Do Better

I want to start off with this note written by a snake keeper in Tucson, the message applies to anyone who has any kind of animal...

 

This is a message we all need to take to heart and come back to on a regular basis.  Having worked with animals professionally for the past 10 years, I've met a lot of boneheads who let their ego get in the way of bettering their animals health.  Guess what, I was one of those boneheads for a while! I thought my medium quality kibble was just perfect for Pepe and saw no reason to change my ways.  I'm glad I got over myself and decided to start learning about pet health in new avenues, for the sake of my animals.

 Most of you know I have been making my own dogfood for almost 2 years now.  When I saw 'make' I mean I buy all of my ingredients and formulate each dog's food based on their weight and individual needs.  Each dog has a laminated chart kept in the kitchen so I have a quick reference of who needs what in their food.  BUT this post isn't about their homemade food because I want to ease into this. (Their homemade food consists of them eating raw meat, raw bones, organs, chicken necks... because that's what a canid is supposed to eat!)  Instead, this is about our one day a week where they don't eat homemade raw.  The picture below isn't staged, I decided to snap a pic while making their breakfast this morning.  The clear bag of greeny stuff is Honest Kitchen's Preference Base.  This is not a complete meal but rather needs protein mixed in to be a complete meal.  Off to the left is a contained of dehydrated duck eggs.  These are eggs from our ducks, scrambled, then dehydrated.  Eggs are a perfect protein source and I even feed them raw about 3x a week. To the right of the eggs is a small container of dehydrated venison.  I belong to a raw co-op for southern Arizona, where we use buying power to order large amounts, like sometimes close to 4,000lbs of meat, and then get better prices for everyone.  My venison/elk blend is only $2/lb!! So I dehydrate a few pounds to use as another protein mix-in with this food.  

Now since everything is dehydrated, it needs to be reconstituted with water.  Water is after all, extremely important and yet kibble is cooked and cooked and cooked until it is essentially devoid of nutrients including water.  BUT I don't use regular ol' water in this mix.  I have started making my own kefir water the past few months. Say whhhhhat?  Most of us know about that yummy smooth milk kefir sold in stores but kefir can also be made in water, which saves a LOT of calories and great for anyone with dairy intolerances. Cow's milk isn't good for dogs or cats anyways, goat milk is much easier for them to digest.  Where can you make your own water kefir? You can start with some cultures from Cultures for Health.  This is what I got and I love it! They also have cultures for milk kefir too! The cultures to make your own kefir can be re-used over and over so I tend to have excess since I always have a batch of kefir fermenting on the counter. I like to call my jug of kefir my 'moonshine jug' and blow across the top of it trying to jug out some tunes :) Sidebar: I bought it for about $6 at the local home brewery shop!

So all mixed up, the food looks pretty great doesn't it? Doesn't that look a lot healthier than kibble? It smells pretty amazing too!

My point in all this is that along with everything else in the world, veterinary medicine and nutrition continues to change for the better.  We need to set aside our own mindsets of 'Well Fido has eaten the same bag of kibble for 5 years and he's fine."  Well I'm sure I could survive solely on McDonald's too but that doesn't mean that I should or that it's good for me.

I will eventually make a post showing what my dog's do eat 6 days a week.  The freezer space needed in order to stock up when prices are good, the process of weighing out each dog's food along with their food charts, and nutrition books by veterinarians that can lead you into better understanding of how you're feeding your animals.

Think Outside of the Bag - Dehydrated Dog Food

When your chickens and ducks lay a gazillion eggs a day and there are only 2 humans in your family, you need to start getting creative with how you use your eggs! Currently on the most productive day we could get 9 chicken eggs and 5 duck eggs a day, but we average 8 chicken eggs a day and 3 duck eggs, giving us just about 7 dozen eggs a week.  Beauties, aren't they!?

 

Most people know by now that I feed our dogs a homemade raw diet, where raw eggs are included on a frequent basis.  Dog's Naturally Magazine has some good info about feeding raw eggs to your dogs.  Because our eggs are fresh and from birds that free-range in our 9,000 sq ft garden, I'm comfortable feeding them a few times a week to our dogs.  I would not feel the same about store-bought eggs that come from chickens living in terrible conditions.

 

Since feeding a raw diet, I still included one day a week where I fed just regular grain-free kibble that they used to eat daily.  I want their bodies to still tolerate kibble for when we go on vacation and someone else watches them.  But I decided to move onto bigger and better alternatives and purchased a box of Honest Kitchen's Base Preference at my local Pet Club. This 7 lb box of dehydrated food will make a total of 29 lbs of food once we finish it.  I chose the Preference Base because you add your own protein (which we have lots of!) and this will replace our kibble day every week.

In preparation, the other week I scrambled up a bunch of duck eggs, dehydrated them in my Excalibur dehydrator at the proper temperature and time, and then stored them in my Reditainer Extreme Freeze containers (perfect for long term freezer storage).  This morning was our first Honest Kitchen meal and I used the feeding guideline on the back of the box.  I should have known better, especially since I was once a food rep for a high end kibble company, but the feeding amount recommendations were a bit too much. Just a word of caution, Know Thy Pet, adjust their food if it seems too much or too little.

I measured out the base mix and my dehydrated duck eggs, added the proper amount of water, stirred and waited a minute or two.  All while anxious dogs tried to be patient for breakfast.  I have to say, I think the base mix smells really good ... I was getting hungry ;)

 All mixed in and ready for some hungry dogs!  I threw in their Omega 3 fish oil capsules, which they think is doggy candy, and all 3 pooches started slopping up their breakfast!

For dinner, I will use canned sardines in place of eggs to try out a new flavor.  The dogs adore their sardines and they are super healthy for them!

Sweet potatoes, peas, cabbage, organic coconut, apples, spinach, pumpkin, bananas, celery, organic kelp...

The base mix can be a real timer saver for some.  Can you believe I make my own veggie/berry mix for our dogs? I steam veggies in a large pot, add canned pumpkin, sardines, and raw berries, then blend everything down and freeze into ice cube containers, then store in ziplock baggies.   It really isn't a lot of work, it just takes effort.

Kitties, you're not forgotten about! Honest Kitchen makes complete meals for you with Grain Free Chicken and Grain Free Turkey flavors!

Check out some of the many different flavors below!

Think Outside of the Bag: Different Pet Food Options

There are quite a few different food options out there besides kibble.  Yes kibble is cheap and very convenient but there are much healthier options out there.  When you look at kibble, do you see fresh chicken, veggies, and fish?  No because the ingredients have been so highly cooked and processed that the healthy stuff has been cooked out of it and preservatives and color dyes have been added to form little brown balls of kibble.

Let's take a look at some different feeding options...

Dehydrated Pet Foods... The Honest Kitchen is one of the best known dehydrated pet foods. The Honest kitchen produces dog and cat foods, grain-free and grain foods, and a full complete meal or a veggie/fruit 'base' where you add your own protein. Foods are reconstituted with water (at each meal, not all at once), so a 10 lb box makes 40 lbs of food in the end. This particular brand has been on my radar for a long time and I have ordered the 7 lb box of 'base' where I can add my own raw protein.  Even though I feed a raw diet, I have been feeding 1 day of kibble every week simply to keep their bodies used to it if we ever needed to feed kibble in an emergency situation.  Using The Honest Kitchen's dehydrated food once a week can now replace kibble all together.

Homecooked foods... There are a number of excellent resources out there for you to prepare your own cooked pet food.  The nice thing about cooked foods is that you can re-freeze after a large food prep day, so no daily cooking for your pet.  Cooked foods are a great fresh option if you are skittish about feeding a raw diet.  Like feeding raw, you can buy ingredients in bulk when prices are low, and freeze them until you're ready to food prep.  Homecooked and raw foods both share the benefit of knowing exactly what you're feeding your pet.  In a time where pet food recalls are almost a weekly occurrence, it's reassuring to know you're in control of what your animals eat.

Chubs...  I often hear people refer to chubs as raw food... it's not.  Chubs are refrigerated pet food sealed just like the ground beef/turkey chubs in the grocery store.  Chubs are essentially the commercial version of a homecooked diet.  FreshPet is carried in PetSmart stores and I have seen other stores like Target carry different brands.

Raw Food.. Raw food can either be homemade or commercially made.  It can also be 100% raw meat, or also contain fruits and veggies.  There are several commercially made raw foods like Nature's Variety and Stella & Chewys. I've found that feeding commercially made raw can be difficult when you live in a smaller town and maybe only one or two pet food stores carry it.  Homemade raw is how I've feeding the past 18 months or so.  It is more affordable if you have freezer space to stock up when prices are good and if you do your homework on buying options.  I currently feed about 12 proteins in rotation - some of these are store bought products like chicken quarters and pork, some I get from my raw feeding co-op where we using buying power to lower prices.  Can you believe I get ground elk/deer at only $2/lb!!  This is the benefit of belonging to a non-profit (volunteer) co-op. Homemade raw food requires doing your homework so you know your pets are getting a balanced diet, it requires freezer space to stock up when prices are good as well as storing the prepared food, it also requires you to be on top of keeping your kitchen sanitary.  Many people are concerned about salmonella and e.coli when feeding a raw diet, but fact is when you feed your pets raw meat you're a lot more meticulous of keeping your kitchen clean.

Ultimately these options all have 2 things in common: higher water content which helps with renal health, and ingredients that are not cooked until they form brown balls otherwise known as kibble.  One thing I need to stress if you decide to prepare your own pet food - Do Your Homework! Read read read, join a group of others who have been feeding homemade so they can help guide you, and ultimately 'know thy pet'.  This means all pets are different, have different nutritional needs and react to foods differently.  You know your pet best and need to be an advocate for their health.

If you want to slowly introduce fresh foods to your pet, you can start by adding steamed veggies, or cooked (and bland) meats.

There are also several books out there on home prepared foods - I recommend books by Steve Brown,  Dr. Karen Becker and Beth Taylor.  (I have been to Dr. Becker's nutrition seminars and Beth Taylor was a hydrotherapy client when I lived in IL).

Dr. Jean Dodds has an article on the 6 Forms of Processed Pet Food

Intro to Raw by Steve Brown

WebMD on raw food 

Here are some great books to check out...


 

Think Outside of The Bag - My Journey of Feeding Better

Anyone who knows me knows that I'm deeply invested in pet nutrition, specifically nutrition for dogs and cats.  I wasn't always so careful about choosing dog food though, or even reading ingredient labels of dog food.  When I was a newer vet tech, all I needed was to know what kibble the vet's I worked for recommended, and that's what I bought.  Sadly it took me a few years to realize I needed to be a better guardian for my little Pepe and become pickier about what I fueled his little body with.

I won't name the food, but the kibble I fed Pepe contained the top 5 ingredients: brewer's rice, chicken meal, corn gluten meal, corn, and wheat gluten.  Because I didn't know better, I never questioned these ingredients.  At some point I started to put puzzle pieces together and realized my carnivore needed more carne, more meat!  The simply anatomy of the dog's and cat's jaw shows that their bottom jaw does not swing side to side, only the open/close motion.  Animals that are meant to eat fibrous plant material have lower jaws that swing side to side.  Picture a cow chewing cud.  Even humans have bottom jaws that swing, since plants are meant to make a considerable part of our diet.  But canids and felids do not have this jaw motion, which should be a very strong indicator that plant material is not meant to make up a majority of their diet.  Additionally, read about the major difference in the saliva of dogs and cats vs. herbivores and omnivores.  It makes you think....

Now, I am no veterinarian but after years of working in animal hospitals, you start to see connections between chronically ill pets and the poorly rated pet foods they eat.  I started doing my homework on a better food to feed Pepe and I decided on Fromm's Four Star line.  The top 5 ingredients of one of their 4 star foods: duck, duck meal, pearled barley, sweet potatoes and brown rice.  Already a large improvement from the corn and wheat Pepe's previous food was made of.  I started rotating bags, giving Pepe different proteins, to offer him variety and keep him from getting bored.  One of the quickest changes I saw was his #2 in the yard - now that he was eating better ingredients that could get absorbed better, his #2's were much smaller and much less stinkier! What pet owner doesn't love that!?

We purchased this 7 cu ft freezer solely for dog food ingredients.  We also have a 14 cu ft freezer for our food, storage for my treat ingredients, as well as the dog's prepared meals (container picture at the bottom).

When I was working at my hydrotherapy pool in the Chicago suburbs, I started Pepe on a raw diet for the first time.  My boss was also a distributor of some commercially made raw food, so I was able to try it at cost.  I started bringing home 6lb bags of Northwest Naturals - a commercially made raw food that comes in nuggets, so it was very easy (and still affordable) for my 12lb Pepe.  I instantly became the world's best mom in Pepe's eyes.  Because he was the only dog for many years, he never felt the urge to gobble up his kibble.  There were no other dogs eyeing his food, so he often picked at it.  Now, he was excited about meal time!  I remember taking out 5 or 6 nuggets to thaw in the fridge for the next meal, depending on Pepe's activity level.  (We did tons of walking and running back then, and I altered his meal size based on activity level - something that helps overfeeding and maintaining weight).

But a major life event happened and Pepe and I were getting ready to chase our dreams and move cross country to Tucson!  This is when we went back to kibble for a number of years.  I still wanted to feed the best I could afford and I didn't have the freezer space in my new apartment.  Zoey also suddenly became a member of the family, just 2 months after I moved to Tucson.  So after some researching on ingredients and companies, I started feeding foods like Orijen and Taste of the Wild. I was now feeding strictly grain-free foods.  

Fast forward a few more years to living in Hereford and a third dog named Sarge.  It was now 2014 and I really wanted to get back to feeding a raw diet.  Our raw options in Cochise Country are extremely limited - buying commercially made foods wasn't going to happen.  No one carried the variety I wanted and having food shipped to my door was way out of the budget.  So I decided to start making my own!  There are ample resources out there to homemade dog food - whether you're doing a  homemade cooked diet with fruits and veggies, a raw diet with fruits and veggies, or a strictly raw meat diet... The resources are out there to help you start the journey.  The most important thing is to do your homework and really understand what is involved.  I firmly believe that an unbalanced homemade diet is worse than a bag of Ol' Roy.  You can't feed solely chicken breast and expect your dog to be healthy.

I joined some raw feeding groups, locally and nationally to start getting an idea of where to get my products from.  I bought freezers (we have 21 cubic feet of freezer space in the garage now) so that I could stock up when prices are good - this is critical to keeping things affordable!  I bought a small kitchen scale to weigh out food, freezable reditainers for storing prepared food, and thanks to a large raw group (22k members), printed out feeding charts for each dog as a quick reference when I make their food.

Vacuum sealed 1 lb packages of a deer/elk blend.  Bought through a raw feeding coop.

I've now been making my own dog food for a year now!  Bones are an every day part of their diet too!  Pepe and Zoey get bones like chicken necks and chicken feet and Sarge gets turkey necks and chicken thighs.  Bones are always raw and uncooked and choosing the proper sized item for the size of your animal is essential.  They eat liver and kidney which are full of vitamins and minerals.  And the proteins they eat on a monthly basis include: chicken, pork, turkey, smelt, beef, elk/venison, mackerel, green lipped mussels, chicken and duck eggs (from our birds) , and home raised duck.  Yes, our duck flock is solely to help feed our dogs.  I won't go into detail, but feel free to ask me about it in person.

Feeding a raw diet isn't for everyone and I don't encourage anyone to do it without ample understanding and research.  I do still feed kibble one day a week, just to keep their bodies used to it.  Primarily for the event of an emergency and needing to feed them on the go, or for when we go on vacation and I don't want to burden someone with feeding a diet that requires supervision. (I always stay in the kitchen and wait for the dogs to finish eating).  I also make a blend of raw fruits and steamed veggies that I puree together in a blender, freeze in ice cube trays and add to their dinners.  Not all fruits and veggies are created equal so I have a list of what foods to use and what foods not to use for these veggie cubes.

All of the meat I feed is from the grocery store, besides our eggs & ducks, and the elk/venison which is made specifically for animals and contains about 10-15% ground bone.  Now would you believe that my cost of feeding a homemade diet is the same cost as feeding a premium kibble!  As long as you know how to shop and plan, it can be really affordable!

This is what a day's worth of dog food looks like for us, without the veggies cubes and eggs (both stored separately).

One thing I instantly noticed about feeding a raw diet is once again, their #2.  Because their bodies can use so much more of their nutrients, compared to kibble, very little is expelled out.  In fact, I can't even smell it!  The only time their yard gets stinky is when they're back on kibble and it knocks me off my feet.  Their #2's also literally disintegrate after a few days.  No more picking up dog poop (unless it's from a kibble day), because it really does turn to dust!  Another major change is their drinking habits.  Because they're eating food full of water content, they end up drinking much less water throughout the day.  There's no real benefit to this, but it was eye opening to understand the difference of what their bodies are doing with their food.  Imagine if all you ate everyday, was crackers.  Your body would be insanely thirsty every day too.

There are a lot of options besides feeding kibble or a homemade raw diet.  The next blog entry will discuss:

• Freeze dried/dehydrated food

• Homecooked food

• Chubs

• Raw food: homemade vs. commerical

• Companies that formulate diets for you

I hope this has been interesting and has you thinking of ways to improve your pet's nutrition.  Stay tuned for more information!