Showing posts with label best dog food. Show all posts
Showing posts with label best dog food. Show all posts

Monday, January 25, 2010

What You Need to Know About Commercial Dog Food Before Buying Any More

People tend to think that commercial dog food, especially if it has been recommended by their veterinarian is of good quality and is giving your dog the best chance in life. Right?

Wrong!

While vets should be the best people to advise about dog food, sadly they’re not. Why? Because the top commercial pet food manufacturers now financially contribute to many veterinary schools. They have a foot in the door. They can, and do, influence the students.

After all you generally don’t bite the hand that feeds you.

In most countries of the world, there are, at least some basic laws governing the quality of human food, whether it’s fresh produce, meat or fast food.

In no country are there laws (which are enforced) that insist commercial pet food manufacturers use quality ingredients. That means anything can, and does, go.

After all, if meat is of good quality, wouldn’t you sell it to the highest market - the human market? So, it’s only the poorest quality meat, more often meat by-products (such as hair, intestines and contents, chicken feet, brain, skin, grizzle, fat, etc) that goes for dog food.

This means that the overall nutrient quality is as poor as it gets, as different proteins have different nutritional absorbability.

Pet food is always bulked out with inert (or not as the melamine scam from China testifies) filler. Typically, this filler will be the current cheapest carbohydrate. There’s often a world glut of something, driving down the price. It may be sugar one year, wheat the next.

Do you think the addition of sugar into your dog’s diet will serve to improve his health?

Why do you think that diabetes in dogs is on the increase?

Dogs may bulk out their food in the wild, but it would be on fresh plant matter that’s available, such as fruit or leaves.

Cooking destroys many vitamins and enzymes which are critical to the overall health of your dog.

As most dog food is dried pellets, which keep indefinitely at room temperature, preservatives must be used. Some manufacturers claim they have not added preservatives. Look carefully at the wording. They did not add it. This may be true. But preservatives will always have been added to the meat before it was delivered to the manufacturers.

It’s impossible to keep meat products at room temperature indefinitely without the use of strong preservatives. Preservatives that would never be allowed in human food, because of their poisonous effect.

So your dog may be well fed as far as volume is concerned, but will be starving for quality food. How can your dog remain healthy if he’s fed garbage?

Most people would be appalled at the process that goes into the making of commercial pet food. That would be a really good incentive not to feed it. I’m attempting to give you a glimpse behind the scenes, so you can give your dog the best dog food available within your budget and within your time available.

Monday, March 30, 2009

What is the Best Dog Food?

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind. Without question, the best dog food is one which is based on a wild dog’s diet. Dogs have evolved on this. It’s raw meat. There are no cookers in nature.

People are reluctant to believe this for a variety of reasons. So lets look at some of them, and dispel your fears.

Firstly, you may be worried about the presence os parasites and worms in raw meat. It’s been drummed into you that meat needs to be cooked to kill them off.

I can assure you, that dogs digestion is robust. They have no trouble with worms and parasites in raw meat. They have evolved to deal with this. What they haven’t evolved to deal with is cooked food, high fat content, preservatives, pathogens in cooked food, poor quality filler and the low grade food which passes for dog food.

Secondly, you may be concerned about bones perforating an internal organ.

Dogs evolved by crunching up on raw bones. They have absolutely no problem with raw bones, as long as they are raw and they gnaw them. If you have more than one dog and they gobble the bone down to ensure the other doesn’t get it, they may suffer some discomfort while the bone passes through their digestive system, but it won’t do more than cause them discomfort. So ensure your dog gnaws the bone in peace.

The other problem is with cooked bones. These can perforate your dog’s internal organs. Cooked bones are a definite no-no when working out the ingredients for the best dog food.

Thirdly, you may think feeding your dog a raw food diet is expensive. After all, the connotation ‘best dog food’ looks expensive.

It depends on what you take into consideration. If you are feeding your dog the cheapest brand of dog food from the supermarket, and don’t have any ailments treated, then you may be right. If you do, I doubt you’re reading this. So lets suppose you feed your dog a medium priced commercial dog food and do use the services of a veterinarian or other health professional, for ailments your dog may suffer.

Raw dog food is nutrient dense. Commercial dog food is nutrient poor. So you need to feed much more commercial dog food to come anywhere near (and it never comes close) to providing the decent diet that raw meat does. Which means you need much less volume of raw food compared with commercial dog food.

Then, if you include the fees you spend on health care, there’s no comparison. Commercial pet food keeps veterinarians wealthy. They hardly see the healthy dogs fed on raw meat, nature’s best dog food.

Fourthly, you may think that the purchase and preparation of the best dog food there is, is too much like hard work. You think it may be too big a hassle.

I’ve taken the hassle out of it, by telling you how to do it without making the mistakes I did.

Fifthly, you may think you dog doesn’t like raw food.

Have you ever tried? With decent food, I mean? I can assure you, there is no dog alive who doesn’t recognise the raw food as the best dog food. If you’re overfeeding your dog, he may refuse it initially. And if you leave food out all day, that’s likely. Keep in mind too, many commercial dog food manufacturers add appetite stimulants to the food. This may cause a short term problem, while he adapts.

Lastly, you may be concerned that you don’t know enough to be able to get the nutritional needs of your dog correct. After all, that’s what's pushed by veterinarians and commercial dog food manufacturers - you don’t know enough. Just because the packet tells you this brand is ‘recommended by top vets’ or that brand is ‘scientific’, doesn’t mean they are selling the best dog food. Quite the opposite, in fact.

I can tell you from experience, it’s not as difficult as they make out. You do need to know some important facts, but once you’ve opened your mind to allowing your own inner wisdom to emerge, and by following certain natural laws, you’ll have no problem working it out.

If everyone started feeding their dog raw meat, many, many veterinarians would go out of business.

What are you waiting for?

Monday, March 9, 2009

Feeding a Raw Food Diet for Dogs While Juggling Work, Family and a Bit of You Time

Most people who have dogs in their lives, reach for the easy option of commercial dog food. There is little thought that goes into it.

Or perhaps they feel their veterinarian knows best and they buy what they offer.

Either way, the health of your dog will suffer.

But you know that already, or you wouldn’t be here.

As you’re considering feeding a raw food diet for dogs, you’ve come a long way and first up, need congratulating!

I find that the most difficult part of changing anything in my life, is the initial reluctance to change my mind. It’s no mean feat. But now that you’ve done that, the rest is easy.

Or comparatively!

A raw food diet for dogs is what they evolved. on. You can’t beat or better nature. Nature has had a long time perfecting herself. Puny man and his pseudo ideas are no match!

But I’m sure you still have questions. For a start, what should you feed your dog, and how much?

Are there any foods to avoid or limit?

Should bones be a part of the raw food diet for dogs?

And lastly, how can you fit it into your busy schedule of juggling work, family and hopefully a bit of time for you?

Well, lets answer the last question first. Buying raw food is no less difficult or time consuming than buying commercial dog food. Putting meat instead of a packet into your trolly takes the same energy!

The other questions on what and what not to feed dogs have already been discovered by others who have gone before you. So you don’t need to reinvent the wheel. It’s already been done. Just follow in someone else’s footsteps.

It does take a little bit of time to get used to what to feed and how much, but once you have the hang of it, it becomes second nature.

Feeding a raw food diet for dogs is really the start of other things too. Such as listening to your dog. He will tell you what he likes to eat and what he doesn’t. He’ll also tell you what medicines he’s happy to take and what he doesn’t like and would prefer you not to insist.

It’s a whole new world, and one I can’t recommend enough!

Monday, February 9, 2009

Natural Choice Dog Food, Chosen by Your Dog

The most natural choice dog food currently is commercial dog food. That’s as far as a dog ‘owner’ is concerned. If it was up to your dog, that wouldn’t be the case. How would your dog choose?

I believe dogs are inherently intelligent and know, on a deep level, what is good and healthy for them. This natural ability is often upset, just as in humans, by the daily consumption of junk food, year in, year out. Your dog can become addicted.

But if your dog had the freedom to a natural choice dog food from a puppy, what would you see?

I had just that experience, when a dog came into my home, for the first time since becoming an adult.

I was by then, feeding my cats raw meat and bones, having made the conversion a couple of years before.

I hadn’t expected to get a dog, she catapulted into my life, so I was unprepared. I didn’t know what to feed her. Here was this abandoned, energetic puppy, about eight weeks old, who had made it very clear to me that I was the chosen one. She intended to live with me, so I’d better just get used to the idea.

Still racking my brains for a clue as to her diet, I decided to purchase a couple of tins, while I tried to work it out. After all, they were supposed to be ‘balanced’, ‘nutritionally complete’, ‘recommended by top vets’ weren’t they?

My dog knew better.

Even though I was feeding her separately from the cats, she knew what I was feeding them.

And she didn’t like what I was offering her.

Abandoned dogs have often suffered a lack in regular or sufficient food. Even so, she left her food and raced to where the cats were, whining and leaping about as only puppies can, desperately trying to tell me that THIS was her natural choice dog food.

I ended up throwing away a tin and a half of dog food. I capitulated and fed her the same as the cats, just more of it, until I could be sure of the correct amount and type.

She remained fit, energetic and healthy up to about eleven years of age, with absolutely no veterinary intervention of any sort except sterilisation at about six months. She kept her figure, was always interested in everything going on, had a lovely glossy coat.

Her natural choice dog food was raw meat and bones. She chose it. She never had any other type of dog food.

It was me who was the barrier to try initially. I had to sort out my prejudices, my beliefs, my ingrained ideas of healthy dog food that I had gained over the years, from childhood, through advertisements. That was my biggest hurdle to allowing my dog her right for her natural choice dog food.

Sunday, February 1, 2009

What You Need to Know About Commercial Dog Food Before Buying Any More

People tend to think that commercial dog food, especially if it has been recommended by their veterinarian is of good quality and is giving your dog the best chance in life. Right?

Wrong!

While vets should be the best people to advise about dog food, sadly they’re not. Why? Because the top commercial pet food manufacturers now financially contribute to many veterinary schools. They have a foot in the door. They can, and do, influence the students.

After all you generally don’t bite the hand that feeds you.

In most countries of the world, there are, at least some basic laws governing the quality of human food, whether it’s fresh produce, meat or fast food.

In no country are there laws (which are enforced) that insist commercial pet food manufacturers use quality ingredients. That means anything can, and does, go.

After all, if meat is of good quality, wouldn’t you sell it to the highest market - the human market? So, it’s only the poorest quality meat, more often meat by-products (such as hair, intestines and contents, chicken feet, brain, skin, grizzle, fat, etc) that goes for dog food.

This means that the overall nutrient quality is as poor as it gets, as different proteins have different nutritional absorbability.

Pet food is always bulked out with inert (or not as the melamine scam from China testifies) filler. Typically, this filler will be the current cheapest carbohydrate. There’s often a world glut of something, driving down the price. It may be sugar one year, wheat the next.

Do you think the addition of sugar into your dog’s diet will serve to improve his health?

Why do you think that diabetes in dogs is on the increase?

Dogs may bulk out their food in the wild, but it would be on fresh plant matter that’s available, such as fruit or leaves.

Cooking destroys many vitamins and enzymes which are critical to the overall health of your dog.

As most dog food is dried pellets, which keep indefinitely at room temperature, preservatives must be used. Some manufacturers claim they have not added preservatives. Look carefully at the wording. They did not add it. This may be true. But preservatives will always have been added to the meat before it was delivered to the manufacturers.

It’s impossible to keep meat products at room temperature indefinitely without the use of strong preservatives. Preservatives that would never be allowed in human food, because of their poisonous effect.

So your dog may be well fed as far as volume is concerned, but will be starving for quality food. How can your dog remain healthy if he’s fed garbage?

Most people would be appalled at the process that goes into the making of commercial pet food. That would be a really good incentive not to feed it. I’m attempting to give you a glimpse behind the scenes, so you can give your dog the best dog food available within your budget and within your time available.

Monday, January 19, 2009

Raw Dog Food - How Can You Be Sure It’s Healthy?

Most people feel reassured by the pictures of smiling veterinarians and dog breeders paying tribute to the commercial pet food they feed their dog. Or perhaps, you’ve been convinced by your own vet that the food they sell is sure to be nutritionally balanced.

For your dog’s sake, be a bit suspicious. Don’t be convinced by anyone (including me) that what they are trying to sell you is necessarily in your dog’s best interest.

Instead, it may be in their own best interest if they gain a sale from convincing you.

If you’re having a problem getting your head around the idea of raw dog food, then I suggest it’s your problem, not your dog’s.

Dogs evolved on a diet of raw food over millennia. Humans have only recently taken an interest in making dog food.

Do you really imagine, for one moment, that humans have been able to change the domestic dog’s digestive and immune system in fifty odd years?

You may well say that humans have had an impact on the way dogs look, with all the different breeds. Yes, that’s true. But have you also noticed that pedigree dogs are also the most unhealthy? What I call a Heinz 57 dog, is normally much healthier.

So in breeding a selective type of dog, humans have gone against nature, by isolating one or more traits, until the breed becomes what the breeder wants.

And so it is with food. Humans tinker about with food, under the guise of ‘science’. I call it junk science, because there’s nothing scientific about commercial dog food. The word ‘science’ has come to be revered by the majority. Just as the word ‘natural’ is currently enjoying popularity.

So a clever commercial dog food manufacturer will incorporate the word ‘science’ and/or ‘natural’ in the advertising, to lure you in.

That doesn’t mean there’s anything of quality within the packet or can It could be anything. You have no way of knowing how the food was prepared or what is in each pack.

Raw dog food, on the other hand, contains all the nutrients essential to a healthy dog.

I appreciate that it may take you time to get your head around the idea, because you’ve probably been brought up on the idea that commercial pet food is the healthiest way to go.

If that was true, how cum that dogs health invariably improves when a switch from commercial to raw dog food is made? The only way you’re really going to find out for sure is to try it out yourself.

You may be worried about parasites and bacteria in raw dog food.

Neither of these are an issue for dogs, whose digestive system is very robust, with powerful digestive juices. Dogs aren’t carnivores, they’re omnivores, which means they can eat anything (as long as it’s raw), including vegetation and rotting carcasses.

In fact, you will notice that when you feed a raw dog food, fleas and worms decrease and almost disappear.

Dogs have problems with unnatural foods - those that are cooked, those that contain preservatives. Neither of these are natural. Cooking destroys many vitamins and denatures other nutrients.

I can genuinely assure you, that your dogs health will improve considerably when you start feeding a raw dog food. There may be a ‘de-toxing’ period initially, but this is normal, natural and only takes a short time to go through.

Why not try it for a month and see for yourself? What have you got to lose?