moved on from that point. That does not mean that a whole-animal feeding paradigm is not a good one – it might even be the most practical and accessible method, by which we are able to approach the ideal or gold standard diet, given our limited resources, but, it is not necessarily the ultimate, nor is it necessarily the best in terms of mass appeal. Additionally, I must also make the point that I am not even sure that an ultimate evolutionary diet exists for any creature as there are (in nature), an infinite number of possibilities.
Now, I am well aware that there is this argument (often quite vehement) regarding the best way to structure a modern raw food diet for dogs (and cats).. And let us suppose that I agree with you that feeding a wide variety of freshly killed whole animals might be the best way of ensuring our dogs get a diet that comes closest to their genomic requirements. Does that mean I will advise against the method of feeding an evolutionary diet based on feeding meat and bones and organ meat and crushed raw vegetables? Most definitely not!
If I had suggested in 1993, in my book `Give Your Dog a Bone,' that people should source and feed their dogs with fresh warm carcasses of birds, mice, rats, guinea pigs etc., there would not be the huge raw food movement we see today. This movement would not have spread across the globe; there would not be literally thousands of raw food companies throughout the world producing evolutionary style food products for pets. We would not be seeing the major pet food companies sitting up and taking notice of this movement, and even attempting to adjust their own dreadful products to bring them into some sort of line with the evolutionary ethos (not that they understand this movement in those particular terms!)
In other words, if I had insisted in my book that people feed only a whole, prey-food-style diet, evolutionary-style nutrition would not have become the major force in companion animal nutrition that it is today. My book would have sold very few copies, it would have struck a chord with only a tiny minority of people and the many healthy raw fed dogs we see today would still be kibble eaters, with the obvious consequences.
In 1993, when this concept was simply an idea in my mind, I had to find a way to make this form of eating, cheap, acceptable, easily understood and widely available – for anyone and everyone – it had to be a method that would eventually lend itself to mass production on a commercial scale. So while I do not dispute that the way you feed your dogs (and cats) is, in all probability an extremely healthy method (dependent very much on the health of the prey animals!), it is most certainly, not for everyone! The whole prey method is not one that will ever gain popular appeal or support and this is the principle reason I push for a more appealing, accessible and available method.
My concern was and is to make healthy food for dogs (and cats) an easily learnt technique (take the power away from the food manufacturers and put it back where it belongs, in the hands of the pet owners), a feeding programme that is accessible for all, and one that has maximum appeal. We are never going to see a situation, where a young family, with young children, will breed, and/or keep guinea pigs and rabbits and other small mammals, and birds such as chickens and ducklings as food for their companion cats and dogs. For a whole variety of reasons including costs, aesthetics and problems associated with gut-borne pathogens, we will not see a situation where such food becomes commercially available on a large scale.
As a veterinarian in practice, who sees young families daily, I can assure you that these little creatures, which you see as food for your companion animals, are seen as treasured pets, and not only by children!
I know that the only reason there has been a shift away from processed food towards real food, and the only way it can continue, with the greatest number of dogs and cats eating this way, is for evolutionary style food to be cheaply and locally available in an acceptable form. Events subsequent to my initial concepts regarding this style of feeding, have shown that it has to be a form of feeding that lends itself to commercial production, and it ideally, should do so as cheaply as possible.
My agenda in "Give Your Dog a Bone" was to spread the knowledge, including the simplicity of this method of feeding, as widely as possible, and that agenda remains today – one hundred percent unchanged. For my part, I am so happy, that this dream is being realised. However, in my naïveté, I did not foresee the anger, the conflict and the politics that would develop from my simple ideas; none of this from me – let me add. However, with an older and wiser head, I now see that such conflict is almost inevitable, given the nature of human beings – and that in reality, the conflict has its own unique value – as all publicity is good publicity – as the saying goes!
And my hidden agenda, was and still is, is for people to see the value in evolutionary style nutrition and to realise that whole food eating should become the key to their own health. As a veterinarian in practice, dealing daily with people, that hidden agenda is bearing fruit. For such people, their companion-animals are leading them into health, their companion animals have truly have become their best friends!
Important: I don't mind if this statement of mine regarding the feeding of whole prey animals is repeated elsewhere – so long as it is repeated in full and no quotes are taken from it and quoted out of context.
The question about supplements
You asked …
"Do I think, in general, that some supplements are really necessary."
I will repeat my answer to a previous question. "It is my experience, that where people feed their dogs and cats an evolutionary type diet, consisting of a wide variety of fresh, whole and raw foods in evolutionary balance, there is little need for supplementation."
The question about frequency of feeding
Yes I agree; in my experience, a lot of dogs eating real food will only want to eat every couple of days – and we should respect their wishes!
The question about commercial raw diets that are not up to standard
Once again I agree with you. The point is, the more a dietary programme fails to live up to evolutionary norms, the more likely it is to result in problems. What we do about such matters is another thing altogether and for that I do not have a complete answer. We cannot `bludgeon' the makers of these sub-standard products into producing a better product. We can however, through educational programmes teach people with less understanding than ourselves, what they should be looking for, when they seek to feed their dog with a raw commercial product. Any drop in sales will force the manufacturer to re-think his or her philosophy – they will either, produce a better quality product that people want, or they will go out of business.
At the end of the day, it is up to people like yourself (and myself), at the `coal-face' (so to speak), to make a real difference through positive and helpful education. And please note once again, that it is no good insisting that people adopt a method such as whole prey feeding, if that tactic simply turns them back to kibble. "Purist' thinking of this sort is of no value to anyone, least of all the helpless dogs and cats, whose feeding programme and responsibility, lies entirely with their owners/caregivers.
I believe that people like myself and yourself, with a genuine understanding of canine (and feline) nutrition, have a responsibility to help people understand the simple steps they can take to make healthy food for dogs and cats; show them the easily learnt techniques that will take the power away from the pet food manufacturers. I believe it is important that we put the power back where it belongs, in their hands, and that includes the power involved in making sensible choices when it comes to selecting a raw commercial product. That is the only way we can get the greatest number of dogs (and cats) eating this way.
And as I said, the hidden agenda is for our companion animals to lead the way and show their carers that whole food eating should become the key to their (the carers) own health.
Cheers
Ian Billinghurst