Experts tips for home made Dog Food
Raw, meaty bones are another ingredient in many homemade recipes. Although most suggest a large, meaty bone for chewing as an occasional treat, some recommend smaller bones as a part of your pet's daily diet. The BARF diet, for example, suggests bones - especially raw chicken backs and necks - to fulfill your pet's calcium and phosphorous requirements.
In addition to the nutrients that bones supply, they also clean and strengthen your dog's teeth. And dogs love them. You've never seen your dog enjoy commercial dog food the way he enjoys a good meaty bone.
Although some experts recommend bones, others are just as adamant that bones - raw or cooked - are not healthy for your pet. T J Dunn, Jr. DVM of ThePetCenter.com posed the question of the benefits of bones to several experts in the field, including veterinarians, researchers, and biologists. The responses overwhelmingly vetoed bones as a regular source of nutrition. One of the main concerns of feeding bones is splintering. Many of the responses that Dr. Dunn received mentioned that in the wild, canids eat the hide with the hair along with the bones. It is the hair that protects the animal's systems from the bones that they devour. Debra Davidson, a wildlife biologist who helped raise captive wolves at the International Wolf Center, states that when the animals defecate after eating a whole carcass, "hair can be seen in the feces actually wrapped tightly around any bones that are passed through. This seems to protect
the organs/passageways as the bones are eliminated." Dunn performed research of his own by placing a large, raw, meaty beef bone in a vice and tightening it until the bone cracked open. The result was bone fragments, large and small - many of them with sharp points. Dunn recommends finely ground bone, if you must feed bones for nutritional content. He believes that the nutrients that raw bone proponents are seeking are "mostly derived from the meat, fat and connective tissues attached to those raw bones more so than from the actual bone itself."
Dr. George Collings, an expert in pet nutrition at Sunshine Mills, addressed the issue of using bones as a source of nutrients, pointing out that "nutritionally, the extra calcium and phosphorus to the diet is an issue." Dr. Collings reports that excess calcium impedes digestion and interferes with the absorption of some nutrients. Extra phosphorous can cause kidney disease. Dr. Collings also mentions the protective attitude that dogs adopt when fed a bone, often growling, even at their owners.
The experts queried by Dr. Dunn recommend feeding an occasional large bone "for enrichment purposes," however they recommended using bones with little or no meat on them. Susan Lyndaker Lindsey, Ph.D., Executive Director of the Wild Canid Survival and Research Center, believes that feeding bones reiterates a dog's natural behavior and "the gnawing helps in development of musculature," however there is no nutritional value in feeding bones as a part of a domesticated dog's regular diet.
Eggs and eggshells are other ingredients that often appear in homemade dog food recipes. Pet-Grub.com warns not to feed raw eggs too often, since it can cause a loss of biotin, a B-vitamin. The site recommends that "eggs should be soft-boiled to kill the avidin, which is the cause of the biotin problem." Eggshells should be dried overnight and finely ground before mixing it with the meat.
Your dog needs vegetables in his diet, as well as meat. The vegetables should also be raw in order to maintain all of their nutrients, but you should chop them until they are very fine. Use a food processor, blender, or if necessary, a hand grater, in order to make the vegetables as small as possible. Dog's bodies are unable to process whole vegetables. In the wild, they get their vegetables in the bellies of the animals they eat, so it is already broken down for them. You can use any number of vegetables. Switch often to see what your dog likes and use a wide variety. Pet-Grub.com recommends that if you use squash, you should cook it first to soften the rind.
Some dogs enjoy fruits in addition to vegetables. Take clues from your pet. Offer a variety, and chop them up as you would the vegetables.
Other optional ingredients include cottage cheese, yogurt, finely ground seeds and nuts, oils, and garlic, which is a natural flea repellant.
Dr. Olson suggests feeding your dog twice daily at 2% to 3% of his body weight (i.e. a 100 lb. dog would get 2 to 3 lbs. of food per day). Pet-Grub.com recommends feeding mature dogs 50% meat and 50% vegetables, but puppies should get a higher ratio of meat. The site also recommends adding hot water to the mix just before feeding. This fulfills several functions. "The hot water takes the chill off the food, replaces the water naturally found in prey, and volatizes the odour [sic]." Please remember that these are only guidelines.
Pet food companies will continue to sell to consumers what barely passes as food as long as the sales are good. Remember, they play by a "business first" philosophy. Boycott inferior pet foods. Tell your family and friends. Tell your co-workers and neighbors. Tell the grocery store clerk and the bank teller. And by all means, write your legislators. The pet food companies are living in a lawless land where pets become pet food. Cusick writes, "We are not being truthfully informed as to what is going into a food and are unable to read a pet food label to know what is in the food." He tells of a former AAFCO President, Herschel Pendell, who when asked if euthanized pets were in pet food replied, "If the ingredients list meat or bone meal, you don't know if it is cattle or sheep or horse... or Fluffy." Write to your legislators and demand that labeling laws be made for the pet food industry. Pet owners do not knowingly feed their pets other companion pets or foods that may cause liver damage, cancer, or any number of other illnesses.
Your pet is not just an animal. He's a member of your family.