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Just like people, dogs need nutritious food in order to thrive.
The dogs that have lived the longest (30 years old is the record holder!), ate a HUMAN diet NOT kibble. My mom used to say anything with a commercial was junk. This holds true for dog food as well and of course is not just as simple as that. Even the kibble in the "best", most expensive pet stores is subject to marketing ploys and full of filler ingredients. Your dog needs very few ingredients.......fresh food. Kibble is easy so it has become popular. But shelf stable, HIGHLY processed food with some added vitamins, is not healthy. That's like if you ate chips with added vitamins daily. Not exactly a great diet.
I keep repeating throughout this website that a ROBUST IMMUNE SYSTEM is KEY. You get this through proper nutrition. Your dog will be strong, resistant to disease, or nursed back to health faster if you feed the immune system. I rescue dogs and they often show up with malnutrition, parasites, starved, infections, sick, etc. While it is important to address each issue separately (even though many treatments overlap), building immunity is ALWAYS the place to begin.
There are local places on Big Island to purchase premade dog food with meat, bones and organs already mixed together.
Menino Farms in Hilo offers premix options (pricing $5-$7/lb) as well as ground beef for $3.50/lb, and then you can purchase organ meat separately (for around $2.50/lb) and very affordably make your own dog food. It's not as intimidating as it sounds.
Kona Co-op offers bones, meats and organs for very affordable pricing.
Summer View Farms is located in Mountain View and offers premix for $5/lb, raw, meaty bones for $1/lb and grooming! 727-520-6261
Please contact us with any questions.
My 50 lb dogs often get this recipe:
12oz of ground beef
1oz liver
1oz kidney
1 raw egg
1/2 cup kefir
1T hemp seeds
1T nutritional yeast
2T food grade diatomaceous earth
1tsp MSM
1tsp kelp (for iodine)
1 scoop of green lipped mussel powder (manganese)
1T of coconut oil, bacon grease or tallow
1T nutritional yeast
2T of veggies (optional)
It takes me about 5 minutes to combine ingredients! Prepping organ meat portions once a month does not take long either. My dogs also have raw meaty bones as much as they want. This satisfies their calcium requirement. They will chew them and then come back to them at their leisure. Once a week they have large sardines with their meal and once a week they get a light meal or fasted day.
Calculator to calculate amounts of food for your dogs weight.
Raw Dog Food Recipe
35 oz ground beef (raw or cooked)
8 oz chicken giblets
5 oz beef liver (beef preferrable but chicken is fine) (raw or cooked)
8 oz quinoa (cooked)
10 oz spinach (cooked)
5 oz hemp seeds
2 tsp organic pumpkin (cooked)
1 unbleached egg with shell (raw)
2 tsp fresh, shredded ginger (uncooked)
2 tsp fresh, turmeric (uncooked)
Combine ingredients and mix well. Store in sandwich bags, freeze until ready to use.
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Here is another recipe for a cooked Pup Loaf
Please note: the image on the left is general. Avocados are actually fine, it is the seed that is the problem. Small amounts of sea salt are also fine. TABLE salt is what should not be consumed. Really by people or pets! Sea salt is life :)
Alternatives to feeding a fully homecooked or raw diet.
Do half canned wet dog food & half homemade
Do half kibble and half homemade (Farmina & Science Diet would be my choice of kibble if going this route)
Add Stella & Chewys Meal Toppers (or something equivalent) - this includes meat, organs and bone
Try adding dehydrated/freeze dried food (Honest Kitchen or equivalent)
Buy premade raw food to ensure balanced ingredients for property protein, organ and bone percentages. Too much or too little can cause issues.
Anything is better than a full store bought, kibble diet. Pick an option that makes sense to you and works with your budget.
What is in store bought kibble?
Preservatives
Fillers
Meal (left over meat)
TOO MANY CARBS! Most kibble is only 20% CRUDE protein and 50% carbs, when recommended carb intake should be MINIMAL with protein being 80%, then add bones and organs. Crude protein is determined by the nitrogen content and not the actually protein amount so doesn't even have to come from animals (dogs are not vegetarians) and the meat that does includes carcasses and other waste from slaughterhouse animals. A healthy balanced diet for a canine should not contain ANYWHERE NEAR 50% carbs. An unbalanced diet is linked to DCM, dilated cardiomyopathy, heart disease, not to mention cancer, joint issues, etc.
Over 1/3 of tested dog food in the USA contained shark DNA. Not only is this an issue because shark populations have declined SEVENTY PERCENT in the last 50 years which is NOT a sustainable rate and we NEED sharks for a balanced ecosystem in the ocean and we NEED a balanced ecosystem because 50-80% of our oxygen comes from the ocean........but also, this shows the lack of transparency in the ingredients. Shark is listed often as "white fish", " fish", "ocean fish", and "white bait". None of which lets the pet owner know what they are actually feeding their animal.
Do you know about the 25% rule?
Feeding Once Per Day
If your dog is constantly eating and digesting food, its immune system does not get a chance or the resources to look after itself.
⚖️ When you regularly fast your dog, you are essentially giving the immune system a break – a chance to breathe easy, detoxify the years of toxic build-up and restore balance
🤮 If the main diet consists of kibble the number of artificial ingredients, preservatives, and chemicals that the dog food industry puts into those bags would horrify you if you looked at the list of ingredients carefully
🤒 So imagine the stress on the body!
Dogs are genetically very similar to dogs in the wild.
How do they deal with food?
For starters, dogs in the wild don’t get to eat every day, so there is natural fasting.
“But I want to make sure my dog is well-fed and healthy”
By fasting your dog regularly, you will be doing just that!
Consider this:
What if you had to work every day, all days of the week, month after month, without taking a break for the weekend or even a vacation. You would burn out, you will get irritable and your productivity will suffer, and the stress will make you fall ill.
This is exactly what’s happening in the digestive system.
If your dog was living in the wild, and it fell sick, it would stop eating, even for days, to reduce stress on the system and to give the body a chance to fully recover.
As loving, best-intention, parents we inflict our emotions and become worried rushing our dogs to the vet for minor health related issues
There could be a slight detox response to this at the start, like vomiting or diarrhea. So don’t worry! Let them settle and then repeat the changed feeding pattern!
-Cherry Hoggs Training
Raw food also takes longer to digest but even if your dog is not on a raw diet, they should still eat once a day.
Treats
Below are some of the things I give my dogs for treats.
Carrots cooked in chicken or bone broth and then frozen
Bone broth mixed with gelatin and then frozen in silicone molds
Frozen organic chicken drumsticks
Raw food mixture above stuffed inside a trachea and frozen
Stella & Chewys Freeze Dried Meal Toppers broken into small pieces and then hidden in toys or newspaper placed in small boxes like the ones granola bars come in, old amazon boxes, etc.
Recommended books:
Feeding Dogs-The Science Behind Dry vs Raw https://a.co/d/2O4eZAU
The Forever Dog Life https://a.co/d/dmzZnUX
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