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As the popularity of raw diets and home cooked diets have grown, people often wonder about adding vegetables to a dog’s diet, and how much to use. There are many diets out there, how-to books, and so much advice on the internet that it can get confusing. In this newsletter I will present some information on vegetables to help you make your own decisions.
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| Feeding vegetables may not be entirely necessary, but they can offer benefits of fiber and calories in home cooked diets and they may offer some useful nutrients in raw diets. Bones in raw diets can give the bulk or ‘fiber’ needed for firm stools, but since cooking bones are not an option for home cooked diets, vegetables can help with bulk in diets not using whole or ground bones. |
Types of Vegetables
For feeding dogs, I will divide vegetables into two categories. These will be starchy and non-starchy vegetables. They are also called high glycemic (sugars) and low glycemic. For dogs, we generally like to stick to the non starchy varieties. High sugar vegetables can cause weight gain, gas, yeast problems and larger stool volume. |
Low Glycemic Vegetables Include
Dark leafy greens
Summer squash (such as zucchini and yellow crook neck)
Broccoli
Cabbage
Cauliflower
Brussels Sprouts
Green Beans
Cucumber
Celery |
High Glycemic Vegetables Include
Carrots
Winter Squash (hard rind squashes)
Green Peas
Potatoes (very high)
Parsnips
Rutabagas
Corn
Beets
Sweet Potatoes (moderate)- vomiting |
| Use mostly vegetables from the low glycemic list for best results |
Preparation
Dogs have difficulty with fermenting and breaking down of vegetables, so we try to prepare vegetables to allow them to be utilized as fully as possible. This is achieved by several methods, including cooking, steaming, pulverizing (as in a juicer or grinder) or freezing and then fully mashing when thawed. The vegetables can be mixed together and it is important to use a variety if choosing to use vegetables. After cooking, steaming or pulverizing, the vegetables can be frozen for future use. Be sure to thaw completely before serving. |
| Also note that when feeding dogs that have hypothyroid conditions, you must cook cruciferous vegetables, including cabbage, Brussels Sprouts, broccoli, kale and cauliflower. These vegetables have the ability to suppress thyroid activity, but when cooked this process is eliminated and then they are find to feed- diarrhea. |
Serving
Not many dogs will eat vegetables alone. I probably wouldn’t recommend the amount be over 20% of the diet if feeding raw, nor over 40% of the diet if home cooking (although note special cases may apply in certain health conditions, refer to the B-Naturals Newsletter directory for more information). Generally mix the vegetables with the animal protein and fat ingredients of the diet. This could include ground meat, organ meat, eggs and/or dairy. |
| If the dog’s stools appear too loose or voluminous, reduce the amount of vegetables or the total amount of food being fed. Too many vegetables and certain types of vegetables can also cause gas in some dogs. |
Nutrient Values
Vegetables are rich in vitamin C, vitamin A and B vitamins. They also contain some minerals, including phosphorus, potassium, magnesium, calcium, zinc, selenium, iron and copper. However, the calcium is often not freely available, so they are not a balanced meal (nor do they contain the right amino acids for dogs that are carnivores). It is also unknown how well dogs, as carnivores, can utilize these nutrients from plant sources. But they will not harm dogs if used in moderate amounts, with the bulk of the meal being animal protein and fat, and bones if feeding raw. In other words, small amounts are fine, and may even be useful for some nutrients. |
| Another form of nutrients found in vegetables is phytonutrients. These are not found in animal food sources and while it is unknown if carnivores can use them, new research is finding many benefits of phytonutrients. |
Phytonutrients include
– Carotenoids, from carrots, papaya, pumpkin, squash, sweet potatoes, broccoli, asparagus, kale, green leafy vegetables, peppers
– Lycopene, from tomatoes, tomato paste, tomato juice, watermelon
– Flavonoids, from tomatoes, sweet potatoes, cruciferous vegetables
– Indoles, from cruciferous vegetables
– Sulforaphane, from cruciferous vegetables
– Anthocyanins, from wild blueberries, bilberries, black berries
– Sterols, from cruciferous vegetables, cucumbers, squash, sweet potatoes, eggplant, tomatoes
– Elegiac acid, from Strawberries
– Lignans, from nuts and seeds |
| For dogs, probably the most phytonutrient dense vegetable to feed would be broccoli. |
| Since I don’t feed vegetables to my dogs, I add the Berte’s Green Blend, which contains the minerals, phytonutrients and vitamins found in vegetables from sea vegetation and alfalfa. Berte’s Green Blend also contains blue green algae, spirulina, Irish Moss and Dulce. The Fenugreek seed in it helps with digestion, and it also has garlic and alfalfa. I give my dogs (Rottweilers, from 80 lbs to 105 lbs) about a teaspoon a day. While I am not certain dogs can absorb nutrients from plant sources, I add this as an ‘insurance policy’ for good health. Sea vegetables are also good for color enhancement and GLA, an essential fatty acid useful to fight inflammation. |
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Famous Quotes About Dogs
“Heaven goes by favour. If it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in.”
– Mark Twain |
“Man is a dog’s idea of what God should be.”
– Holbrook Jackson |
“The average dog is a nicer person than the average person.”
– Andrew A. Rooney |
“To his dog, every man is King;
hence the constant popularity of dogs.”
– Aldous Huxley |
“If I have any beliefs about immortality, it is that certain dogs I have known will go to heaven, and very, very few persons.”
– James Thurber |
“Reverence: the spiritual attitude of a man to a god and a dog to a man.”
– Ambrose Bierce |
“Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend:
and inside a dog, it’s too dark to read.”
– Groucho Marx |
“A dog is not “almost human,” and I know of no greater insult to the canine race than to describe it as such.”
– John Holmes |
“If a dog will not come to you after having looked you in the face, you should go home and examine your conscience.”
– Woodrow Wilson |
“The disposition of noble dogs is to be gentle with people they know and the opposite with those they don’t know…How, then, can the dog be anything other than a lover of learning since it defines what’s its own and what’s alien.”
– Plato |
Quiz Questions
1. Which of the following vaccines is NEVER recommended?
A. Distemper
B. Parvo
C. Corona virus
D. Rabies |
2. Hypothyroidism can be caused by all of the following except:
A. Selenium deficiency
B. Overuse of antibiotics
C. Autoimmune Disease
D. Excess cortisol production
E. Too much iodine |
| 3. True or False: Once you begin giving a dog a thyroid supplement, their thyroid gland will atrophy, so they must be kept on the supplement for life. |
4. If your dog is diagnosed with hip dysplasia from x-rays, you should do all of the following except:
A. Panic and become depressed
B. Start supplementing with glycosaminoglycans, such as glucosamine and chondroitin
C. Watch your dog’s weight and make sure they stay lean to reduce wear on the hips
D. Keep your dog in good physical condition with exercise, but not to the point that they are lame or sore afterwards |
Answers to Quiz Questions:
Question 1
Answer: C. Corona virus is a “vaccine in search of a disease”. Since only puppies under the age of 5 weeks are at risk for this disease, there is simply no point in ever vaccinating a dog for this. www.ivis.org “Although approximately 50% of practices routinely use corona virus vaccine, most vaccine experts agree that this vaccine is not needed. Some experts consider CCV vaccines useless. Clinical disease rarely occurs with CCV infection and when disease does occur, it is usually mild, self-limiting and most commonly seen in pups less than 8 weeks of age – an age which is earlier than vaccine would provide benefit.” |
Question 2
Answer: Answer: B. Hypothyroidism is a disease with many different causes (although overuse of antibiotics is not among them), and so what works for one dog may not work for another. |
Quesion 3
Answer: False. It is not always easy to determine if a dog is hypothyroid or not, and some dogs with low normal thyroid tests will benefit from thyroid supplementation. There is a lot of support for doing a thyroid supplement trial if your dog shows symptoms of the disease. There is no harm at all in trying a thyroid supplement for six weeks or so to see if it helps. Even dogs that have been on thyroid supplements for years can sometimes be weaned off them (this happens occasionally when dogs are switched to a raw diet). |
Question 4
Answer: A. Many dogs with hip dysplasia lead normal lives, and your dog may never show clinical signs of the disease. Keeping your dog lean and muscular, and giving supplements that help protect the joints, will help insure that your dog remains as sound as possible. |
Contact Me
If you would like to ask me any questions about my products, I would love to hear from you. Please check your return address when you send me email from my web site and try to write me again if you have not heard back from me. |
To email: lew@k9nutritionwithlew.com
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| Copyright 2005 Lew Olson, All Rights Reserved |
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