What do you feed your dog?

[kate58]

Or your cat for that matter.

I worked for many years as a vet, treating pets. There is a massive increase in the number of obese pets and diabetic pets and they were a common sight in the waiting room. What did we do? Blamed their owners for feeding them too much and not walking them, told their owners that the pet's constant craving for food was not hunger but greed. You know, the usual stuff (guff) that fat people are told too.

I am now ashamed to admit that our first step in treating them was to put them on a special diet - even higher in carbs and lower in fat than the one they were already eating. These are carnivores - I feel so bad thinking of it and how wrong it was. But almost all I ever learned about pet nutrition I learned from pet food companies, and I believed it all. Duh.

Since I have been on Atkins I've been thinking about this a lot, and I've changed my own dog and two cats to a mainly raw meat diet for the last 5-6 months. They are as healthy as it is possible for animals to be. My dog is very old, he's somewhere over 14 and could be as old as 18, not sure because he is a rescue. He was looking his age and seemed to be feeling it. He isn't now, he is fit as a fiddle and his coat is magnificent. He is almost totally blind but that doesn't hold him back a bit - he flies around like a greyhound.

Have any of you thought about this? How feeding carnivores dried food which is very high carb and low fat - as all dried foods even premium ones and almost all tinned foods are - is potentially affecting your pet's health. They are carnivores after all, in the wild they don't eat a lot of carbs and can survive on none at all quite happily.

I really think that the pet food industry and their total hold over nutrition education is as bad if not worse than then the human food one. Almost every chair of animal nutrition in Veterinary faculties the world over is sponsored by one or other food company. It's a real closed world, where the dogma is that formulated high carb food is the best thing to feed your pet. I believed it. I don't any more.

[susan423]

Hi Kate,

I've thought about this too but wasn't real sure how to go about it. I didn't want to do more damage then good. My chiuaua is 13 years old. In pretty good health. Very picky about what he eats. Will only eat one brand and one flavor of dog food. But loves people food, especially chicken. Exactly what do you feed them and how much? My Jason is my baby and very spoiled. I would love to make him healthier and have him enjoy his food more. He does go for lots of walks with me so he does get his excersize in.

[kate58]

sI mostly feed them chicken legs, which I buy pretty cheaply in bulk and freeze.We eat them ourselves too!! I also get some beef bones, particularly ones with lots of marrow, from the butcher. Also general household leftovers in the case of the dog - the cats are all meat, again bone in thought they don't really eat the bones.

I feed them raw, skin, bone and all. He absolutely loves them, though isn't now as hungry as he used to be - surprise surpirse!!

I don't feed cooked bones as they have a tendancy to splinter. He hasn't even been constipated. My dog is a small terrier of undetermined parentage!! My thinking on feeding leftovers - which are mainly veg and meat - is that wild canines eat the stomach contents of prey they kill, so do get some veg type food that way.

I remember working with an elderly vet years ago who used to say all packaged pet food was rubbish and dogs should be fed raw meat, bone in, as they would eat in the wild. I thought of him as an eccentric old chap to be honest. He also used to say that people ate too much bread and potato and all they needed was meat and veg and a nice dollop of butter to make it taste good. And that Vit E was powerful stuff and kept you young (this at a time when Vit E was considered almost pointless and nobody knew about antioxidants). This sort of 'nonsense' just confirmed for me that he was indeed eccentric. Oh the arrogance of youth!!

He lived to be 94 and was healthy to the end - he still played golf well into his nineties. It should have occured to me he was on to something.

[OzLover]

I feed my cats California Natural...chicken & brown rice dry food. They do very well with this brand of food! We tried Innova which has no carbs. My older cats had a hard time with all the protein...some digestion issues so we went back to the California Natural.

My son swithed his dog to a raw food diet nearly 1 year ago & is very happy as is Rosie~~the dog.

[Carb Addict]

I have 3 dogs- 2 white boxers - one deaf and the other just stubborn. Their names are Maddy and Tinkerbelle. The king of the home is named Blue and he is a blue and tan mini dachshund. They eat Beneful or Healthy Vitality Pedigree.

We also have an albino hedgehog named Marley (after Bob Marley) and she eats Tasty Treats cat food.

[blue996]

My brother feeds his cats a raw food diet and they are super healthy. I am planning to switch mine over as they need to lose weight...then my whole house will be on Atkins!

[BIG TONY]

for the first year or so, eukenuba, raw beef stew chunks, and olive oil.
then just eukenuba

[sadie147]

I've heard about the BARF diet (bones and raw food) but unfortunately doing it here supervised costs way more than i can afford. I'd never take my dog's health into my hands and attempt to feed him bones and raw food without medical supervision personally. no matter how many people told me how great it is. My dog eats IAM's usually, and gets very little/almost no table scraps (i think this is a big issue with dog health). his treats are only organic dog biscuits.

I have a 4 year old Border Collie that is the centre of my life, in great health with an abundance of energy (as does every border collie LOL). I'm going to stick with his food as is..it doesnt seem to be doing him any disadvantage. I'm not going to risk what few years i have with him (i wish they lived as long as we do!) by playing around with his health. Sorry..but just my 2 cents.


Oh and i do suppliment him with fish oils also.

[Sera]

I feed our cats IAMS light dried food and they are thriving on it.
Lili gained weight after the vet made sure she couldnt have kittens but didn't tell us that the hormonal changes would make her eat more and she could gain weight.
she did get a wobbly tummy but has lost weight on that food and our vet says she is super healthy.
Gizmo gets the same "diet" and is healthy and not the slightest bit overweight.
they share 3 portions of about 50-100 grams a day and are doing very well.

I'm sure they would prefer meat but dont see a reason to change their diet when they are doing so well

[TheGirl]

I feed my cats Evo cat food. (They also make food for dogs and other pets) It is a grain free food.

I was told by two different vets and a few other pet owners it is almost as good as feeding a raw diet.

Here is a link to the site of anyone wants it: http://www.evopet.com/

It took my cats a few days to make the transition over to it, as I mixed it in with the food I was feeding them and gradually added less and less of that until it was all Evo. When they got used to it, they ate it just fine.

One of my cats was a bit over weight and is losing weight fine on this food.

(I have three cats total, btw)

There was also another brand my vet suggested, it was called "Taste of the Wild." It was another grain free food: http://www.tasteofthewildpetfood.com/

I was given samples of it and two of my cats would eat it, but my little one is a picky eater and snubbed her nose at it. lol