Newsletter Reference by Topic — 2017

How can I be sure the diet is balanced?
That answer is easy enough! Just make sure to add 900 milligrams of calcium to the diet.  You can use carbonate, calcium citrate or ½ teaspoon of ground eggshells per pound of food fed to your home-cooked meals.  Design the recipes to be at least 75% animal-based protein and 25% low-sugar (low-glycemic) cooked and mashed carbohydrates.

For raw diets, feed half the diet in raw meaty bones and half in animal protein with a slight amount of liver or kidney added.

The history of commercial dog food is short in comparison to the length of time that dogs have been companion animals. The use of bagged and canned foods became popular in the United States after World War II. Most people born in the last fifty years do not have any memory of feeding dogs in any other manner. The notion of the term ‘dog food’ has become so entrenched in the vocabulary that most people state they would never feed their dog ‘people food’. The misunderstanding is that food is ‘food’, and that commercial dog foods are simply heavily processed ‘people food’ that is specifically made for shelf life and economy.

Most grocery meat on the meat shelves used to come fresh from local butchers or the store had their own butchers who cut and prepared meat from the back of the store, or behind the main meat counter. They would age the beef, which enhanced the flavor and made the meat tenderer. That isn’t done much anymore – hardly at all! Today, most grocery stores buy their meat pre-packaged. This, in turn, has caused some additives and/or solutions to be added to the meat. Let’s take a look.