Keto for my little dog?

(Michelle) #42

I was surprised how little my woof will need but it’ll be concentrated and not full of filler. I’m glad someone could help you with the math! We use metric in New Zealand so there’s no way I’d have been helpful :joy:.

(Denise) #43

she’s itched a bit between shampoos before so it could be why she is now, but just for last 2 days so hope it isn’t the change in food. I’ll just feed her kibble as she isn’t due for her bath yet and see if it makes a diff.

That makes a lot of sense too about the fillers in dry dog food. There’s got to be some I would think, just to hold it all together :wink: even in the most expensive dry stuff in my way of thinking anyway.

PS btw, I hear her crunching on her kibble so she is eating even though no lamb in there :wink: so that’s a relief :wink:

(Allie) #44

in dogs eating certain pet foods, many labeled as “grain-free,”

Commercial foods with ingredient lists, none of them are any good. I would say this is nothing to do with the foods being grain free and everything to do with them being mass produced “food like products”.

My boy gets raw food, either beef, or beef & tripe, or venison - no fillers, no crap, nothing nasty. He gets eggs too, at least two raw eggs a day, often four.

(Allie) #45

@Goldengirl52 it’s really a case of experimenting and finding what works for your own little one. Coconut oil can be added to her daily meals, or you can make it into treats by freezing it (I use silicone molds meant for making chocolate), most dogs love crunching on them and dogs need saturated fats.

You need to make sure she gets a small amount of organ meats and some bone too, not just muscle meats. There are some good raw complete foods available but I don’t know specifically about where you are. If she can have them, chicken wings / necks are really good as they help clean teeth too.

It’s taken a long time for me to get Bertie’s diet stable as he has lots of allergies / intolerances which I’m sure are as a result of him being hand reared. He can’t have chicken or any poultry, can’t have lamb, can’t have wheat or most grains but seems OK with oats, can’t have pork (found out by feeding him wild boar), dairy has horrific effects on his digestion which he hates because he loves cheese. We tend to stick with beef / beef tripe / venison.

#46

I’ve been making my own dog food for years and since I went Keto my dogs have too. In the uk we have a few companies that supply a 80/10/10 blend ( 80% meat, 10% mixed organ, 10% ground bone) ive found one that uses human grade meat and sends it out frozen via courier- very convenient.
I add pulped berries ( veg and fruit fed to dogs much be pulped or blended, they can’t break down cellulose) seaweed granules and coconut oil. I used to cook it all up with oats or rice but now I feed it raw no grains ( they get fish and eggs twice a week too). The benefits are, just like with people, many- my old girl with a delicate stomach and a tendency to vomit all over the sofa has really thrived and no more puking- hurrah! The other two maintain their weight well and are really glossy with fantastic dental heath. I switch up the base meat mix every so often for variety.
I don’t know if anyone has mentioned this already but dogs have a huge calcium need so if you are making your own food either feed one with ground bone in it, supplement calcium, or add dried ground eggshells to their food.
Hope that was of some use to you :blush:

(Denise) #47

Hi Allie,

Just today I’ve started using up the lamb and just barely cooking it in a little coconut oil. I’m just feeding 1/2 first thing in the a.m. with a tbsp of her kibble. Then at evening meal I’ll fix the other half. I just don’t like eating in front of her and I’ll see how she does on that again, watching if she continues to itch. She didn’t yesterday, but the wind has been blowing the pollen and other junk around for all our beautiful Summer days here on the coast. I hope to be moving from here soon, as I love being outside riding my bike, walking, doing anything I can to be outside.

I tasted the lamb and don’t like it, so thanks for the different recommends. I can buy liver, and maybe find some bones etc. at our meat-counter. I don’t think chicken bones though. She has something I guess many little dogs have that makes it easy for things to get caught in her throat and she gags a little.

(Denise) #48

It sounds good although can you give a brand name here so I can see if we have that kind of thing in the US? I can look on Amazon too, but I suspect it would be very costly. I’m low-income, and I think the best way to go is let her eat the meats/fish I eat, and add in supplements/bone. What about bone broth? Does that have the calcium? Seems like it would. I always have beef and chicken broth in the pantry.

I think a lot of people, and some that live here are amazed, at how healthy she is compared to when I first got her. Her teeth, coat, activity is amazing on the dog food I’ve been feeding her already. I just don’t know about long term is all, what’s really best for her. I wish I was 100% sure but nothing in life seems to be that certain ;(

(Bob M) #49

Anyone know why the meat supposedly has to be raw instead of cooked? I haven’t been able to figure that out.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #50

Presumably because wolves eat raw food in the wild, and also, presumably, because cooking destroys valuable nutrients. I’m not really sure how relevant either notion is. Dogs have become a very specialised type of wolf, after many, many thousands of years of cohabiting with people; I imagine they’ve been tossed tidbits from the fire for as long as we’ve been cooking (a million years, in some estimates). And cooking releases just as much nutrition as it damages, seems to me.

(Bob M) #51

I would think cooked meat would be fine. My wife’s brother uses cooked meat for his dogs.

Most (all?) of the good food for dogs are raw though.

My puppy does like beef, though doesn’t like lamb (store-bought food; not sure about lamb we make).

I should say I’ve done no research on cooked versus raw meat, though.

(Denise) #52

I don’t believe what I found at our Grocery Outlet today! Only 2 packages left of Grass Fed, Ground Venison from New Zealand. No antibiotics, all the good things you want to see on a package. I grabbed them both, 5.99 each, lengthy sell by date and all. I bet Mimmie will love that. Also bought Chic. breasts so I have a freezer full enough to last her quite awhile :wink:

No more lamb as I did give her some this a.m. but did not notice new red spot on her chest. She hasn’t had a mark on her since a week or two after I got her. I’m thinking it’s the lamb but I may be wrong. We’ll see what happens after a few days w/o any of that. I also spent a good amount on her Shampoo and conditioner that took care of any fleas, or red-spots she had when I got her. She loves her baths :wink:

Tonight just her kibble with a little wild caught Salmon I’m having for dinner too.

(Denise) #53

I’m doing cooked, I just feel more comfy with that and we’ll see how she does :wink: She already seems to have even more energy, and less poop. I know about those fillers in dog food and home no one is too sensitive here but she was taking pretty big dumps for such a little thing. I’m thinking now she is absorbing more nutrients instead of stuff coming out her body isn’t using :wink:

(Allie) #54

Species appropriate, dogs / wolves don’t cook their food.

(Denise) #55

Last night, with no issues, so far, Mimmie and I had Wild Caught Salmon. I just gave her 1.5 oz of that, and just a few kibbles bits as scared to go completely without, but getting more brave as thing are going so good. This a.m. I decided on her just having a 1.5 oz of my omelette before I put the cheese on. Picture below. So there is egg, sausage, spinach, chia seed, nutritional yeast, and flaxseed same as I eat, tsp of each on whole omelette, then cut off her chunk. Also, my breakfast sausage is so lite it’s not seasoned pretty much. Hope it sets well with her today. Used olive oil, usually butter but for her, I don’t want dairy.

Gonna take her out now, and here’s a pic of her brekkie :wink:

breakfast
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(Bob M) #56

While that’s true, it’s unclear what cooking does to meat. Is there a change in the protein? Something that becomes less available (to overcome what the cooking improves)?

The main reason for wanting to know is because cooking meat at least reduces the possibility of pathogens.

(Megan) #57

Hi Goldengirl,

I feed my dogs a mix of raw meat (usually chicken because it is the least expensive here), raw eggs, some raw lamb liver once a week, tinned mackerel in natural oils cooked up with wholegrain oats every week or two (make sure you cook the oats thoroughly) and Acana kibble (grain free). And sometimes I cook up some ground beef and toss some veg in. They are all extremely healthy with beautiful skin and coats.

Years ago I thought I was feeding them quality food (a medium expensive commercial brand) until I read the ingredient list. Oh my goodness, since when do dogs eat some of the stuff in it?!

As for transitioning dogs from what they usually eat to something new, do it slowly so your dog doesn’t have any gastrointestinal upset. Add a bit of the new food to their existing food, increasing the new food every few days while decreasing the amount of the existing food.

If you give your dog bones to chew make sure they are raw. Dogs can’t digest cooked bone. Choose soft bones like veal. Hard bones like pork and some lamb and beef are rough on their teeth if they get them often. I give my dogs raw chicken, bone and all. I watched them initially to make sure they crunched the chicken up (drums, portions, thighs) before swallowing. Your wee one would probably enjoy necks and wings, being a small dog.

My dogs also love raw veg like zucchini and mushrooms so I often slip them a few bits when I’m preparing my meals. Gone are the days of eating fruit, even carrots are off the menu for me at the moment, but they love fruit and raw carrots too.

Stopping feeding “commercial grain based dog food” is like stopping eating the standard western diet. We need to challenge and change our “programming” and ignore all the advertising hype. We’re not supposed to eat processed foods with lots of numbers and weird words in the ingredient list, neither are dogs :slight_smile:

All the best! Let us know how you’re both getting on.

(Denise) #58

Thank you for all the info Megan :slight_smile: I will keep folks up to date during this transition, she is doing good so far as I mentioned above. I feel better about it all too, way better :slight_smile:

(Judy Thompson) #59

Lots of posts! Looks like mine will be well edited by the time I finish.
My Yorkiepoo Mimsy is the same age and general weight as Mimmie. Mimsy is 5½ and has been on mostly raw since I got her at 10 weeks in Feb 2017. My daughter, then 30, insisted.
I started Mimsy out on Answers dog food, then when it was hard to get I fed her Primal, both the frozen and freeze dried. For treats I bought dehydrated raw chicken, very expensive!
Then we started spending more time in the Texas Hill Country where raw dog food wasn’t available and I Googled recipes for raw dog food, hoping I could make up the difference myself. I found the website Dogs Naturally, watched 5 hours of videos and developed a recipe.
Since then, Mimsy eats the following -
Dehydrated chicken breast
Dehydrated organ meats (mostly liver)
Food I make:
1 lb grass-fed hamburger
1 lb ground turkey
2 carrots, cooked
Heaping tsp bone meal
3 pcs raw bacon
I grind the bacon, carrots and bone meal together in a food processor and mix with the ground meats. To freeze the food I make 8 little tsps of food in a row on aluminum foil and roll it up, then feed her 4 in the morning and 4 in the evening.
During the day she gets dehydrated chicken and liver treats.
Since I’ve been carnivore she waits patiently while I eat in hopes of bites of my food - she’s not usually disappointed :wink:
Mimsy won’t touch Milk Bones, kibble or any other treat or even human food containing starches.

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(Todd Allen) #60

I saw a presentation by a conservation biologist studying the coyote population of Cook county. The average age of death is only 3 years old and a common cause of death is being hit by cars. Looking in to it further nearly all getting run over are badly parasitized and as their vigor declines they shift from hunting to foraging road kill accelerating their health decline and putting them at much higher risk of becoming road kill. Eating raw meat was not their only parasite exposure but it is a big one. Commercial meats probably have a much lower parasite load especially if flash frozen but there is a potential safety trade off with raw food.

(Allie) #61

Dogs are naturally resistant to the pathogens in raw meats though, because it is what they are designed to eat. Cats are too.