Why I make my dogs' food...
http://www.freep.com/story/money/business/2017/02/06/drug-dog-food-...
Arrghhh! Are there any vets or experienced dog people here who can explain why this stuff would have pentobarbitol in it OTHER than that it contains products from euthanized animals?
Perhaps i overreact...but every time I see some new off-the-wall announcement like this, I feel less crazy for having learned to make an adequate food for my dogs after the melamine flap.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by susan on
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I got the recall notice today. I wonder how that got in there too. So scary.
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Permalink Reply by GPN on
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It is weird because you would need to dump a LOT of this stuff into the food in order to have it affect multiple animals.
I feed Dipper about 25% Purina Pro Plan. I make my own dog food using brown rice and inexpensive supermarket cuts (chicken liver, gizzards, stuff like that) and also have him about 25% raw diet (which some would find controversial.) The cost of the food I make is about the same, per lb, as what I buy. I'm a little hesitant to do away with the kibble on the theory that there's something it it than might actually be good for him--the theory that they know what they're doing.
Dipper also eats a variety off leftovers including eggs and various meats. The weirdest thing he eats with gusto is papaya skin. When I have it I mix it in to his dog food. He also eats blueberries, carrots, salad (only with dressing). He also eats raw chicken feet with the toe nails on and it looks like he's eating some alien life form.
When I make a batch of food I make enough to last about 3 weeks, then pack it into two cup bags and freeze it. A two cup bag is four meals and will be one meal a day for four days. So I unfreeze anew one on the last day. One reason I like the kibble is that it stretches the time between occasions when I have to cook for him. I will say that the rice-meat combos I cook for him are actually pretty good and when they do away with social security that's probably going to be what I eat too.
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Permalink Reply by Rachelle N on
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I am also seriously concerned about this. I currently feed Tipper Health Extention's Vet's Choice. This brand has never had a recall.
I also cook her "human food" about once or twice a week--chicken or beef. I find it funny when friends think it is strange to give a dog food that I've prepared because they have been brainwashed to think you never feed "table scraps" --only commercial dog food. I explain to them that the table scrap rule applies to processed human food and toxic foods and not plain cooked meat. Anyway, I had bought several books with recipes for making dog food at home and am thinking of cooking more of her food. Some recipes are fairly simple. I will also probably still feed her a few cans of wet dog food per week as I am worried about nutritionally providing everything she needs via home cooking.
I wish there were stricter laws regarding both HUMAN and ANIMAL foods. I think it is safe to say "buyer beware.'
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Permalink Reply by Vicky Hay on
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Yup. The problem is, today with most people eating out all the time or grabbing prepared food off the shelf, human food is by definition junk food. If you cook your own (and of course don't feed onion, garlic, or other items that are toxic to dogs), you're feeding your dogs better food than most Americans put on their own tables.
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So, true. It saddens me when I see what some children on eating on a daily basis. When I was growing up, fast food was a treat--not a regular menu item. I think that eating right saves a lot on medical bills, so it is really not expensive in the long run. My saying is: spend more on food now, and less on medicine down the road.
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I also add a small amount of kibble. However, I suspect it's unnecessary. With the German shepherd and the greyhound, I used to toss in a veterinary vitamin tablet...just in case.
With two dogs around, it's hard to make more than about a week's worth. The other day I cooked up an entire package of Costco pork chunks (one of the cheapest meats around). When added with the veggies and the starch, it made up about 8 days' worth. In a couple days, I'll cook up a package of boned & skinned Costco chicken legs & thighs, which probably also will last about a week. Obviously, if I had only one pooch, that much would last twice as long.
I weigh the portions according to what a vet estimated would be the correct amount to maintain a healthy weight for a 25-pound dog. Ruby is much more active than Cassie, being about 7 years younger, so she gets a little more because she seems to burn more calories. The kibble helps to add calories for that purpose...but still, I remain uncomfortable about the quality control in any commercial dog food. The melamine flap informed us that most commercial dog food, from ultra-fancy-pants premium to Ol' Roy, is made in the SAME factories in China by the SAME unscrupulous suppliers.
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Great info. Thanks for this.
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Great info.. I never thought about using chicken livers or gizzards but I just read that that gizzards (on LiveStrong) are very nutritious. I sometimes make Tipper a scrambled or hard boiled egg and she seems to like eggs. I probably should make them more often. Have you thought about just adding just green beans or peas to the cooked chicken instead of brown rice?
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Consider the liver's function in the body: one of the things it does is filter out toxins. My vet suggested taking it easy with the organ meats. Remember: if you were a coyote or a wolf, when you caught prey you would eat only the organ meats in that one animal; you'd eat a lot more muscle meat than visceral organs.
Dogs have evolved over around 20,000 years to live with humans and to scavenge leftovers from the human diet. Human diets tend to be fairly heavy on starchy products, such as grains and tubers. Thus (the theory goes), domestic dogs are better able to benefit from those kinds of foods than wild dogs are. Despite the general hysteria over grains in dog food, the fact is that dogs are not intrinsically unable to digest grain products. As a practical matter, dogs do just fine on most (but not all) things humans can eat, with some exceptions.
Things dogs should NOT consume:
- anything in the onion family (onions, little green onions, garlic, chives, shallots, leeks)
- chocolate
- grapes or raisins
- deep-fried foods
- any foods to which sugar or salt has been added
- alcohol
- highly spiced foods
- anything containing caffeine
- macademia nuts
- milk and dairy foods
- xylitol (artificial sweetener)
- bones (cooked or raw).
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Yes I do worry about over-doing the liver. I don't think gizzards are a problem. But...he only eats the food I prepare once a day, and half of that is brown rice, and the other half is half gizzard, half liver, and sometimes I don't give him a fulll half cup,mixing in a little kibble--so, his diet isn't all chicken liver by any means. He also gets regular chjcken meat.
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yes I have a bag of frozen peas I've bneen meaning to add but I keep forgetting to do it. I would add it *with* the brown rice.
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