A veterinarian's take- our pets go through the same thing

(Cathy) #61

I took my raw fed puppy for a day visit at a very well respected pet kennel. They support raw feeding. I brought my dogs’ food for the day and she was fed it and apparently one of the workers offered her some kibble and was ‘amused’ that Zoe turned her nose up at it. This person did not get why I was perplexed at this… really gave me pause. I think it is a good place but even though they are ‘supportive’ to raw feeding, they don’t seem to ‘get it’.

#62

Ugh. Offered her some kibble?? WTF? (Pardon my French.) Good for your dog for refusing to eat it. LOL But still, that should be absolutely forbidden behavior. Ooh, you could tell them she had explosive diarrhea one day after coming home from daycare, and ask them if they fed her anything other than her diet. That might keep them from offering her junk willy-nilly.

Also, apparently, 9 days on the forums is when I start talking like I do in real life, swearing and all! Ha ha!

(Ken) #63

If you pay more than $1.00 per lb for your commercial dog food, even raw, you’re spending too much. You just need to find a wholesaler or develop a relationship with a butcher. You also should check prepared raw foods and make sure they’re not using the same protein meals found in regular dog foods.

Beef kidney is cheap by the case. I slice and dehydrate it to the point it’s still chewy. Same with chicken gizzards. The humble hot dog is about $1.00 per lb and contains lot’s of fat. Yeah, it contains some nitrates, but it has organs as well and is still far superior to Carb based foods. In a pinch, my dogs get hot dogs and eggs, and do just fine. Hot dogs, eggs, and chicken liver and gizzards. How much more simple could that be? And all about $1.00 per lb, much cheaper than premium, carby dog food, and a large dog needs only a pound per day.

(Mary McNeight) #64

If the concern is bacteria related, Sojos is a rawish version of raw food. Here is a link to it on Amazon. https://amzn.to/2IRr7wA Since its freeze dried, its theoretically has less bacteria than raw meat.

(Mary McNeight) #65

As important as it is to make sure our human food sources are eating species appropriate food (like ruminants eating grasses rather than GMO corn in feed lots), its also important to make sure your dog and cats food sources are eating biologically appropriate, species appropriate foods. Chickens fed GMO corn can cause a ton of inflammatory diseases in dogs and cats vs free range chickens allowed to peck, forage and find food on their own.

Mary McNeight, CCS, BGS
Director of Training and Behavior

Service Dog Academy - www.servicedogacademy.com
Diabetic Alert Dog University - www.diabeticalertdoguniversity.com

Featured Speaker at Association of Professional Dog Trainers Conference 2013
Winner of Dr. Robert Curran New Trix Award 2012
Winner of PAWS Hero Pet 2012
Winner of APDT Train Your Dog Month 2011

(Cathy) #66

LOL!!! Your language does not offend me at all. I was thinking the very same (wtf) when the worker was telling me about it. I was just a bit stunned and honestly and quite uncharacteristically, did not know what to say. I wish I had thought to call them the next day and tell them that!!!

(Cathy) #67

I have been questioning myself about my decision not to treat my dog for heart worm and ticks. Ticks are getting worse in this area (Toronto) but heart worm is almost nonexistent. I stopped treating my old dogs years ago and only on 1 occasion had to treat for fleas. I am opposed to treating for pests unless it threatens health and the cure is not the same treatment. Lyme disease seems different…???

#68

I can’t speak to the specific risks in your area, around here we have both mosquitos and ticks, though because I live in the city, ticks are uncommon unless people take their pets into forested areas or camping, etc.

Even though I am all about being as natural as possible, I’m also for prevention of disease, especially if the prevention is easy and the disease is something that can be life-threatening or leave a pet with permanent damage. So I’m not anti-vaccine at all, though I have frank discussions with people about what vaccines make sense for this area and how to minimize their frequency over a pet’s lifetime, based on real scientific research that has been around for decades. And I am in strong favor of pets (in my area) being on heartworm prevention. Treatment for heartworm is possible but dangerous and terrible in other ways (it’s an arsenic compound and is quite painful, requiring opioids for pain control), but even worse, a dog’s heart will never be the same again after having heartworm, the scarring is permanent. The prevention is not super expensive, and even for dogs with sensitivity to ivermectin, it’s such a miniscule dose that it doesn’t tend to have any negative effect. For most dogs, accidental ingestion of a whole box of Heartgard would mean maybe diarrhea, if even that. So it’s quite safe, with rare exceptions for allergies to some inactive ingredient or whatever.

Tick-borne disease is the same way, there’s more than just Lyme disease. Sounds like you’ve heard about the concern that Lyme possibly can never be completely eradicated after an infection, and I worry about that too. But there are other tick borne diseases, and it’s not only that they can cause lifelong issues but they can also be hard to diagnose sometimes. Around here I don’t recommend the Lyme vaccine but I think tick prevention is key. If someone’s going to be in a tick-heavy area, there are a number of steps I recommend including daily tick checks and different preventive products that tend to be unnecessary in the city but have greater protection against ticks.

The risks will definitely vary by region. Here’s my overall advice, I think everyone needs a vet they trust. Sometimes the right answer for you and your dog will be the natural and more hands-off options, and sometimes the right answer will be to use preventives and treatments. And if you know your vet understands and respects your preferences, but will still speak up when some hands-on action is truly better for your pet, you know you’re getting the best advice.

Sorry I don’t know what’s exactly right for your area but I hope that helps!

(Stephanie Pettinella) #69

As a registered veterinary technician, I approve this post! :slight_smile: <3

(Ken) #70

Interesting. GMO fed chickens causing problems. Can you provide the source?

#71

I :heart: vet techs! They keep me sane. :blush:

And as a note to all pet owners, they do all the work.

#72

I reckon the veterinarian giving nutrition advice for a puppy to include a commercial better quality puppy food would also be concerned about meeting the micronutrient needs of a growing animal. The protein and fat are not a huge concern in a homemade diet created by an owner who lives a low carb lifestyle. The risk of intestinal worms and other parasites (e.g. Toxoplasma) vary by location. So the local veterinarian is good for advice on those. The micronutrients such as the correct mineral ratios and essential amino acids are covered in a good quality puppy food. They would be the challenge to get right with home prepared meals and run the risk of nutritional disease. Once the puppy has grown, then the confluence of information and experimentation of a nutritionally well educated human and a pet dog’s home prepared diet have wider ongoing health safety margins.

#73

You’re absolutely right. And this is why I recommend using a commercial base mix if making homemade food. Definitely there are pet owners out there (some on this forum, apparently) who are doing a great job figuring out how to get an appropriately varied diet into their dog on their own without a base mix. But a mix (I’m thinking of brands like Sojos and Honest Kitchen here) makes it easy for anyone who wants high quality balanced nutrition for their pet without having to put too much thought into it. They can source their meat from a place they trust, and definitely animals that aren’t raised in crowded, intensive production environments are going to be more pathogen-free. But you’re right, pathogens should be considered. Anyone who is concerned about this can cook the meat, add the base mix, and still get an excellent balanced food.

As I mentioned previously, the reason some very high-end diets (and mixes like those mentioned above) don’t offer a separate puppy food is because all their dog foods are formulated to be appropriate for puppies and contain the necessary nutrients for growth as well as maintenance. When you’ve got an excellent food, “puppy” food is usually a marketing decision, something offered because otherwise puppy owners may not trust it. When you don’t have an excellent food, it’s an excuse to cut corners on the nutritional value of the adult dog foods while still making sure you don’t get stunted puppies.

When it comes to risk, we have to also factor in the inherent risk of some commercial packaged diets, not just in their nutritive value but also in quality-control. I’ve seen pets die eating commercial foods that were subsequently recalled due to contamination. At least for now (we’ll see as commercial raw foods become more and more popular) the quality control standards of the raw foods appear to be higher, and they should be, obviously. But the corners that are cut in producing some pet foods can be egregious at times, so the risk is there.

Lastly, when it comes to pets (probably as it is for people), nutrition requirements for commercial food have been mostly a work in progress. For example, it was only after a link was made (in the 80s maybe?) that cats were going blind due to taurine deficiency, that taurine was declared an essential nutrient in cat foods. But cats that were out eating birds and rodents didn’t have this problem because taurine is present in adequate quantities in the bodies of those animals (and in a lot of fresh meat). This is why I tend to advocate mimicking the natural diet as closely as possible. Who knows what other links we haven’t discovered yet between disease and random forgotten nutrients, right?

#74

I should add, I’ll never tell someone not to listen to their vet. They should get their vet’s opinion, for sure, and there are many who would disagree with me. But there are many who agree also, so do your research and definitely keep your vet informed of what you’re feeding.

#75

Regarding cats and eating natural prey, such as mice. There have been a few posts of observed longevity in some cats fed in part by supplemental hunting. It may seem quaint and ‘natural’ in a farmyard, or in a house with a mouse, in some places in the world to have cats hunting mice.

Two points to note:

  1. There are parasites that can cause disease in people that can be transmitted from cats hunting their own food. If you have a mouser, it comes along with the human responsibility to investigate and treat parasite burdens in that pet cat. Ideally, the money saved on cat kibble gets reallocated to regular, routine, monitoring blood and poo tests, to see if that pet cat has a treatable parasitic burden.

  2. In Australia, there is concern about feral animal impacts on the unique native wildlife. This concern often mutates in some areas (suburban rural fringe), and at some times, into an animal welfare issue where domestic pet cats (poisoned, trapped, purposely run over, or shot) are harmed by people who ‘love’ native wildlife (or their own poultry flock). There is also the animal welfare issue of the native wildlife being impacted by an introduced predator; the domestic cat.

The idea to mimic a diet of small prey using good quality ingredients for a domestic pet cat is good.

The idea and act of allowing a pet cat to roam and hunt is more complicated. The responsibility for the wider reaching, sometimes invisible to the cat ‘owner’, potential problems for the cat, within a community, and environmentally fall back on the human to increase their own awareness of issues and responsible pet ownership and exert control.

#76

Yeah, we have the same issues here, with parasites and the impact on populations of native wildlife, and the dangers that being a free-roaming cat brings. Cats love being outdoors but there are costs to letting them roam free, killing/eating whatever they find, fighting, etc. I do love a cat on a leash though, doesn’t everyone? (except the cat, I mean)

#77

Or like any pet (dog), or livestock (e.g. chickens for that keto staple, eggs), cats can experience ‘outdoors’ from within an enclosure. Dogs and stock are fenced in. People, including ketonians understand the delineation between private and public spaces, and hopefully not to go into natural spaces to wreck them. Cats, as much for their own health and safety, can be restricted in territory using an enclosure. Onecould enclose the chicken coop in a cat run surrounded by a dog zone. This is a modern world.

(Ken) #78

Cat predation on Wildlife is huge. Especially on birds. Particularly on fledgelings leaving the nest. My neighborhood was overrun by feral cats for a couple of years, I doubt that any young birds survived. I contributed to the problem, like many of my neighbors and fed them. I tamed many of them, then moved nearly 20 of them to several farms where they were well fed and valued as mousers.

About six months later an epidemic swept through and eliminated nearly all the rest of them.

#79

That’s a very compassionate thing you did. I’m sorry to hear about the epidemic. I guess it’s nature’s population control though. Is there a TNR program in your area so the cats you move to the farms are neutered and vaccinated? TNR does seem to work for reducing populations, but in many environments cats are so successful at providing for themselves that many of them manage to stay out of range and out of sight.

(Ken) #80

No such program nearby. The farmers were happy to have the new bloodlines introduced into their farms. They all instantly became"Barn Cats".