So...after a commenter here at MyCorgi.com suggested conferring with a "holistic" vet, I googled "<same>" and discovered one such person at the mega-commercial-vet that is the legacy of my old friend, now retired, and all-around great vet and redneck good-ole-boy, Jerry Jenkins. Who'd've thunk it? Jerry's veterinary empire is right down the road, as opposed to halfway across the city where I've been schlepping Cassie and now, New Pup.

Well. It was off to Dr. Jaquie, whose web page suggested she might have a clue about feeding dogs real food. We arrive at the veterinary and soon are ushered into an examining room. No stink of dog, cat, or disinfectant. The ghastly blue light of the overhead fluorescents is tempered, pleasantly, by a small incandescent lamp on the backbar. The computer monitor there is draped in a handsome piece of weaving. No annoying Muzak is pumped in. A small cassette player emits a soothing and unobtrusive noise. Cassie and Pup are cool: no sign of incipient panic.

In due course, the vet herself materializes. I immediately like this lady: she exudes common sense and is surprisingly nonthreatening.

I explain my eccentricity -- that I feed the adult dog "real food" (cooked meat, starch, veggies, etc.) -- and that I'd like to feed the pup real food, rather than commercial fake food (imagine eating nothing but dry cereal from now until you shuffle off this mortal coil!), but for the life of me I can't find any credible studies describing the nutritional needs of growing puppies. I emphasize that I'm a technical editor and am capable of understanding the difference between Web woo-woo bullsh!t and a peer-reviewed, more or less credible piece of research.

Well, says she, there's a reason for that: precious few such studies exist. Part of the problem is that we humans have bred domestic dogs in such a wide variety of sizes, from chihuahuas to great Danes. Nutritional needs for puppies depend on, among many other things, the size and function of the adult dog. We know that large dogs and small dogs have different calcium needs (for example), depending how their skeletons will grow. But beyond that, it's a gigantic

?

After some discussion, we arrive at an agreement: Pup should have a very high-quality, no-junk-added dog food for her first year of life, possibly supplemented by a few bites of Cassie's Real Food now and again. After we're sure she's reached her full growth, then (if desired) shift her gently over to the same stuff Cassie's eating. That would be 50% high-quality protein (meat, egg, cottage cheese in extreme moderation, etc.), 25% high-quality starch (such as sweet potato, oatmeal, etc.), and 25% reasonably digestible vegetables (lightly cooked, food-processed into a ground product).

Then, to my delight, she confirms my personal prejudices about Big-Chain, Warehouse-Style Pet Stores: BUY LOCAL! She came up with the names and addresses of several locally owned pet supply stores (full disclosure: my little business, The Copyeditor's Desk, Inc., is a member of Local First Arizona and this is one of my hobbyhorses).

As for the Dog Food of Choice, she recommended any of the variants of Fromm pet foods.

Ruby's breeder had started her on Bil-Jac. Checking this out on Pet Food Advisor, we find this appears to be OK but not truly great. PFA questions a number of ingredients; to wit: chicken byproducts, cornmeal, chicken byproducts meal, dried beet pulp, brewer's dried yeast, and BHA (a preservative). Dr. Jacquie was particularly alarmed by the BHA; the beet pulp: neutral; the various chicken byproducts: nix; the yeast; neutral. 

 Bil-Jac ranks on the high side of OK at Pet Food Advisor. Six of its ingredients are red-flagged.

Fromm: only two items are red-flagged: pea protein and dried tomato pomace. Dr. Jacquie felt the tomato pomace amounted to a benign filler; the peas: eh! She said not to worry about getting special puppy food: just buy the food and follow the instructions. Said instructions give you the feeding recommended for the dog's weight and then add "Two to four times more food may be required for puppies...." It's made in the USA from start to finish (no scam like "CONTAINS BEEF RAISED IN AMERICA that's been shipped to China for quality-control-free manufacture). Canadians like it, and that's a good sign.

So. That's where we are now: Pup is officially on Fromm's "Duck and Sweet Potato Formula" (we'll vary that from bag to bag). Cassie is coveting Pup's fake food. Pup is coveting Cassie's real food.

Should the human dare to leave the kitchen before the official Scarfing-Down is completed, she will return to find Pup licking the empty real-food plate and Cassie licking the fake-food bowl.

The stuff makes a great treat for Cassie, since she craves it. Honest to god, if I didn't suspect any commercial food is substandard no matter how GD fine it's supposed to be, I'd switch Cassie over to it -- cooking a pile of food for even a relatively small pooch is a pain in the tuchus, and oh, how fine it would be to be able to shovel out a few cupfuls of kibble a couple of times a day.

But then...oh, how fine it would be for the human to shovel down a bowl of Kellogg's and a vitamin pill every day, eh? and oh, how your doctor's bottom line would love it!