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Posts tagged dog
What are the Nutritional Differences Between Domesticated Animals and Prey Animals in Raw Diet Plans?
Dec 27th
There is a world of difference between the wild animals that the relatives of our domesticated dogs and cats ate and the animals raised for food today for a raw food diet plan. Domesticated food animals have less protein, more fat (often with an unhealthy balance), and fewer minerals and antioxidants.
Impact On Your Pet
If you’re trying to mimic the ancestral diet, as most raw feeders are, this means that food made from commercial food animals, even whole animals, may not provide sufficient protein, minerals, antioxidants, and may also have poor fat balances. In order to correct these imbalances, it is crucial to supplement the diet with additional vitamins and to serve the less fatty part of the animal.
Darwin’s meal plans are specially formulated to account for these imbalances.
More Fat, Less Protein
Have you ever seen a fat prey animal in the wild? Domestic food animals are purposefully fattened, oftentimes with low quality grains. The rational is the more the food animal weighs the more it is worth, regardless of the type of weight it carries. Those fortunate animals who are allowed a free range or a pastured existence are still fatter than animals who live in the wild. This means domesticated animals provide more calories from fat and fewer from protein.
Different Fat Balance
The balance of saturated, monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats varies from wild and domestic animals as well. The differences are due to the sometimes dramatically different diets, and the sedentary nature of food animals. For example, ruminant meats like beef, lamb and venison are very high in saturated fats, and low in polyunsaturated fats.
Lower Antioxidants and Minerals
Modern domestic food animals have a much lower mineral content than prey animals. The cause of this is that animals bred for food are given a diet lacking the minerals found in the diet of prey animals. Free-range meats also have a lower mineral content than does the ancestral diet, partially due to their higher fat content. And domesticated animals are low in antioxidants as well; they eat what they are fed and rarely eat antioxidant-rich foods. Animals in the wild, however, do tend to naturally gravitate to those foods that have high levels of antioxidants as research has shown.
How Darwin adjusted meals to account for these deficiencies.
Darwin made calculations in the diet in order to compensate for the deficiencies found in the meat of animals raised for food whether premium free range or average quality meats in comparison with the animals found in the wild. The meals offer optimal nutrition by adding minerals and essential fats. Flax seed oil is added to the duck meal preparation and hemp oil seed to the ruminant meat meals, providing a balance of omega-3 and -6 fats.
Jamie is a canine health guru who strongly believes that transferring your canine friend to raw dog food is the healthiest decision you can make for your canine. Find out more about feeding fresh food.
How to Get an Old Dog to Eat
Dec 17th
I have a 15 year old Rottweiler-Shepard mix that is just beginning to start showing her age. Even though she was a very enthusiastic eater who lived on a raw food diet for over ten years, since then, her appetite has decreased significantly. Aside from concerns about her nutritional needs, this also makes it more difficult to keep her on a regular schedule for her medications.
Here are some lessons I’ve learned:
Feeding:
1. Sheba’s appetite level varies during the day, and is often lowest in the morning. While I still give her the opportunity to eat in the morning, I don’t get upset if she doesn’t want to. If she doesn’t eat, she generally makes up for it with a healthier appetite for her evening meal.
#2. Avoid incorporating medication into your dog’s food. I’ve always done this in the past, but now I give them separately. Some of the herbal medications on the market have a bitter taste and will affect how the food tastes, creating another reason why some dogs don’t want to eat their food. It’s just smart to not add another issue to the food situation or make her feel nervous about eating her food because it tastes different.
3 – Give your dog a break from the foods you normally offer every now and then. My dog eats a raw meat diet, but sometimes she likes it when I mix it up with lighter options, such as brown rice and cottage cheese with a little bit of chicken broth mixed in.
Medicine:
1 – I started using cream cheese to disguise my dogs medications. It helps the pill to go down easily and so far she hasn’t even realized she’s taken the pill. Peanut butter also works in the same way if your dog prefers this flavor.
2. Powdered herbs are a challenge, particularly if they’re bitter. Mixing them into chicken broth and baking them into biscuits is not always a success. I’ve also put them into capsules, but sometimes it would take too many to get the amount needed.
#3. It was my veterinarian’s professional recommendation that I take a turkey baster, dilute my herbs with water and then squeeze the mixture down my dog’s throat. I haven’t actually tried this, as I’m sure I’d get some resistance, but I may need to if nothing else works.
I’m interested in hearing any approaches that others have found to work with their dogs. What tricks do you use to get a reluctant eater to eat, or to get it to take its medications?
Jamie is a dog health specialist who enthusiastically believes that transferring your canine to raw dog food is the best choice you can make for your pet. Find out much more about feeding fresh food.
The benefits of washing your dog
Mar 29th
Can you believe that about a third of the body’s cells are expiring at any given time and each cell has to finally be replaced? And there are so various chemicals and toxins in the globe today that our bodies have to work even harder.
Accumulated toxins as well as ordinary dirt and debris support bacterias and parasites to flourish. They can also drop energy levels by overburdening common bodily functions. This toxin buildup may not make any one specific disease but can make a dog more susceptible to infectious illnesses and inflammation.
Luckily there are ways we can aid our pets. The first is workout, the second is a day of fasting and the third is grooming, which is what we are going to focus on here.
You may wonder why we have to clean up our dogs at all. Wolves in the wildlife never get bathed and they appear to do just fine without all of that pampering. The basic reason we have to wash our pets is because they were bred to have abnormally long, curly or fine hair which gets absolutely dirty and matted. Certainly canines will try to self groom with their tongues and paws but with their long coats, they normally can’t do the job alone. Nor should they. Dirt and debris left in the coat is dangerous for two reasons.
1. Your canines will try to wash their fur by licking it. So they will swallow things like lint, flakes of paint, debris from automobiles and even asbestos fibers all of which can lead to many internal problems.
2. These same toxins in the fur can cause skin irritations which leads to mangy skin.
Here are a few of solutions:
1. Clean up your canine with an all natural shampoo every week or every month depending on the breed of dog you have and your lifestyle.
2. Brush your canine daily. Unlike humans who absorb most environmental allergens through their noses and mouths, dogs tend to absorb allergens through the skin. Weekly cleaning can prevent itchiness, washing allergens away before they get a chance to permeate the skin. Also, frequent brushing encourages skin health by bringing excretions from oil glands onto the skin. It also helps to erase mattes from building up.
3. Give your canine a detoxifier to help remove toxins more quickly. Healthy Skin Shiny Coat is an herbal tonic that you give to your canine by mouth. It helps to reroute the toxins to the kidneys and viscera so the skin will be healthier.
