Dog Nutrition & Dog Breeding

[sweetabbey]

Dog nutrition and diets is an extensive subject and not conducive to abbreviating to a discussion thread. For those who have an interest in dog nutrition this link will take you to three articles that have been published in New Zealand Dog World as well as a common sense book on dog breeding written for the novice dog breeder.

http://www.lapdog.co.nz/reducehip.php

The articles include: Reducing the Risk of Hip Dysplasia in Large Breed Dogs. This article is the summation of a year long study on diets fed to 7 Golden Retriever puppies and the results in terms of hip and elbow scores.

How A Dog Digests Food. This article looks at how the dog's digestion system works and why the dogs in the study achieved the results they did. It also includes information on what molecularly natural Vitamin C is and why it is important in the dog's diet.

Choosing A Diet For Your Dog. This article takes all the varieties of dog foods on the worldwide market and slots them into 7 categories with pros / cons that enable the dog owner to give thought to different diets and help them to choose the diet that is best for their dog.

[Calienta]

Hey, a fellow dog lover! :D

I made a thread back on Oddthought a while ago about dog nutrition ... I'll quote it here for anybody who's interested.


For those of you who are interested in feeding your dogs the best foods in order for them to be as healthy as possible.

Regardless of what your vet may tell you, the food they sell is CRAP. Vets don't take much in the way of nutrition training in University. What they do learn is taught by the nutrionists at the petfood companies who end up sponsoring the vets afterwards. Kind of a you rub my back I'll rub yours scenario.

DRY KIBBLE AND WET CANNED FOODS

Rule of thumb. If you can find it in a grocery store, it usually isn't any good.

BAD: Purina, IAMS, Eukanuba, Nutro, Hill's Science Diet, Diamond ... to name a few of the most well-known brands.

WHY?: Just look at the price. They are too inexpensive to contain good quality meat, and not much meat either, at that. So they put in inexpensive fillers such as gluten or wheat to buff up the food but keep the price down. Why would you feed your dog wheat? Do you think a wolf would go raiding the farmer's field to eat it? No. So why would your dog like it any better?

GOOD: California Natural, Innova EVO, Canidae, Orijen.

WHY?: More expensive than the other brands, they have a much higher quality of meat in their product and less-to-no fillers at all. They also don't pay an arm and a leg for expensive advertising, fancy packaging, or the right to be stocked in every grocery store in the country. Therefore, the quality goes way up but the price, in comparison, hardly does. Only small health or boutique pet stores sell these brands.

You will also save a bundle in vet bills. Bonus!

Here is a great site that allows you to pore through the ingredients and get a rating of how good (or bad) your food is. I just tested EaglePack and they've gone down due to having meal instead of a proper meat, two rice ingredients in their top 5, and corn. Poo.

http://www.k9cuisine.com/RateYourDogFood.aspx

RAW FOOD

Kibble and canned foods were designed only about 30 years ago to provide ease for pet owners. What did dogs eat before then? What do wolves eat in the wild? Well, wolves and dogs are omnivores. They kill animals and then chew their bones, eat the meat and whatever was in the stomach.

Wolves don't get arthritis, allergies, cancer, etc. So why do our dogs get so many diseases? Nutrition plays a major part in a dog's health. There are NO studies out there that show that a dog's Gastro intestinal (GI) tract is any different from that of a wolf. So why should we feed them any differently?

Things to note: There are studies out there that will argue against raw food. Because studies are incredibly easy to manipulate (ie: the company funding the study wants a specific outcome, most of the time that outcome will be found) I put more credit on the experiences of breeders and regular owners.

Also, you must be VERY careful when feeding raw. Raw food can contain salmonella, and while dogs are immune to this, humans are not. Always wash your hands after handling the food, and clean the food bowl/countertops thoroughly.

PRE-PACKAGED: Nature's Variety, Oma's Pride, ZiwiPeak, Mountain Dog Food, Pets4Life and Healthy Paws, to name a few, are all manufacturers of frozen, raw dog food. These contain human-grade meats such as chicken, venison, beef, lamb, rabbit, etc. They also contain bones, eggs and veggies -very important sources of calcium and vitamins. The great thing about these products is you don't need to worry about what you're feeding and if you're getting the correct amounts. Each patty/medallion is composed of specific ingredients and is formulated to provide everything your dog needs.

MAKING YOUR OWN: This is a very time-consuming but cheaper and BETTER alternative to buying pre-packaged raw foods. Most things that we eat, dogs can eat. If you can stomach preparing it yourself, I would suggest to do it this way. You have the benefit of knowing exactly what is going into the food, it can be changed around depending on what your dog likes/dislikes, and it's a good way of getting rid of meat or veggies that will expire in a day or two!

Go to your butcher and see what he offers in bulk for discount. Chicken and turkey necks, backs (yes, raw bones are fine for dogs, they do not break like cooked bones), venison during hunting season, livers, hearts, anything a wolf would chow down on is okay for your pet.

Go to the grocery store and get whatever fish and vegetables are on sale. Also pick up eggs, yogurt (with probiotics), sprouts, etc. There are people out there who will say a dog/wolf doesn't need veggies, that he is in fact a carnivore. Yes, it's true a wolf won't go pick a carrot out of the ground to eat it. But he will eat an entire rabbit, and that rabbit ate a carrot a few hours before so the wolf is now eating it too. My only advice here is that you should try to base your feeding on what would a wolf be eating in the wild?


There are plenty of sites out there, I would suggest you do your own research as I am NOT an expert on this subject, although I have done hours and hours of reading into nutrition, as I want my dogs to be the healthiest possible. But if you decide to go raw, please do your own research and come to your own opinions.

[Nox]

Awesome. I'm constantly begging to be permitted dogs at work so I can get a golden retriever, I need to start being optimistic about that and gathering this sort of info.

Calienta, I seem to recall you had entered a National Post contest you linked in another thread, are you Canadian? If so, any chance you can recommend somewhere to buy pre-packaged raw food? I've been reading about raw diets but I just don't have the freezer space for collecting stuff from a butcher.

[Calienta]

Yes I'm Canadian, I live in Ottawa. I was actually just in Toronto last night for the Tragically Hip concert for Goodlife Fitness employees (I don't work there I just exercise there and weasled my way in).

You can buy great pre-packaged raw from Global Pet Foods / Ryan's. They sell Nature's Variety, among others, and I fed it to my dogs for a time.

[sweetabbey]

Hi Nox,

There is a Yahoo group dedicated to helping dog owners who want to start out feeding raw -- it's called Rawfeeding. There is anther Yahoo group that links distributors and buyers of raw foods. There is also an excellent Yahoo group called UKGoldens with 700 Golden Retriever breeders, show, field, obedience and just plain Golden pet lovers that will provide heaps of general information, but not particularly good on nutrition. Below is the contact info for the Toronto Golden Ret Club. The secretary should have a list of accredited breeders that have current litters.

Club Name GOLDEN RETRIEVER CLUB OF GREATER TORONTO
Address 2 BEARE ROAD
City SCARBOROUGH
Province ON
Postal Code M1X 1P6
Phone Number (416) 284-5112

Also Michelle Seabourn is a Canadian animal nutritionist plus she and Rick have been breeding Golden Retrievers for several decades. Michelle helped me get started using the step-down diet back in 2003.
Michelle Seaborn & Rick Stopps
Silmaril Kennels (Perm. Reg.) Canada
http://www.silmaril.on.ca/page2.html http://www.silmaril.on.ca/key.html#INDEX

I PURPOSELY started a new thread on this because of Cali's generalizations. They can be VERY DANGEROUS and I don't agree with all she wrote and resent her repeating her thread again on this thread. Saying that dogs can eat what people eat is leading people down a very dangerous path. For instance, dogs can die from eating raw root veggies and onions. Too many green leaf vegetables can cause thyroid problems. It is for this reason I started the new thread and put the link to the articles I had published in NZ Dog World which go into more detail and provide the cautions necessary about different diets. There is no "quick read" on the subject of nutrition to understand everything one needs to know when they decide to feed their dogs food other than commercial foods and obtain good results.

By the way, the first article was a study on 7 Golden Retrievers puppies fed on different diets including traditional grain based kibble with additives that reduced their 16 week hip x-ray scores by 11 points at the time of 1 year of age. There was also a puppy in the study fed raw food who scored best. And there was a puppy started on the BARF Puppy Diet and then switched to grain based kibble at 7 months who was the highest scoring puppy. It was only a mini study, but provided much food for thought. The puppy's diet is very critical during the first 18 months, but understanding the digestive system and how dogs actually digest their food is equally important. Dogs do not have the enzymes needed to digest grains -- so they pass through the dog with very little, if any, benefit. This is why grain-free / raw diets are better for dogs.

Cheers, sy
Lorgair Golden Retrievers
New Zealand
www.lorgair.com

[urique]

Nutrition for our dog is very important. I just found out that dog also has possibility to get diabetes like human do...
For dog breed, health, and training information there are good article at World of Dog (http://www.dog-training-career.us).

[sweetabbey]

Response to Cali's statements above ....

Rebuttal on the reply above -- "RAW FOOD"

"Kibble and canned foods were designed only about 30 years ago to provide ease for pet owners."

Rebuttal: Commercial dog foods were introduced in the 1950s and a few earlier than that. Prior to the 1950s there were very few cases of hip dysplasia reported.

"Well, wolves and dogs are omnivores. They kill animals and then chew their bones, eat the meat and whatever was in the stomach."

Rebuttal: The Grey Wolf and the dog's DNA is only 0.2% different, so yes, dogs and the Grey Wolf are extremely close in make up, BUT both are carnivorous, not omnivores. Dogs do not have the enzymes to enable them to digest cellulose which is a normal part of vegetable matter. The stomach content of wild animals is eaten by wolves, but not as their primary intake. Further the stomach content is in a "pulverized" or pre-digested state making it of benefit to the dog. An example of this is green tripe found in the stomach of cows Therefore, if we humans are going to feed dogs vegetables, we need to pulverize them so the dog can derive benefit from them. Otherwise, like grains, they just go through the dog's system without digestion or benefit. We also need to be fully aware of which vegetables are toxic to dogs so as not to kill our dogs. Also dog's do not do much chewing action because their jaws are not designed to be able to chew. They rip and tear and digest their food, including pieces of bone in their stomach.

"Also, you must be VERY careful when feeding raw. Raw food can contain salmonella, and while dogs are immune to this, humans are not. Always wash your hands after handling the food, and clean the food bowl/countertops thoroughly."

Rebuttal: Dogs are not IMMUNE to salmonella and other parasites. They do have better enzymes than humans to deal with these nasties, so can handle them better. However, a dog with underlying health issues will likely not be able to ward off toxins and parasites. I would imagine that the statement made about dogs being immune to salmonella would make most vets shiver. Also it is worth noting, that dogs that have been fed on commercial grain-based diets for any period of time, may need to be introduced to eating raw foods slowly in order to re-establish the enzymes needed to digest raw foods. Feeding one type of raw food for a week or two is a good start.

For those who are interested in raw feeding, please take the time to research, read, and join a group like the yahoo rawfeeding group, to understand the basics of feeding raw. A dog fed nothing but chicken necks is not going to get the nutrition needed to keep them in good health. It's not that simple! And another important note -- never give cooked bones, except fish which have soft bones even after cooking, to a dog as the bones will splinter and may cause problems that lead to an emergency vet visit.

People feed commercial dog foods because they are convenient, inexpensive and don't require time to prepare. If you are a dog owner that is feeding their dog this way, think hard before you switch to raw feeding. Better to buy one of the high quality grain-free kibbles on the market than feed an inappropriate raw diet to your dog. A good website that provides analysis on dog foods is -- http://www.dogfoodanalysis.com There you will find dog foods with 5 and 6 star ratings that are grain free such as Orijen and Canidae grain-free.

For those who still wish to feed grain-based dog foods, look at supplementing with a complete supplement like Dr Kruger Ultimate Supplements to fill in the gaps for the missing vitamins, minerals and trace elements in commercial kibble. It also has 4 digestive aides that will help with the break-down of the grain in the dry kibble. http://www.drkruger.com Grain based kibbles are normally 40% to 50% grain which is of no nutritional value to the dog and can lead to auto-immune deficiency and thyroid problems. Another issue with grain-based kibble is that the processing causes the protein to bind to the carbohydrates making the protein hard to digest. Adding a high quality complete supplement to the meal will help to counter the affects of feeding grain-based dog foods.

The reason I trialled grain based kibble dog foods on puppies for so many years, was because I could not get puppy owners to feed raw or home-cooked diets. So I worked to find a healthy way to feed the grain-based foods and set down guidelines for puppy buyers as to what dry kibbles were good and which were not good plus provided them with the additives including 20% cooked meat/vegetables to the diet to make the commercial diet reasonably healthy. This is all in the first article -- Reducing the Risk of Hip Dysplasia in Large Breed Dogs (link to article at the beginning of this thread). Is it the best diet to feed a dog - no - but it is no worse than feeding an inappropriate raw or cooked diet. Any diet can lead to cancer, tumors, and other health issues when it is not an appropriate diet that is balanced for the needs of the animal / human or contains carcinogenic ingredients.

[Calienta]

Precisely why I said I am not an expert on the subject and that people need to do their own research. Of course there are some foods that dogs can't eat. Was I about to make a huge, pages long post to cover everything? Definitely not! I made some generalizations and then instructed the interested parties to further their knowledge on their own. I didn't go into detail about the preparation of the raw diet, which, yes, includes pulverizing the vegetables.

People have different opinions and studies show different things. Please take what we've both said and form your own conclusions, along with doing your own research.

In any case, everybody reading this is much more informed than before so I think we've both done some good.