Disclaimer: I'm not a Veterinarian, just a 37 year old Engineer with common sense who's owned dogs all his life and watched them live full, healthy lives.
I recently had a heated discussion with some good friends about feeding dogs leftovers. I'm a fan, they aren't. It's my new mission in life to help Americans understand how wasteful we're being by tossing perfectly good food scraps to the trash. I'm not advocating cooking for your dog, ever. I'm only saying don't throw away the good scraps ... give’em to the dog instead.
My claim is that it's cheaper, better for the environment, more enjoyable for the dog, and better for its health to eat a variety of foods.
In no particular order, here are the arguments that were made:
- My dog gets diarrhea when I feed them "real" food.
- My dog will refuse to eat dog food if I let it taste the good stuff.
Let Nature take its course. Yes, most dogs will try to pull the 'ol finicky cat, but just let Fido skip a meal or two and you'll be amazed at how hunger will take over. Eventually they learn that they should eat what's in their plate - otherwise they go hungry for the night. And please, spare me from the "it's dangerous to be hungry" nonsense. Until the last 80 years, humans AND dogs routinely went days without a real meal. A little bit of hunger pain does the body good.
- My Vet says I should only feed them Science Diet, Iams,
, etc.
First off, notice what brand of dog food your vet is pushing. Hint: it's probably for sale in the reception area too. Secondly, understand that he/she makes money when you buy that stuff. Thirdly, realize that 1/2 of the USA is really stupid (2004 Elections??). If a vet says we can feed them real food, people will be tossing Brownies and chicken bones into the dog dish and they'll blame the vet when their dog gets sick. It's easier, and more profitable to say "no real food, period". Lastly, please try to understand that the dog food industry is not buying the best cuts of meat to add to their life pellets. They buy the leftovers, scraps, and lower grade cuts of meat that eventually make it to the dog food processing bin, along with a lot of food coagulants and preservatives. Amazingly, dogs made it to this century without Iams.
- My dog will gain weight if I ad scraps.
You simply adjust their daily dog food allowance to account for scraps given, if any. Example: Fido gets 2 cups for breakfast and dinner. At dinner, if I serve rice and beef scraps then I only give 1 cup of dog food.
- Dog food is specially formulated to provide all the nutrients my dog will ever need.
You are a fool if you believe this. We can't even build a formula for babies that is better than REAL mother's milk, much less a dog food. The dog food industry is lightly regulated (if at all) and there's no telling what ends up in that stuff. Look at their advertising slogans on the bag: made with real beef, made with real vegetables, made with real chicken. Well if you feed them REAL beef and chicken and vegetables, then how can that possibly be bad? As with humans, a balanced diet is best. Little bit of this and little bit of that will keep the Vet away.
- But I read on this website or that article that it's bad to feed them real food.
The dog food industry spends millions of dollars per year making this same point. There are obvious motives for wanting the food scraps to stay in the landfill. My bottle of shampoo tells me to "lather hair, wash, rinse, repeat", but I don’t. I'll be surprised if I don't hear from an Iams attorney within months of posting this. A dog's close relatives (wolves and coyotes) eat raw flesh and sometimes rotten flesh. And don't start with the "well apes eat their own poop, and they're our relatives and we don't eat our poop". In evolutionary terms we're much further from apes than dogs are from wolves. As a matter of fact most dog breeds can even mate with a Wolf or Coyote.
- What about chocolate, sweets, etc.?
Like I said, I'm no Vet but there's enough evidence out there to suggest you should never feed your pet sweets (to avoid cavities), chocolate (something about allergic reactions), or grapes, onions, and raisens. Use common sense. If you have a dumb dog that doesn't chew its food completely then don't give it chicken bones or giant pieces of meat. I do believe that certain breeds also have trouble with different foods. Do some research but keep an open mind and try to understand whether or not the author has a motive. Warning: many soccer moms are incessant worry warts and a quick search of the web shows me that they post millions of articles about not letting your dog eat real food. I guarantee the first hate mail I receive will be from Worrisome Wendy who sends her son Billy to school wearing a bike helmet, just in case he trips on the sidewalk. As with humans, avoid processed foods. I try to stick to the real food items only, like meats and their fats, seafood and their skins, breads, rice, cheeses, potatoes, and whatever vegetables they'll accept. Mine like the broccoli trunks I'd usually toss out.
- My dog seems happy now, why change it?
If you had a child, would you EVER consider feeding it only PowerBars for the rest of its life? Of course not. Why? Because eating good food is enjoyable and makes life worth living. Bacon isn't good for me OR my child, but I still eat it and so will my child. Same applies to Fido. Why deprive them of tasting all those great foods? Give'em a taste of the good life.
- You have no proof that eating real food will benefit my dog.
As a matter of fact I have a few real world examples. As a young boy growing up on 20 acres in rural NM, we had a few German Sheppards that were routinely fed a mixture of dog food and whatever scraps we had for the day. They lived long lives (about 14 years) and only visited the vet to have porcupine needles removed from their faces. Ask any farmer or small town folk and they'll tell you about the childhood dog they had who lived to 16 on a diet of leftovers and never ONCE visited the Vet. The examples are everywhere. When I met my girlfriend, her 10 year old Lab was on a strict diet of dog food only. This dog had frequent bouts of diarrhea and all sorts of stomach issues. Ever since we started her on a mixed diet, instead of eating horse, she's as healthy as a horse and MUCH happier. Admittedly, she loves me a bit more too.
2 comments:
I >do< cook for my dog. Every month or so, we go to the farmer's market and pick up whatever vegetables we can find for a dollar a pound or less (excluding broccoli, onions and the other things dogs shouldn't have).
Chop it up, mix it with 1/2 as much Textured Vegetable protein and a few cups of brown rice, and a couple of vegetable stock cubes (not for flavour, but for added micronutrients).
It goes in the fridge in freezer in small tupperware containers that hold a days worth of food each, and every night we take one out of the fridge, and by morning it's thawed.
Cheaper than dog food, much healthier, and the pooch does her happy dance every time the food comes out.
Since the food is vegan, we are in the process of supplementing with bulk nutritional supplements (Taurine, Beta-alanine, Vitamin B and D). The frugality of the dog food more than makes up for the cost of the supplements, when they are purchased in 1/2 kilo amounts (I'm not purchasing them just for the dog :>). I am doing a review of the scientific literature to determine how dogs nutritional requirements differ from humans before mixing the dogs batch.
And all this is far and away cheaper than the canned food alternative, in addition to being about as nutritionally sound as is feasible with contemporary science.
She gets the scraps too. There just usually isn't more than a snackerel's worth :>
Doh!
I forgot. To make the dog food, it's all dumped in a pot of water, and simmered until everything is soft and enough water has boiled of/been absorbed to make it easy to handle (ie not messy glop).
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