When your pet wants to nibble on something other than kibble
At Susan Kevin’s house, her standard poodles eat food that could easily be served at her own dinner table. At the grocery store she picks up carrots, squash and green beans to pur%26#233;e and eggs to crack on top, and the turkey necks and knucklebones are for Riley and Maximus to gnaw on in the yard.
To those accustomed to feeding their pets dry kibble and canned food, buying fresh ingredients may seem silly and even extravagant. But for Kevin, of Mercer Island, feeding her dogs a mostly raw diet mix for the last five years has resulted in “really, really healthy” dogs.
And she didn’t have to worry last spring when an industrial chemical, melamine, was discovered in some pet food that sickened thousands of animals and killed some. The Food and Drug Administration recalled dozens of pet foods, and pet owners were forced to consider what goes into canned pet food and kibble.
Some have learned to read labels and are pickier about the commercial food they buy, while others have eschewed processed-pet food entirely and have turned to home cooking or raw diets, a philosophy some pet owners have embraced for years.
Thomas Harlow started feeding his dogs, Jackson and Charlotte, a raw diet three years ago to help chubby Chihuahua Jackson slim down. When he heard about the recalls, he thought, ” ‘Oh, thank God, I made the right decision,’ ” he said. “It makes you nervous.”
Pet-food choices
Figuring out what’s in your pet’s food isn’t easy. Labels can be imprecise, though there are ways to interpret what they say (see the accompanying box).
Some commercial brands have higher-quality meat and vegetables and less filler grains, but these boutique brands tend to cost more.
You can keep some variety in a dog’s diet by rotating types of meat and grains within the brand, which helps prevent allergies, said Mercer Island holistic veterinarian Dr. Jackie Obando.
Regardless of the commercial brand you use, you also can pare down the amount your pets eat by supplementing a dog’s diet with fresh foods, either raw or cooked. Obando suggests this as an option for people nervous about cutting off kibble or canned food entirely.
“If you can’t afford an excellent diet, let’s try to add some excellent nonmanipulated ingredients to this food and therefore dilute this processed thing a little,” she said.
The American Veterinary Medical Association recommends commercial pet foods over home-cooked foods or raw diets because it says they are more nutritionally balanced. There’s also a concern about preserving foods properly for pets so they don’t get sick from spoiled foods, said Charlie Powell, spokesman for the Washington State Veterinary Medical Association.
But “pet-food companies and vets don’t have a lock on being able to prepare a complete and balanced diet,” Powell said. “If one is going to do that, you have to do your homework, you have to be judicious about it and it’s going to take some time and effort to do so.”
All vets emphasize the importance of balance. Dr. Elise T. Holt, a holistic veterinarian in Seattle, recommends working closely with a nutritionist and vet if preparing a home-cooked diet.
“In the long run, paying more initially for good-quality nutrition makes for a healthier pet in the long run and fewer bills,” she said. “It needs to be looked at as a long-range benefit, not just an immediate cost.”
Home cooked or raw
If you’re interested in trying to do more at home, research first (see the reading list) and work with your veterinarian on a home diet.
It’s important to know nutrition basics. Cats, for example, are carnivores and therefore require raw meat, Obando said. Dogs are omnivores, and can eat cooked or raw meat but can’t have such things as grapes, onions, garlic, chocolate, macadamia nuts, cooked bones or raw fish, she said.
Fresh foods like leftover hamburger, apples and eggs can make up 20 to 30 percent of your dog’s regular diet without throwing off the dog’s nutritional balance, Obando said, but she recommends professional guidance if you want to do more.
Whole Dog Journal also suggests studying the topic first, giving your dog a variety of foods, cooking the food if you worry about bacteria and grinding bones if you worry about raw bones for your dog. Variety, balance over time and calcium are the three basic rules for a dog’s home diet, according to the journal.
Cats are finicky and will let you know what they want, Obando said. She recommends the supplement available at www.felinefuture.com, which is added to raw meat, as a healthy home diet for cats.
Raw diet concerns
Raw diets, in particular, are controversial because of concerns over bacteria and feeding dogs raw bones (a source of calcium). Not all veterinarians support the idea. Harlow, who feeds his dogs a mix of raw meat and vegetables for pets made by Darwin’s Natural Pet Products, a Seattle company, said he battles his own veterinarian every time he takes in Jackson and Charlotte.
But Jackson lost a pound and now weighs in at 5 pounds, and is active and happy, barking at passers-by when out on a walk and playfully scrapping with other dogs.
“He was a fat, sleepy puppy who grew up to be a fat, sleepy dog,” Harlow said. “After four to six weeks (with the new food), the weight came off and his energy came back.”
Kevin also was nervous about adding fresh food to her dogs’ diets because she thought the commercial food manufacturers knew what dogs should be eating. But as she read more, she came to believe that dogs eating the same pet food every day for nutritional balance was akin to her eating the same cereal for all her meals.
Riley and Maximus’ diets are expensive, costing about $100 per dog monthly. But both are fit and thin.
“I decided that if I give my dogs a nice variety of food, then they, like me, should get the proper nutrition,” she said.
Tags: amp, chocola, minis, rta, vegetables0
