Raw & Home-Prepared

Thanks so much for “Fine Tuning” in your September issue. As usual, you covered topics I’m coping with every day. My one-year-old Golden, Midas, might as well be “Hannah” in disguise: he gets aroused by exactly the same things. Now I don’t feel so bad, knowing even Editor Nancy Kerns needed Pat Miller’s tips! …

When dog lovers switch their pets from commercial food to a well-balanced, raw diet, they typically report improved health, brighter eyes, a shinier coat, calmer behavior, and easier yard cleanup chores. A puppy's first eight weeks set the stage for a lifetime of health or illness, so it isn't surprising that puppies weaned on raw food grow up to out-perform dogs weaned on kibble or canned food, even if both are fed raw food as adults. Raw-weaned puppies nearly exhaust their breeders' vocabularies, for these are the healthiest / strongest / liveliest / calmest / smartest / most wonderful pups that ever lived.

The more I've learned about the meat used in pet food, the more I've come to admire commercially produced frozen raw diets for dogs. The meat and poultry used in most of these diets are far fresher and more wholesome - far more like what most of us would think of as "meat" - than most animal protein ingredients in dry (or even canned) pet foods. The products tend to produce terrific results in the dogs who consume them. Whether this is due to the ingredient quality or the fact that this type of diet is more biologically appropriate for canines than dry foods is anyone's guess. My guess is that both factors contribute to the success of the products.

Dogs can enjoy many traditional Thanksgiving foods. The key is to let them indulge in moderation. That’s because Thanksgiving weekend is infamous in the...

Making meals from scratch is the only way I know to have exactly what I want for my dogs – no ingredients from places with spotty records for quality assurance, no multi-syllabic additives making a label longer than I like. After I covered the pet-food recall in 2007, I changed the way I eat and the way I feed my pets. For my dogs, that meant commercial products from companies I trusted, along with raw-food meals from regional sources of meat, grains, and vegetables. It wasn't a huge shift from raw to cooked when my Flat-Coated Retriever, McKenzie, started chemotherapy for soft-tissue sarcoma a few days after her seventh birthday. At the suggestion of her veterinary oncologist, I dropped the carbs, rebalanced the diet with the help of some expert advice, and started feeding McKenzie Meatloaf" to all three of my dogs."

Feeding fresh food to your dogs can help make them healthy and happy, but it can also be expensive, particularly for those with large dogs. Whether you feed a completely homemade diet or just want to improve your dog’s diet by adding fresh foods, there are many ways to reduce costs. Here are some ideas to consider...

People who believe in the value of feeding their dogs a biologically appropriate diet, comprised largely of raw meat and bones – with other foods added only to ensure that all their nutritional needs have been met, not as lower-cost “fillers” – love frozen raw diets. Food that has been formulated to meet the nutrient standards for a “complete and balanced” diet, and made with (mostly) meat and bones from (often) sustainably raised and humanely slaughtered meats, with the balance comprised of (frequently) organic, local produce . . . What’s not to like? The answer depends on who you are.

Every two weeks I faithfully fill the pill organizers for my Boxer, Tyler. He receives a number of supplements, some for general nutrition and well-being, and some specific to his particular health challenges, including Addison’s disease. I’m not the only one performing this ritual. According to the American Pet Products Manufacturers Association, about nine percent of all dogs receive vitamins regularly; perhaps an even greater percentage of WDJ readers give supplements to their canine companions.

No good deed goes unpunished. That’s what Pam Rowley of Upper Brookville, New York, discovered last November, when the hospital administrator who always greeted her and 8-year-old Vizsla Gunner at the start of their monthly therapy-dog visits quietly took her aside to deliver some bad news.

Over the past few months, I've read more than 30 books on homemade diets for dogs. Many offered recipes that were dangerously incomplete; a smaller number provided acceptable guidelines but were confusing, unduly restrictive, overly complicated, or had other issues that made me recommend them only with reservations. A few were good enough to recommend without reservation. This review is about the cream of the crop: three relatively new books (one is a new edition of an older book) whose authors have taken the time to analyze their recipes to ensure that they meet the latest nutritional guidelines established by the National Research Council (NRC).

Four veterinarians from the School of Veterinary Medicine at the University of California, Davis, published a study in the June issue of the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, entitled “Evaluation of recipes of home-prepared maintenance diets for dogs.” I don’t think any WDJ readers will be surprised to hear that their findings were not exactly positive. The study analyzed 200 recipes. Of those, 133 were obtained from 2 veterinary textbooks and 9 pet care books (two of which were also written by veterinarians), and the remaining 67 recipes came from 23 different websites. Of all the recipes analyzed, 129 were written by veterinarians, and 71 by nonvets.

It's important that the home-prepared dog food diet you feed your dog is complete and balanced