"Although we have come to accept
commercial foods as being normal or natural
ways to feed animals (and indeed ourselves),
in fact they are not. They are simply what
we've gotten used to in the last few decades.
But nothing we can produce commercially ever
can rival those mysteriously complex foods
manufactured for eons by nature itself."
--Richard Pitcairn, DVM
I'm always taken by surprise
when people ask me what I feed my dogs. It's
not an uncommon question, but I've never come
up with an easy answer. They expect me to say
"Iams" or "Nature's Recipe"
or "Science Diet," when the truth
is what I feed my dogs is food.
You know--food. The stuff wolves
and coyotes and jackals eat. They don't sell
sacks of kibble in the wild.
The usual image people have of someone who "cooks"
for her dog is an infatuated owner of a tiny,
spoiled dog, someone used to coaxing their finicky
pet to have a little more filet mignon before
dessert.
In reality, the number of people
who have abandoned "nutrition in a sack"
and opted for homemade pet food is huge, and
growing. There are books and videos and magazines
and catalogues devoted to holistic pet care
and the preparation of healthy homemade diets.
Back in the 30s, when pet food
began to be commercially marketed, the only
people who used it were serious dog breeders
who had previously maintained large kennels
with huge kitchens and staffs who prepared the
meals for perhaps a hundred or more dogs. The
advent of "complete" foods was a great
time- and money-saver for them. Most people
fed their dogs with the scraps and leftovers
of their own diets.
Today, even the best intentioned
of pet owners can unknowingly find themselves
feeding their dogs and cats the toxic residues
of factory-farmed, antibiotic-fed, hormone-laced
cows and chickens and sheep, mixed with spoiled
grains and some rancid oil. Many are also feeding
their pets preservatives and sweeteners.
The market is flooded with
expensive, "scientifically" formulated
pet foods, all supposedly providing 100 percent
complete nutrition. Do they?
Let me ask you to engage your
common sense for a moment. Do we know everything
there is to know about nutrition? No. The truth
is, research is constantly changing the picture
of what "complete and balanced nutrition"
might be. The taurine of the 70s might be the
vitamin C of the 90s or the "element x"
of the 2000s, but you can bet your last dollar,
that star-shaped object in the sack is NOT "100
percent complete".
"All processed pet foods--whether
sold in cans, bags, or frozen packages, in
either giant supermarket chains or local health
food stores- are missing something that seems
to me to be one of the most important "nutrients"
of all. This key ingredient is something nutritional
scientists have practically ignored. But when
it's there, you and I can know it and feel
it. It is a quality found only in freshly
grown, uncooked whole foods. It's life energy."
-- Richard Pitcairn, DVM
We are told that processed
foods aren't good for us, and advised to eat
whole, fresh foods and vary our diets in order
to stay healthy. Conversely, we are told to
NEVER feed whole, fresh foods to our pets, to
never vary their diets, and not to upset the
careful balance of the processed diet they are
supposed to eat every day of their lives. Does
this make sense?
Only to the pet food manufacturers.
To them, it makes sense and it makes money.
That is why pet food manufacturers finance veterinarian
training programs and subsidize vet school clinics.
Some vets only know what the kibble makers tell
them, and pass that on to their clients: eat
the processed diet. Don't feed table scraps.
Don't feed raw meat. Don't give bones.
People often ask me if I am
afraid to feed raw meat to my dogs, since so
much of the meat we buy today is not just filthy
but deadly. We are advised to cook meat thoroughly
to prevent bacterial diseases that are the result
of the unsanitary and inhumane way we raise
and slaughter livestock. In my experience, good,
organic, fresh meat is perfectly safe to feed
raw to a healthy dog who is used to it. Does
that mean there is no risk? No. But I believe
the risk is less than it's generally believed
to be.
"The many objections we can make
about the nutritional quality of animal convenience
foods boil down to two basic types: these
foods don't contain things we wish they did,
and do contain things we wish they didn't....The
two basic problems are linked together as
an unhappy pair because the presence of various
toxins and pollutants actually increases the
body's needs for high quality nutrients necessary
for combating or eliminating these contaminants.
When the overall nutrition is already lower
that it should be, we are inviting trouble."
-- Richard Pitcairn, DVM
Well, what do I feed my dogs?
I feed them a balanced diet of raw meat and
veal bones or chicken carcasses and some extras
such as raw eggs, raw pork liver, a small amount
of veggies and fruits, medicinal herbs, bee
pollen and kefir. When travelling, or in special
situations, I need something handy, so I feed
them a very high quality oven-baked dog food.
There are many different approaches to constructing
home-prepared diets, ranging from the "whole
prey model" of Australian veterinarian
Tom Lonsdale as described in his book Raw
Meaty Bones, to the more conventionally
formulated recipes in Dr. Pitcairn's
Complete Guide to Natural Health for Dogs and
Cats by Richard Pitcairn, DVM, PhD
and Susan Hubble Pitcairn.
There are many benefits to
feeding your pets real food.
-
You can choose organic
produce and meats, and thus support clean
and beneficial agricultural practices.
-
You have the ultimate in
quality control.
-
You can maintain a pet
in stunning health, with no body odor or rotting
teeth or bad breath. (Did you think wolves
had annual teeth cleanings?)
We take so many things for
granted when we own pets. We think bad breath
and allergies and arthritis and parasites are
the norm, but they are not. They are the results
of a devitalized and processed diet, of stress
and pollution and lack of exercise. They are
the result of never eating fresh raw foods.
Dogs and cats are the descendents
of wild animals, who evolved over tens of thousands
of years to thrive on a certain diet. I don't
feed my dogs a natural diet to "spoil"
them; I do it because I believe in fresh, whole
foods and organic agriculture and treading lightly
on the earth. I do it so that they will know
the health and vigor that is the birthright
of all living creatures. I do it, not to cheat
the starving children of the world out of the
good food I am "wasting" on my dogs,
but rather to withhold my support from destructive
and wasteful food industries. And I do it, now,
because having done it, I could never go back
to gloppy stinking messes and rotten teeth and
doggy odor and worms and fleas. Try it, and
see.
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