Dog Foods

With several notable differences, dogs thrive on much the same diet as people do.

For many years large dog food companies have tried to convince us that dogs should only be fed a diet of commercial dog food specifically designed to be balanced and complete nutrition. If you think about this for a minute it is easy to see that the idea is good for selling dog food, but not so good for dogs. It is impossible for a single food, no matter how carefully put together, to provide complete and balanced nutrition. Nutritional needs change with activity, stress, environment, individual metabolism, and even mood. You may be able to think of myriad other factors as well.

Science is not able to determine what human nutritional requirements are exactly. FDA recommendations are continually changing and the FDA lags far behind the latest research. How then can we expect them to know all about the much less researched canine or feline needs? Click this link for a well researched article on how science is actually applied in creating a “complete and balanced” commercial dog food.

They would also like us to think that changing diets is bad for dogs or at the very least will create severe intestinal distress. It seems silly but when people try changing their dog’s diet, sure enough, the dog will get diarrhea or some other consequence and they often conclude that the conventional “wisdom” is correct. However, what do you think would happen to person who ate only one thing for his or her whole life and then suddenly switched to something else? Yep, the same thing. Yet we do not therefore conclude that we should eat a single monotonous diet for our whole life. Rather, we get used to eating a variety of things and can change from one healthy food to another and receive only benefit from doing so. We still sometimes get stomach upsets from occasionally eating some exotic type of food that we have never tried before, but if it is good for us and we like it, we quickly become used to it and include it in our diet where possible. Do you think you could get the most out of even the best diet if you ate exactly the same thing day in and day out? Why then do we expect our dogs to be able to?

There are a lot of factors to consider but they mostly boil down to common sense. Salted hams probably contain too much salt to be good for your dog. Table scraps are great but not if you are only feeing your pet the scraps that you yourself will not eat. All the fat trimmings from you plate and none of the meat is not a sensible thing. The dog will probably be better off with foods cooked less than you would cook them for yourself. Some people even prefer to feed all raw diets. I myself am not a big fan of feeding only raw meats, and certainly many vegetables are much more digestible when cooked.

Frightening warnings about not feeding raw potatoes, or tomato leaves, etc. abound, but who with any common sense is going to feed that to their dog? If you think about their teeth for a moment, you will see that dogs don’t have grinding molars like herbivores so most vegetables should be either cooked, grated small or both to make their nutrients available.

If you eat well, with a little thought you can expect your dog to thrive on much the same diet you do. Yes, dogs may need more protein, and probably more fat, than people and that should to be taken into account. They may also have other requirements that we don’t, but if you fed your dog the same things you eat, leaving out many of the spices, the sweets, salt, and other things that you know YOU would be better off without, you can expect a longer lived, healthier dog than if you fed him a single dog food every day.

Of course there is also time and money to consider. We can’t really afford to serve trout almandine to our pets even if we eat it ourselves occasionally, nor do many of us have the time and inclination to cook for our pets every day.

There are many commercial pet foods out there now that are quite good. Still, it is much better to at least supplement them with a variety of fresh foods.

What we feed our pets

We feed our dogs approximately 1/3 dry commercial dog food of the highest quality we can.
1/3 meat: usually ground meat of some type and usually including organ meats. We cook the meat by boiling it in water for a short time, leaving it somewhat pink. This cooks it a fairly low temperature leaving many of the enzymes intact.
1/3 other things: Usually the other things are finely chopped vegetables (a food processor helps), but can also include eggs, cottage cheese, yogurt, table scraps and leftovers.

Our cat eats canned cat food with dry cat kibble available all the time (though he doesn’t eat much of that). This is supplemented with the same meat that the dogs get. He also gets more fish than the dogs do. When canned tuna or salmon is on sale at a particularly good price, we buy a bunch of it and use it instead of cat food.

Human foods to avoid feeding to dogs.

All that being said, there are some foods that we eat that should never be fed to dogs or cats, and some that are OK if you are careful. Different breeds and individual dogs may have vastly different sensitivities to these foods but the following list are some things to be careful about.

Grapes and raisins: These contain an unknown toxin that that can cause kidney (renal) failure. The toxin may be part of the grape itself or may be a fungal toxin.
Alcohol: Dogs do not have the enzymes we do that help buffer the effects of alcohol. It can depress brain function enough to send them into a coma and it can also cause their blood to become acidic. How much depends on the dog and the type of alcohol. A lot of dogs like beer so keep that away from them. The hops in beer by itself can be poisonous to dogs as well. I don’t know if the grape juice in wine creates a double whammy for that dogs as well.
Onions and garlic: Onions contain thiosulfate which can cause anemia and the effects are cumulative. Avoid feeding even small amounts since doing so over a period of time can be worse than a large amount all at once. Garlic also contains thiosulfate, though to a lesser degree.
Caffeine: Caffeine can cause seizures, irregular or elevated heartbeat, heart attack, as well as gastrointestinal problems.
Chocolate: The theobromine in chocolate is, like caffeine, a methylxanthine alkaloid. It should be avoided for the same reasons.
Macadamia Nuts: just a few macadamia nuts can kill a small dog. As far as I know, no-one has figured out why yet.
Yeast: Yeast can cause stomach problems and enough distension to black blood flow to the heart. Cooked breads are probably fine but avoid letting them get hold of raw dough.
Allergens: dogs are susceptible to allergies in the same way humans are. An allergy to almost anything can develop. The effects can be anything from mild dandruff to anaphylactic shock and death. If you notice failing health, a dull coat, trouble breathing, itching, inflamed ears, etc., this is one of the things to check for. Common food allergies include various specific types of meat or fish, dairy, and corn or various other grains.
Cooked Bones: While raw bones may be good for dogs, cooked bones can become brittle and splinter when chewed. Bone splinters can get stuck or cause punctures in roof of the mouth or anywhere in the digestive system.
More: A majority of healthy dogs always want more. It’s not a good idea to gauge how much to feed based on how much they are willing to eat. Getting too fat can be hard on their health for al the same reasons it can be hard on human health. Obesity can shorten a dogs life through stress on the system in various ways including heart problems and excessive stress on joints, tendons and bones.
Liver: Liver and other organ meats are excellent for a dog’s health and should be fed if available. However, too much liver can cause vitamin A poisoning, just like it can in people.

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