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[TribalRats]

YOUR WHOLE PET
Real food for dogs is easier than you think

By Christie Keith, Special to SF Gate

Wednesday, February 7, 2007

Healthy dogs thrive on healthy diets.

Although you may eat nearly every meal at the greasy spoon near your office or live on microwaved Lean Cuisine and Diet Coke, you at least know what you should be eating: a varied, balanced diet of fresh foods, with a minimum of processed, packaged convenience items.

But that's you. You're a mammal with two legs and opposable thumbs -- and therefore must have completely different nutritional requirements from mammals with, say, four legs and an amazingly sensitive nose, right? How else to explain the lifetime of processed, packaged foods that is apparently just what the doctor ordered for the family dog?

We cheerfully accept that kibble is a wonderful way to feed our dogs, when we rarely choose to live on Ensure meal-replacement drinks ourselves. But is it possible that the same foods that make up a healthy diet for humans -- things like eggs, meat, vegetables and dairy products -- might form the basis of a healthy diet for dogs as well?

Could the emperor that is the $15 billion pet-food industry not be wearing any clothes?

Not exactly. There's plenty to learn from the nutritional sciences, including research done by pet-food companies. Diets that are excessive in some nutrients can be toxic to dogs, just as they are to humans, and nutritional deficiencies can cause illness in dogs as well. But it's always a good idea to ask questions about research funding and design and the industry ties of researchers and experts. After scrutinizing the reliability of the information, decide for yourself which parts of it are credible.

Certainly some people won't want to feed their dogs a fresh-food diet even if it might be healthier. Hell, I know plenty of people who secretly wish they could subsist on a nice bowl of Human Chow three times a day. And a homemade diet really is more expensive and time-consuming than pouring pellets into a bowl or opening a can.

But let's imagine you suddenly were struck with how unhealthy it would be to go the rest of your life eating nothing but Total cereal. To never eat a salad or a piece of roasted chicken or a peach. And so you decide you'd like to include some fresh foods in your dog's diet, without setting him up for nutritional problems or dietary disturbances. How would you go about it?

Twenty-one years ago, when I started making my dogs' food in my own kitchen, there were only a couple of books about homemade diets and very few vets who supported the idea. People like me were mostly on their own.

Today, it's comparatively easy to learn about using fresh foods in canine diets. Feeding our dogs out of our own kitchens has become such a widespread practice there are even dozens of competing ideologies: Raw food, prey model, home cooking, breed-specific, vegetarian and more -- pretty much every ideology found in human nutritional circles has its canine counterpart. Thousands of dog owners in the Bay Area feed their dogs diets wholly or partially based on fresh foods, and there are tens of thousands more nationwide.

Many dog owners have even formed regional co-ops to buy fresh foods for their dogs in bulk, to bring down costs. There are many veterinarians who enthusiastically support homemade diets. Dog owners can investigate the dozens of books, e-mail lists, Web sites and articles to find out more about feeding dogs a fresh-food diet.

The best results usually come when the dog owner is exposed to a variety of approaches and ideas, rather than blindly following one guru or feeding plan. There are many worthwhile books on canine diets, and it's a good idea to read several of them.

Two useful starter books are the Rodale Press classic, "Dr. Pitcairn's Complete Guide to Natural Health for Dogs and Cats," now in its third edition, and "Home-Prepared Dog and Cat Diets: The Healthful Alternative," by renowned veterinary gastroenterologist Donald Strombeck, DVM, Ph.D. Both are loaded with recipes for homemade diets -- the Pitcairn book even includes a few simple recipes meant to be mixed with kibble. There is no "one true way" to feed a dog, so try different things and see what works best for your dog and your lifestyle.

It's easy to know if something is practical for you as an owner, but how do you judge if a diet is working for your dog? Although a dog's appearance is no guarantee there isn't a hidden health problem, dog owners use such clues every day to decide if their dog is doing well on a specific commercial food. The guidelines are no different for homemade diets: Does she have a shiny coat and clear eyes? Does she have lots of energy? Is she itchy? Does she have bad breath? Is her stool normal? And of course, does she like the food? After all, the nutritional value of a diet your dog won't eat is zero.

Are there pitfalls? The primary one is the convenience factor. Pet foods exist because humans benefit from them. They're infinitely easier than making fresh meals for our pets and nearly always less expensive. Still, after a period of trial and error, you'll probably find it's much easier than you think to increase the amount of fresh food in your dog's diet.

Nutritionally, there are both risks and benefits to feeding a homemade diet. Fresh foods can be a surprisingly good investment in your dog's well-being. After all, when we make food in our own kitchens, we don't have to worry about shipping, shelf life, packaging, advertising, merchandising or price point. We can make decisions based entirely on our dog's nutritional interests. Commercial pet-food manufacturers, from the tiniest boutique companies to the largest multinational conglomerates, don't have that luxury.

While it's important to use recipes and feeding plans appropriate for dogs, there's actually a lot of wiggle room in formulating a dog's diet. Canines are, overall, rather forgiving nutritionally. That's part of their success as a species. Certainly modern pet dogs, who don't hunt or scavenge, have few opportunities to fill nutritional gaps on their own the way wild animals do, and therefore it's up to us to get it right. Growing puppies and dogs who are being bred have special nutritional needs as well.

But the human race and its assorted domesticated animals have managed to survive and reproduce for hundreds of thousands, even millions, of years, without the assistance of the modern food-manufacturing plant. This isn't a license to feed dogs a poorly constructed diet -- but rather a little reality check on the idea that your dog requires such a precise, nutritionally specific diet that you need finely calibrated laboratory equipment and a degree in nutrition to make his dinner. Aside from the willingness to do it, you really just need a few balanced recipes and the same measuring spoons and cups you'd use to make a cake from a mix.

Pet owners have been sold the idea that there's something inherently different about "people food" and "dog food." There isn't. Food is food. Recipes are recipes. It doesn't need to be processed into pellets to be "dog food." Putting together a varied, nutritious canine diet in your own kitchen takes some awareness and some thought, but it's genuinely no more (or less) difficult than putting together a healthy, nutritious diet for yourself.

And who knows? Maybe you'll do that next.

Christie Keith is a contributing editor for Universal Press Syndicate's Pet Connection, and past director of the Pet Care Forum on America Online. She lives in San Francisco.

[secksspuds]

Hello, me and my bf just got a chihuahua and she will be 4 years old in november. We just got her a few months ago. The person that we got her from they fed her people food and we can not get her off of it, she loves tacos, lunch meat (turkey and chicken) etc. What do we do

[briarlow]

Taco's isn't really a good idea, but meat, vegetables etc. are great for dogs. I'm sure that someone here will be able to point you in the right direction.

[GSD]

chihuahua's are supposed to eat taco's and burritos and salsa and chips. It's an ethnic thing. Haven't you ever seen the commercials

[TribalRats]

Lol Gsd

[secksspuds]

Hello Is This Christie?