INTRODUCTION

This is a book about feeding dogs.  It will show you in simple language …..

• How easy it is to feed dogs.
• How to feed your dog for maximum lifelong health.
• How to save money on dog food and help protect our environment.

You will learn how to use bones, food scraps and other food items, cheaply available from your local supermarket to produce a bright, active happy dog, with a minimum of health worries.

It also challenges a widespread belief that dogs should eat processed dog food.  A belief that dog nutrition is a dead issue.  That the dog food companies have made the need for a book such as this totally unnecessary.

Thirty years ago this book would not have been necessary.  Thirty years ago, Australian dogs were fed on bones and leftovers.  Everybody knew how to do it.  It was common sense.  As a consequence, most Australian dogs were very healthy.

That method of feeding dogs is now lost knowledge for many dog owners.  It disappeared in the mid 60’s when processed dog food became popular in Australia.  In America that knowledge had largely disappeared by the mid-thirties. 

When i commenced my veterinary training in the early seventies, I did so with a background of feeding dogs on bones and scraps.  However, my five years of professional training taught me that I should encourage my clients to use scientifically balanced commercial dog food.  Apparently it was the best way to feed a dog. 

This lead to confusion.  I had no personal experience of feeding dogs on processed foods.  The result was, I was never quite sure what advice, I should hand out to clients.  This was difficult because the question – ‘’what should I feed my dog?’’ – turned out to be the most common question I was asked.

However, I decided that the best defence was attack, and turned the question around.  I started to ask people what they fed their dogs.

Meantime, I began to feed my own dogs on commercial dog food, something i had never done before. 

Over a period of about two years, my formerly healthy dogs began to suffer numerous problems.  Nothing major at first, but it was obvious that big trouble was looming.  At first it was minor skin problems, runny eyes, scurfy coats, annoying itches, sore ears, anal sac problems, the need for constant worming etc.  However, with time it became reproductive problems and growth problems.

The embarrassing thing was that my own dogs for the first time ever, were suffering exactly the same sort of problems as my clients’ dogs!

For me, this was a new experience.  Before I became a vet I lived in the country where our dogs lived on a steady diet of rabbits, raw bones, and table scraps.

Back then, my dogs were neither wormed nor vaccinated.  They became pregnant with no problems, and gave birth with ease to large litters.  They were healthy dogs with a minimum of fuss.

However, all those health problems my dogs were developing, did tie in with the answers I was given when I questioned people concerning what they fed their dogs.  I discovered that most people had exactly the same experience.  Those who fed commercial dog food, had dogs with problems.  Those who fed mostly bones and scraps had healthy dogs.

Over a period of eighteen years in small animal practice I have continued to ask that same question.  I have asked the owners of both sick and healthy dogs what those dogs eat.  The answers remain the same.  Most of the sick dogs are fed either commercial dog food or badly designed home cooked food, while the really healthy dogs eat raw meaty bones, plus healthy food scraps.

Looking back on my experience with commercial dog food, I find it interesting that it took me as long as it did to realise what was happening.  However, when I did, it did not take me long to make some changes.

In an attempt to do the very best by my dogs, and return them to a more common sense method of dog feeding, I began to read about so called ‘’natural diets’’.  It soon became obvious that the natural diets I was reading about were in essence, what I had always fed dogs.  Bones, and healthy food scraps.

The bulk of their diet became raw meaty bones including lamb and raw chicken.  The rest was mainly table scraps including left over vegetables, gravy, and scraps of meat, fruit and small amounts of cereals such as rice, mashed potatoes and pasta.  We added eggs, liver, kidneys, vegetable oils, honey, brewer’s yeast, kelp powder, cod liver oil and occasionally vitamin supplements.

I encouraged my client to do the same.

This New Diet Saw Brilliant Health

An incredible change occurred in all dogs fed the new diet.

No more skin problems, dental problems, eye problems, growth problems, reproductive problems etc. etc.  Less need for worming.  Their faeces were less smelly and there was less of them.  Their breath became pleasant.  Feeding them was cheaper, both in the cost of the food, and because they no longer needed expensive drugs or dentistry.

Over a period of two or three years I observed the results of many feeding trials carried out by myself and my clients.  They all made the same basic statement.

Raw meaty bones promote health in dogs.  Processed foods and cooked foods do not.

I began to realise that most of the disease problems we vets see are caused by only one thing – POOR NUTRITION.

The question I asked myself was.. ‘’what is wrong with cooked and proceed foods?  Why are bone eating dogs so healthy?’’

I have spent the last eight or nine years seeking answers to those questions.

This book is the culmination of a long process of seeking, learning, observing, reading, interrogating, researching and doing.  There are numerous well researched reasons why commercial dog food fares so poorly in the dog health stakes, and why the raw meaty bones approach works so well.  Explaining all of that is what much of this book is about.

More importantly, I have discovered that …

Feeding Dogs is so Terribly Easy

Most modern dog owners are taught to believe that feeding dogs is such a difficult task, it is best left to the dog food companies.. nothing could be further from the truth.  If you can get hold of a regular supply of raw meaty bones, you will have no problems whatsoever.

In fact feeding dogs can be explained in two or three lines.  ‘’Feed your dog a diet consisting of about sixty percent raw meaty bones.  The rest of the diet should consist of a wide range of good quality human food scraps.  Most of them should also be raw.’’

If you follow that advice, you cannot help but succeed.  Your dog will be healthy, long-lived and happy.  Not only that, you will save money with markedly reduced pet food costs, and a similar saving in veterinary bills.

What You Will Find in This Book

Chapters 1 – 4   deal with the nutritional dilemma facing modern dogs.  You will learn why most modern dog foods produce ill health, poor performance, difficulty in reproducing and short lives.

Chapters 5 to 16 examine the commonly available food items which can be used to make and keep a dog healthy.  The vital role of bones is explained, together with the use of vitamin supplements.

Chapters 17 – 22 talk about the practical feeding of normal healthy dogs.

The whole emphasis of the book is to show in a very practical way how easy it is to feed dogs for maximum health and longevity using low cost commonly available food items, many of which are currently used to wither make poor quality dog food, or simply thrown away.

This approach to feeding your dog is healthier for your dog, your pocket and dare I say it – for our environment.