According to Sasha, my cooking reins supreme. She cleans her bowl beyond spotless, and she is actually eating real meat and veggies, not the scary stuff I’ve been reading up on. I followed one of the links provided by Sarah to this absolutely fantastic site. There is so much valuable, scientific information there, it’ll take me a while to get through it all, but needless to say, I think I’m on the right track here, changing the dog’s and cats’ food from canned and especially eliminating dry, to home cooked/raw meat/make it yourself diet. It’s downright disgusting what has been passed off as pet food, and reading about the dry food, well, let’s just say I’m totally going to try and eliminate or at the very least, minimize it, from their diets. We think we are doing what’s best for our pets, buying the ‘completely balanced’ and ‘nutrional’ stuff, and it turns out we are probably harming them intstead.
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This is my recipe for one of Sasha’s doggy dinners.
Broccoli/Carrot/Rice/Liver/Chicken/Garlic Goulash
1 large Broccoli (floret and stalk)
1 large Carrot
1/2 cup rice
1 1/4 cup water
1/2 cup chicken hearts (chopped)
1/2 cup liver (chopped)
1 tbsp minced dehydrated garlic (if using fresh, I’d use a lot less, maybe one or two cloves)
Bring rice and water to a boil in a large pot. Dice broccoli and carrot in the meantime, bring rice to low heat and add veggies. Simmer for 10 minutes. Add chopped liver and garlic, simmer for another 2 minutes. Rice should be done (I don’t think you’d want to taste it to see, but if it needs a bit more time, simmer for another 2 minutes). Turn off heat, add chicken and mix, letting it stand on the burner. This will just very slightly cook the chicken (Sasha will not eat raw meat – yet). Let the entire mixture cool before feeding.
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I will try to start adding more raw meats once her system has adjusted to this meal. So far there have been no problems, her stools are good (something I never thought I would be posting about!! – my dog’s poo!!) and she is cleaning her bowl like I’ve never seen. I start cooking this around 4:30 or 5pm, and she is lying right there in the way, just watching and waiting. Supper time can’t come fast enough. And garlic, you may ask? It’s good for them, just as it is for us (plus it cuts down on the smell of the liver!)
Sasha likes it warm, but you want to make sure there are no hot spots in the meat. This makes two dinner portions for her, but I may start feeding it in the am as well, having decided to try to remove dry food/kibble from her diet. She seems to be full enough after this dinner, that she is not even eating her kibble anyway.
I will have to look into what supplements she may need, if we continue this kind of diet. Dogs are natural scavengers (just think of the coyote), so I think I’m doing pretty good with this kind of meal. I do know they may need extra calcium, which apparently you can get from grinding up dry egg shells and adding to their food. And too much liver can provide too much Vit A, which can be toxic, so I’m going to try and check out some local butchers and see what kind of cheap cuts/scraps/ etc … might be available. Scraps? you may say. Look at that link I posted and see what passes as meat in the canned food. Your butcher may become your pets’ new best friend. More research to do.
And please, do some research yourself, and do not rely on anything that I say. I am not a vet, nor am I an expert in animal nutrition. I am doing what I think is best for my pets. I am not responsible for anyone else, nor am I endorsing any particular diet. I just want to put it out there, for people who are interested, that there are options, and that you need to do your research. That what you are feeding your beloved pet may not be what you think. Labels are extremely deceptive, and what passes as meat for human consumption is vastly different than what passes as meat for our pets. (I find this particularly disgusting, dishonest, immoral, and it should not be legal!!!! – although it is legislated as okay. Makes me very glad that when my last two fur babies died, I brought their bodies home and buried them in a special place in my garden..illegal though that was….yes, you are leaping to the right conclusion……) Rendering plants, which provide the PFC with their product, get their ingredients from many places, including dead animal disposal and road kill.
We should not follow blindly the pet food industry’s claims. It’s always a good idea to talk to your vet as well. She/he may be more receptive that you think, especially if you have some background research to back up your ideas/questions.
These are the reasons why I think this issue is important.
Here’s Meg, with a white bundle of fur that I thought might have disappeared. Whitey, as he is aptly named, had been gone for several days. He returned today with one eye looking pretty bad. He is not my cat. He used to live down the street, until his owner got a small, yappy dog, and Whitey got scared. Now I feed him at my back door, and he is not usually allowed inside the house. The exception today is due partly to the fact that we are having some incredibly cold weather, and that his eye looked so bad (and also because Todd is not home right now). He has no claws, front or back, with which to defend himself. He is incredibly sweet, incredibly shy, but once he knows you he is very affectionate. He is also litter trained and neutered. I would love to find him a permanent indoor home. He deserves to belong to someone who would treat him well. I do the best I can, but I already have four of my own, if you count Ty (another stray that I took in a few years ago). His previous owner is under the delusion that he is much happier as an outdoor cat. You tell him that when it’s -25C, and you tell him that when he can’t defend himself because he has no claws! There is no way Todd will let him come in on a permanent basis, even if it’s just for cold nights. I would hate to bring him up to the SPCA – he would be terrified. But I hate having to leave him outside in the cold too.
