Canine Raw Diet:
Make Homemade Dog Food
Why the canine raw diet? According to some dog owners, this type of dog diet offers superior nutrition since the food is unprocessed and most closely resembles the diet followed by dogs through the centuries. The short digestive tract of a dog is still best designed for processing raw, meat-based foods rather than grain-based foods. In the wild and times past, dogs would get raw food by eating freshly-killed animals. Since few people can let their dogs hunt their meat, how do you make homemade dog food that approximates what dogs would naturally eat? We decided to do some research and found at least three websites that outline how to switch your dog to a canine raw diet:
BARF DIET™ - http://www.barfworld.comDr. Ian Billinghurst’s book, The Barf Diet: Raw Feeding for Dogs and Cats Using Evolutionary Principles, can be purchased for around $23 from various sources. He explains why the BARF diet is so superior and also has information on switching to a BARF diet, as well as recipes.The FAQs section and the BARF Specifics link on the site contain a lot of good information. This canine raw diet is based on whole, raw, natural foods including ground up raw bones. If you like, they can ship you frozen Chicken Mince patties which include ground-up chicken bones, Beef Offal or Unbleached Tripe patties. Fruit and Veggies Nuggets are also available. Their BARF Plus Supplement, includes fiber, minerals and vitamins made mostly of ground up organic dried vegetables, grains and fruits. PET GRUB - http://www.pet-grub.comAuthor’s quotes: “Pets today are not starving for food. But pets today are starving for nutrition!” “Commercial dog foods are often grain based and have the nutrition cooked out of them.”The author maintains that people have gotten used to thinking that ill health and short lives (under 10 years) in pets is the norm, but that only started happening after pet food became commercialized and food with a long shelf life became the goal rather than food offering good nutrition. His website offers the best FREE information we saw about switching your dog to a raw, natural food diet. He includes ratios of raw meat to finely chopped vegetables, providing detailed information on the types of meats and vegetables that are good and which ones to avoid. He relates why ground up eggshells are a much better calcium supplement than bone meal. He mentions that even if you are unable to give your dog organic or free range raw foods, they will still be getting better nutrition than when just being fed most commercial kibbles. He also talks about the detoxification that may happen when switching a dog from a kibble-based diet to one consisting mostly of raw foods. This author offers some guidelines on how much to feed, but thinks it’s best to let the dog decide. Put out as much as the dog will eat in 10 or 15 minutes, then store the uneaten portion, separating the meat from the vegetables. Raw Food Cakes -
http://montanaraven.googlepages.com/samshealthwiserawfoodcakes
Although this simple recipe includes cooked rice, yams and eggs, most of the other ingredients are left raw. The mixture is left uncooked, then made into balls or cakes and frozen. By varying the ingredients used and adding raw meat and supplements, you have a nutritious diet for your dog.The author of this recipe has a flat-coated, 70-lb retriever named Sam who was 18 years old and still active at the time she published the recipe. She believed this was in part due to what he was being fed. In addition to 1 Raw Food Cake twice a day, Sam was getting 4 oz raw meat as well as 250 mg glucosamine and a multiple canine vitamin. The Raw Food Cakes recipe makes 28 cakes and uses eggs and peanut butter for the protein. It contains brown rice and rolled oats but no meat. There are lots of vegetables, some fruits and seeds included, as well as ground up eggshells for calcium. As you can see, feeding your dog a canine raw diet is not much more difficult than feeding your dog kibble. With just a little planning and research, you can make homemade dog food and improve your dog’s health and wellbeing. Return from Canine Raw Diet to Making Your Own Dog Food
|
