Chapter 18

Feeding the Adult Dog

 

LET’S AIM AT SOMETHING!

The first thing I want to discuss with you are the goals of objectives of feeding your adult dog.  They are pretty simple really.

• GOAL NUMBER ONE is brilliant health… both short and long term.

Short term, no dental problems, no skin problems, no ear problems, no eye problems, no bowel problems, in fact no health problems of any description plus a dog that is full of energy, bright, alert, active etc..

Long term, this healthy state should continue into advanced old age without any major disease problems.  That is, no heart disease, no kidney disease, no diabetes or arthritis etc..  Dental health should also continue into old age.  Poor dental health goes hand in hand with poor general health.

• GOAL NUMBER TWO is that your dog should maintain a steady weight, throughout it’s life.  That is, it’s ideal weight.  This will be achieved through a combination of eating and exercise.

 

The aims are Achievable.

• To maximise your dog’s health, including dental health, to prolong it’s active healthy life, to maintain ideal body weight and minimise health problems including the degenerative disease processes of old age, you dog should be fed a diet based on raw meaty bones, the way it always has been for dogs…. Until recently.
• In addition, you should consider the addition of extra vitamins, particularly the anti-oxydant vitamins A, C and E, together with B complex, particularly B1, B5 and B6.

 

FEEDING DOGS IS SO EASY !

As I started in the introduction, this book should consist of about three lines.  Those lines would read as follows……………

• ‘’If you feed you dog on a diet consisting of about 60% raw meaty bones, with the rest being made up of good quality human food scraps… you will have a healthy trouble free dog.’’

Those few words embody all of the principles I have outlined earlier in the book.  That is……

 

Principle Number One

• the bulk of you dog’s diet should be raw meaty bones.

Those raw bones with meat supply the bulk of your dog’s dietary needs, including it’s energy  requirements, it’s protein requirements, it’s mineral requirements (and that includes all the calcium it needs), and if the meat and bones are derived from chickens, most of it’s essential fatty acid requirements.  Great stuff !

Bones have mny other benefits of course, including most importantly … dental health.

 

Principle Number Two…

• feed you dog a wide variety of foods, based on the type and quantity of foods a wild dog would eat.

That is, lots of green vegetables (to mimic stomach contents of prey), some offal, (liver, kidneys etc.), meat, eggs, milk, brewer’s yeart, yogurt and small amounts of grains and legumes… etc..

The important point to remember is that apart from raw meaty bones, no other simgle food item should ever become the main part of your dog’s diet.

 

Principle Number Three

• Most of your dog’s food should be raw.

 

Principle Number Four

• Your dog should have a balanced diet over all, but not every meal need to be balanced.  Balance is better achieved over time, during the consumption of lots of different meals.

 

Principle Number Five

• Watch your dog and very it’s diet accordingly.

This mostly refers to it’s weight.  If your dog is becoming too heavy, you must feed it less food, less energy-rich food and you must feed it less frequently.  It also refers to more subtle indicators of health such as the state of the coat.  For example a dry lustreless coat would indicate that not enough essential fatty acids were being fed, and you would increase eggs or chicken or oil etc. accordingly.

 

Healthy Meals for Your Dog

The nutrients not suuplied by raw meaty bones include some vitamins, all carbohydrate requirements, (iodine ?), fibre, maybe some essential fatty acids and probably some longevity factors.

You are going to balance that basically raw meaty bone diet using foods which are mostly of plant origin, plus small amounts of offal, eggs, vegetable oils and dairy foods etc..

Green leafy vegetables should make up about 60% - 70% of the vegetable part of the diet, with grain and starchy vegetables being between 20% - 30%.  The offal portion of the diet, that is, liver, kidneys and hearts etc. should be about 5.0% - 15% of the diet.  Throw is some eggs two or three times a week.  More often if you wish.

To help you understand how to do this, I am going to describe a series of simple meals which can be quickly and easily prepared and fed to your dog.  These meals are based on the principles which we have been talking about, including food separation and combination.  They are meal ideas which you can use to balance up a diet based on mostly raw meaty bones.

I include first of all, the food list that was developed in Chapter 5.  Use this list as a jog to your memory when preparing meals for your dog.

 

Animal Products

Raw meaty bones from chicken, lamb, beef, rabbit, pork. 

Muscle meat from chicken, lamb, beef, pork

Organ meat – liver, kidneys, heart, brains

Eggs, especially the yolk

Cheese and cottage cheese, yogurt, milk, butter

Seafoods – any fatty fish, herring, salmon, sardines etc.

 

Plant Products

Fresh, green leafy vegetables such as spinach, outer leaves of lettuce, cauliflower, broccoli, brussel sprouts etc.

Corn, sweet potatoes (the yellow ones), pumpkin, squash

Mushrooms

Root vegetables, potates, carrots, radishes, turnips, parsnips.

Fresh and dried fruits – any of them

Legumes – peas and beans, baked beans ect

Whole grains including brown rice and oat flakes, wheat germ, wheat bran, wholemeal bread

 

Miscellaneous

Breyer’s yeast, kelp powder or tablets, molasses.

 

Oils

Cod liver oil, corn oil, soyabean oui, wheat germ oil, cottonseed oil, safflower oil, sunflower oil, peanut oil

 

RECIPES

 

The Green Leafy Vegetable Meal

Remember, vegetables are best fed raw.  Il you are unsure how raw vegetables should be prepared for dogs, please turn to Chapter 10.

• If you need to get your dog used to vegetables, steam and mash half of them, and add these to the raw pulverised vegetables.  Let it cool to body temperature.  For each cup of vegetables add from half to two whole eggs or yolks only, and a teaspoon of oil, and a teaspoon of apple cider vinegar, and a teaspoon of brewer’s yeast.  For variation, instead of the egg, add a similar quantity of cottage cheese, ordinary cheese, or minced beef, or one of the organ meats put through the blender.

Depending on how fat your dog is, you can vary the additives to this meal.  If your dog is fat, reduce the additives, especially oil and protein additives.  If you dog is too thin, these can be increased.

 

The Starchy Meal

This is a basically cooked meal.  It will consist of one or more of patatoes, rice, pumpkin, sweet potato, bread, pasta, oats etc..  To this add such things as yogurt, oil, dried fruits, milk and green leafy vegetable…suitably pulverised, brewer’s yeast and kelp.

Cereals are useful to feed in winter, particularly brown rice or oatmeal porridge.  Serve it up nice and warm.  For extra energy you may add butter or one of the oils.  During cold periods, you may have to feed extra food to maintain your dog’s weight, particularly if your dog spends a lot of time outdoors, and particularly if it is exercising a lot.

 

The Grain and Legume Meal

These must be cooked of course.  Combine approximately equal amounts of a cooked grain such as rice or oats and a legume such as baked beans or a three bean mix, or a soup mix etc..  To this mix can be added pulverised green leafy vegetables, preferably raw, and oil and yogurt and brewer’s yeast and kelp etc..

 

The Meat Meal

As the name suggests, this is where you feed mainly meat.  This will happen when you feed a large joint of meat on the bone, or a huge chunk of meat without the bone.  It will also happen when you feed minced meat.

This meal can therefore consist of any of the meats you wish.  Beef, chicken, lamb, veal, horse, kangaroo etc..

If it is minced, and your dog is not used to eating a lot of offal, mince the offal through this meal.  You can also add some or all of egg, fish, cottage cheese, vegetables, oil, brewer’s yeast and kelp.

 

The Milk ‘’Meal’’

This ‘’meal’’ consist of ordinary cow’s milk, about a cup, to which you add two or three egg yolks, or whole eggs if your dog can tolerate them (most dogs can), 5 to 10 ml of one of the vegetable oil, e.g. canola, or safflower or soybean or corn oil etc., one or two teaspoons of brewer’s yeast, and a pinch of ‘’lite’’ salt.

 

The Offal Meal

This meal will consist of one or more of such items as liver, kidney, heart, brain, tripe etc..  Many butchers will prepare a mix of this nature and label it ‘’dog’s delight’’.  Many dogs can eat an all offal meal with no problems.  Others will refuse to eat it, yet others will throw up afterwards.

Offal is important for your dog, containing as it does, many different nutrients including essential vitamins and minerals.

If your dog has difficulty eating offal, start off with a small amount mixed in with one of the other meals, such as the minced meat meal, the green leafy vegetable meal, or even the milk and egg meal .. after it has been put through the blender.

 

The Food Scraps Meal

The ideal way to approach any food scraps you may have is to decide into which of the above categories they fit.  The only reason you will do that is because having made that dicision, you can more intelligently balance your dog’s diet (over time of course), in accordance with the section on balance which you are about to read.

It is also worthwhile reading Chapter 15 for more information on food scraps as part of your dog’s diet.

 

Achieving Balance

This is absurdly easy.

• A balanced diet for you dog would consist of approximately 10 bones meals combined with 4 green leafy vegetable meals.  1 starchy meals, 1 grain and legume meals.  This would occur over a 2 to 3 week period.

The other way some of you may want to approach this question of balance is in terms of protein, carbohydrates, fats, minerals and vitamins etc.  That is, ideally you will wish to supply adequate quantities of all of these in terms of the essential amino acids, the essential fatty acids, together with the correct balance and amounts of all the different vitamins and minerals.

• That is the academic approach and very commendable, but also practically impossible.

Unfortunately, we still do not know exactly  what a dog’s requirements are in those terms.  However, there is no need to worry.  If you feed you dog as I have just described then it is impossible not to supply all those necessary nutrients for your dog.  Not only that, you will also supply nutrients necessary for your dog’s health which you don’t know about !

• NOTE :  If your dog is obese, feed lots and lots of veggies, in place of grain and meat… particularly feed the less starchy more leafy vegetables.  Lots of raw carrot is fine.  So is fruit.

Once More in a Nutshell

• To put all that in very simple terms, lots of raw meaty bones, fed almost every day, lots of green leafy vegetables, small amounts of grain and starch type products, some eggs, some oil, some dairy foods, and about once a week throw in some offal products.  Daily or several times a week add such things as brewer’s yeast and kelp.

 

GENERAL NOTES ON FEEDING YOUR DOG THIS WAY

Do Feed Different Types of Raw Meaty Bones.

That is, chicken, lamb, beef and even pork if it is not too dear.  We feed about 60% - 70% chicken, the remainder being lamb, rabbit, beef, pork or whatever.  The reason for the higher levels of chicken is partly because of availability, and partly because of the better levels of essential fatty acids in raw meaty chicken bones compared to other meaty bones.

• If other bones are more available where you live such as beef and/or lamb, use those.  If you cannot get a lot of chicken bones, you may have to add extra oil to give your dog adequate essential fatty acids.

The bones available will vary as to the amount of meat on them.  For example, if feeding whole chickens, or legs of lamb, you may be feeding lots more meat than bone.

It is better to reduce the meat in most instances.  For example, two parts of meat to one part of bone, or more frequently three or four parts bone to one part of meat.  Boned out chicken carcases are good in thes regard, as are chicken wings, or lamb offcuts from the butcher.

Up to 40% of the raw meaty bones you buy may be fat.  A lot of that fat will be in the bones themselves as invisible fat, but about half of it may be visible fat.

Is is often necessary to trim off some or most of that visible fat, particularly with very fatty chicken or with lamb.  This will depend on such factors as the weight of the dog, and the amount of work it is doing.  The harder your dog works, the more fat is will need to maintain it’s body weight.  Remember that raw fat is much healthier than cooked fat.

As your dog becomes overweight, it is important to reduce the fat, but pay more attention to a greater concentration of the essential fatty acids.  That is, make sure that the fats fed come from chicken and pork fat, or eggs or vegetable oils.

Some dogs simply cannot tolerate very fatty meat.  Only your own experience with your own dog will tell you this.

 

Bone Burying

When your dog proceeds to bury it’s bones, take them away.  Your dog is not truly hungry.  This is not a signal to stop feeding bones.  It is a signal that your dog is being fed too much food.  Fast your dog for at least twelve hours, and then try the meaty bones once again.

 

The Vital Question of Vitamins

Try and copy nature by supplying an over abundance of vitamins in your dog’s diet.  If you are unsure about vitamins, please refer to the section on vitamins in Chapter 5.

An excellent source of B vitamins is brewer’s yeast.  For a healthy 25kg dog, feed 1 to 3 teaspoons of brewer’s yeast daily.  If your dog has never had brewer’s yeast before start off with half a teaspoon and work up.  Remember brewer’s yeast is a very concentrated food.  Mix it into a suitable meal or dust the powder over the moist raw meat.  Not thickly… otherwise it just gets shaken off.  (Read about brewer’s yeast in Chapter 16.)

If your dog rejects food with brewer’s yeast in it, do not just toss the whole idea away as so many people do.

Enlist the aid of hunger.  A day or two without food will work wonders, and instead of a huge amount of brewer’s yeast, start off with a really tiny amount.. a pinch, one that the dog will never notice, then gradually build it up.  All it requires is patience.  You will get away with it, to the great benefit of your dog.  For a full discussion of brewers yeast see Chapter 16.

Note that you can use this method to get your older dog used to eating anything.  If your dog is young, encourage it to eat a wide range of foods, and you will never have this problem.

By feeding liver on a regular basis, you will ensure plenty of the fat soluble vitamins, particularly vitamin A, as well as many of the B vitamins.

If you want to be sure your dog is receiving a super abundance of healthy vitamins, just as a dog in the wild would, you can supply extra amounts of them as vitamin tablets or capsules.  Extra B'’ and C can only do your dog good.  You may use ‘’human’’ vitamins or ones packaged specifically for animals.  Quite often the human ones are cheaper.

• Vitamins may be purchased from your vet, your pet shop, your health food store, your chemist or by mail order.

If you want your dog to have a super abundant quantity of vitamin C, use a supplement.  Some of it will also come from the fresh fruit and veggies you will be feeding.  Also remember that the better the rest of the diet, the more vitamin C your dog will make for itself.

As far as the fat soluble vitamins go, most dogs will benefit from a carefully controlled supplement of vitamin A and plenty of vitamin E.  Extra D will be required by dogs which do not get a lot of sunlight.. for whatever reason.  For example in winter, add one to two teaspoons of cod liver oil once a week.   This will  supply both A and D.  You can also feed any offal meats such as liver, hearts, brains, kidneys etc. once a week.  These can be fed whole or cut up fine or minced and mixed in with other foods.

If your dog eats plenty of green leafy vegetables and/or liver, then vitamin K will be in abundance.  A feces eating dog also gets plenty of vitamin K, as well as all the B vitamins.

 

Iodine is Essential

To supply iodine, add some kelp tablets daily.  For a 25kg dog, you can give one a day, or one several times a week.  They are best crushed and mixed in with a suitable meal.  If you have difficulty getting your dog to accept them, do as for brewer’s yeast… starting off with a tiny amount and building up.  Let me repeat.. do not just give up.

Kelp will also supply other trace minerals.  Other sources of iodine include fish and dairy products .  vegetables may or may not contain iodine, it all depends on the soil in which they were grown.

Do not be tempted to use iodised salt to add iodine to your dog’s food.. well not on a regular basis or in large amounts anyway.  The ingestion of huge amounts of salt can cause just as many heart and kidney problems in dogs as it does in humans.

 

Longevity Factors

• Keep in mind always, that the greater the variety of fresh whole unprocessed foods you feed to your dog, and the more such foods come to make up the bulk of your dog’s diet, the more vitamins and other longevity nutrients your dog will be getting.

The longevity factors are supplied by any and all of the raw foods you are feeding, and also by supplementing with vitamins and brewer’s yeast.  For longevity always consider supplementing with the vitamins A, C and E, together with zinc, selenium and the multi B vitamins.  Your vet can supply you with selenium tablets.

• Do not be tempted to supply extra calcium.  By feeding plenty of bones, you have catered for your dog’s calcium and other mineral needs perfectly.

 

Feeding Lots of Polyunsaturated Oils – Caution

If feeding lots of these to improve your dog’s intake of essential fatty acids, it is most important to add extra anti-oxydant type vitamins, especially vitamin E.

 

Fitting in With the Family

 

In the Mornings

If it is your habit to feed the family a cereal meal, let the dog have the same.  Of course I don’t mean one of those horrible sugar filled processed cereals… not at all… I mean oat meal… or some other whole grain porridge.  Prepare it the night before by soaking the oat meal in water or milk… If using milk, then preferably raw.  E.g. goat’s milk is available raw.

Add honey, yogurt, dried fruit such as raisins or sultanas, dessicated coconut, sesame seeds or tahini etc..

On the other hand, you may elect to feed your dog his or her raw meaty bones in the morning.  This will give your dog something to do all day.  In this case you could make your dog’s evening meal similar to your own.  That is of course if you are feeding your dog two meals on that day.

 

In the Evenings

If your family is having meat and vegetables, consider a similar meal for the dog.  It does not have to be exactly the same as your meal.  For instance, you will not cook it!

A meat only meal is fine occasionally.  You might choose that particular night to add some organ meat to your dog’s food.  Some dogs love organ meat and will eat it with no coaxing whatsoever.  Others will need it minced and mixed through other minced foods.

 

Having a B.B.Q ?

You may elect to feed meat only on a night you are having a barbecue.  Preferably raw of course.  Yes, I know your dog will get the cooded left overs.  Like anything else… a little bit of what you fancy does you good.

• There is absolutely nothing wrong with feeding a few cooked meat scraps to your dog… occasionally.  Remember, it is what you do most of the time that makes the difference.

WARNING… Don’t forget that cooked bones can be very dangerous.  I have seen dogs with their insides impaled on sharp T bones or clogged up with ‘’bone cement’’ after a huge barbecue where all the participants simply threw their left over bones to the dogs.  So educate the children AND the guests!

 

Mincing Helps

If you decide to feed your dog a mainly green leafy vegetable meal, and this is a new idea for your dog, add a little bit of minced meat to the vegetables to make sure your dog eats them.  In this case, both the meat and veggies should be so finely minced and mixed that your dog cannot separate them out.  Some dogs are expert at this.

The other advantage of fine mincing means that the meat taste permeates the veggies.  It is a natural thing to do, because the dogs love the minced up veggies found in their prey’s intestines. On subsequent similar occasions, simply add less meat until your dog is enjoying pure veggies.  Remember, the choices as with your own food are endless.

Speaking of vegetables, you do not have to use the very best for your dog.  You can visit your local fruit and vegetable shop, and pick up the rubbish bits that would normally be tossed away.  These are usually available for nothing.  Also, all the vegetable peelings from the preparation of the family’s food may be minced up for the dog….use what ever you have.  The peels do in fact hold most of the nutrients.  Preferably feed them raw.  (see chapter 10 for details on preparing raw veggies for your dog.)

WARNING…  The only factor which would stop you feeding these outer leaves of vegetables etc. is IF they have been sprayed with chemicals such as insecticides, fungicides, herbicides etc..

 

Be Flexible

• Something I want to make quite clear is that you do not have to be a slave to any of the above.  Do not wander around feeling guilty if what you are doing is not prefect.  It never can be.  It is important to maintain a relaxed attitude about all of this and be flexible.

It is what you do over a long period of time that counts.  It will depend on availability, what you have in the freezer etc..  One week you might feed bones only twice a week, while another week, you might feed meaty bones every day.  Sometimes you may have to feed more grains that is ideal.  At other times, your dog might go for weeks without them.

• Be flexible, but never get into a lazy rut of feeding only one thing, and never loose the habit of regular raw meaty bones.

What you actually feed depends not only on what is available, but also on the size of your dog.  For example, small breeds of dog will do very well on chicken wings or chicken necks, or part of a lamb breast, or a lamb chop, or part of a rabbit.  Larger dogs will eat a whole chicken or a whole rabbit, or a number of pieces of lamb off cuts or even one of the giant beef bones… occasionally.  If you need to refresh your memory on bones, turn to Chapter 7.

 

The Question of a Feeding Routine

• I think it is an excellent idea to get your dog used to a variable feeding regime.  Sometimes 1 meal a day, sometimes 2, and sometimes none.

This has several benefits, including your lack of concern about being late home and not having fed the dog(s).  Also, if you happen to run out of food, use that as a very good time to fast your dog for twelve to twenty four hours.  Far more healthy than going to the cupboard and taking out that tin or packet of processed food you have been saving for just such a time.

It can be practical and healthy in other ways.  For example, if you feed your dog a particularly big meal of meat and bones, it is quite a good idea to follow that up with a fast of at least twenty four hours.

• A number of friends, clients and acquaintances have told me that for maximum health, their dogs are best fed every second or third day, particularly when they are not doing very much in the way of work, activity, exercise etc..

In this regard, it must be stressed they are not being cruel.  They are trating their dogs properly.  Far more cruel is to over feed a dog and produce obesity and subsequently poor health.  Perhaps the most cruel way to do that is with commercial dog food because of the severe ill health it causes.

Many people think it important to get their dog into some sort of routine such as always feeding the dogs at a particular time of day.  If that suits your lifestyle fine… go for it.

• Actually, such an artificial regime is quite unnatural for a dog.  It also makes YOU a slave to your dog.  Not a great idea.

One of the best ways of training a dog is to reward it for behaving the way you want it to.  The dog demanding to be fed at a particular time is not the way we like our dogs to behave.  If you are flexible with your meal times, you can use meals as an impromptu reward for a training session well executed.

At meal times, it is a great idea to train your dog not to eat until you give permission.  Put that bowl of food down, and have the dog sitting waiting for your command to allow him or her to eat.  This is just another way of establishing yourself as boss.  It makes for a much more pleasant and well mannered pet.

 

Feeding in Relation to Rest and Exercise

One very important feeding rule is to never feed a large meal before any sort of strenuous exercise.  Feeding should occur during the four hour period after exercice, but wait for at least an hour until the dog has cooled down.  That latter caution probably only applies with poor quality commercial dog food, but nevertheless, it is no a bad precaution to observe.

On that basis, for the average dog, spending most of the day being active, the main meal, the heavy protein or large starch meal should be given at night, with only a small meal in the morning.

 

How Much Food Should I Feed My Dog ?

This is a very common question asked of vets.  It sounds as though it ought to have a simple answer.  It does not.  Not only that, it is such an important question that i have given it it’s own chapter.. the next one …..