Diet Articles

Sometimes when a puppy is purchased, a breeder will tell the new owner that they need to keep the puppy on the same food for 6mths, I am sure this is simply because the breeder believes that the food they use is the best, and wants your puppy to do well, but healthwise there is no reason to wait to change your puppy over to a raw diet, infact, the sooner a puppy is changed over to raw, the better it is, as good nutrients, in their most bio-available form, are the best thing your puppy can get to help them grow fit and strong and have good healthy immune systems to build their natural immunity quickly and effectively.

Many people will never have considered this unless their dog [and by extension, them], suffer severely on a specific diet, like with diarrhea or sickness; but there are many other symptoms that are indicative of your dogs diet not suiting them which owners will just think are ‘normal’.

There are as many different ways to feed raw, as there are raw feeders, in my opinion, but it mainly comes down to 3 basic types, which are then tweaked to suit every individual, the three basic types being:

I am on a few breed lists for the breed I have which is the German Shepherd Dog. One of the ones I am on has members who use all different types of diets, and healthcare choices for their dogs.

One of the biggest things which people worry about, and which makes some people turn away from the idea of feeding a natural, raw diet to their pet, is the idea of feeding bones.

We all remember the vets warning, “never ever feed your dogs bones” – but many will also remember dogs always having marrow bones and ribs when they were younger, and some who lived in the country or on farms etc. will also remember their dogs always having raw food or tripe for their food.

Quantities To Feed Your Dog

This is one of the most overwhelming aspects of starting your dog on a Raw Diet, but is actually very easily worked out.
For dogs over 18mths of age: First of all, look at your dog and decide, using the chart below: *are they overweight and needing to trim down ? *are they underweight and needing to put weight on ? *or are they just right and needing to stay the same ?

Dogs are carnivores, this does not mean they should eat only meat though. It is known that wolves and wild dogs eat berries and supplement their diets with herbs, berries etc.

We all know this ‘food’ is highly processed, using the cheapest and lowest quality trimmings, available. The trimmings are chopped, mixed with water, corn syrup or sorbitol, salt, food starch, spices and liquid smoke, then blended together.

Why Not Feed Kibble AND Raw ?

Credits – Tom Lonsdale DVM

So, Should Kibble be Mixed with Raw ?

The short answer is No, the long answer follows. 

In a perfect world, no dog would be subjected to eating carbohydrate laden, enzyme-less, dead and nutrient deficient kibble. They’d be eating the nutrient rich, moisture drenched, whole carcasses of animals such as deer, rabbit and pheasant etc., or the next best thing, raw meaty bones.  

Does Liver have a place in Your Dogs Diet?

It is often said that, “liver blows any fruit or vegetable out of the water in terms of nutrient-density” –  do you know how important Liver is and what a nutritional powerhouse it is for your dogs?

It is probable that many factors in the environment all play their own role in determining whether genetic susceptibility to specific diseases ever develop into actual problems, and one of these factors is the diet an individual has.

Why does it matter ?

Well, for the same reason it does for us – you are, what you eat !

Your food is the fuel for your body, and to operate at optimum levels, the correct food needs to go in. Many of us have grown up in times where we’ve never known dogs to be fed anything but food from sacks, boxes or tins from shops. Unfortunately what we haven’t realised, is that these foods have a number of problem areas for our pets;