I love a good story and this one is right up my alley: Passion, dogs and food!  Bravo to Marie Moody — dog lover and entrepreneur extraordinaire!

Taken from the website of Stella & Chewy’s:

Available at Only Natural Pet Store (buy quality pet products and support this blog) or these on-line retailers: http://www.stellaandchewys.com/site/buyonline.asp

For locals, it’s also available at my Orange County practice: Founders Veterinary Clinic.

And you guessed it — Rosie’s new diet is Stella and Chewy’s raw and freeze dried (great for the road trips I take with Rosie!) chicken steak patties. If you are a winner and would like to receive one free e-book of your choice — please reply to DrT@30MinVetConsult.com with the subject line: Winner.

Congratulations!

1) Feeding dry food (kibble diets) prevents tartar build-up

Truth: Effective chewing (raw meaty bones, rawhide chews, and other man made chew products — like the durable rubber Kong) simulates how wild canines gnaw on the bones of prey animals to ‘brush’ their teeth. Kibble is simply crunched and swallowed like a bowl of Cheerios and does nothing to prevent tartar build-up.

Fact: Raw food diets contain live enzymes and are free of grain — closer to a dog’s natural diet, which naturally promotes better dental health. Kibble lacks any live enzymes (killed by heat) and contains cheap grain products (unless listed as grain-free) which bacteria-producing plaque love to feed on!

Don’t fall for kibble marketing hype promoted by some clueless vets. Remember, invisible plaque build-up ultimately leads to visible tartar. You can help prevent plaque build-up by regular tooth brushing and choosing better diets.

2) Trust your vet to recommend only the vaccines your dog needs

Truth: Do not accept your vet’s recommendation without first reading my free special report (available on this blog) or visiting the AAHA website:

http://www.ufsheltermedicine.com/news/2006_AAHA_Canine_Vax_GL.pdf

Fact: Really? Ask your vet if he or she is following the American Animal Hospital Association (AAHA) vaccine guidelines published in 2006. Since these guidelines were published more than 2 years ago, surveys show that many vets are not in compliance. Most pets continue to be over-vaccinated and given vaccines that are not necessary. Furthermore, vaccine titer testing is not offered as an alternative to re-vaccination by vaccine junkies out for easy money.

3) Vets are experts on pet nutrition — watch for these flags!

Truth: Not likely. Standard ‘nutrition’ courses in veterinary school preach formulated and prescription diets. Few docs are willing to think outside the bag!

Red Flag #1: You get the eyebrow look when you ask your vet for advice on how to prepare homemade meals.

Be sure to check your pet’s weight often to make sure you are not over or under feeding. Ask your vet what your dog’s ideal body weight should be — that may be all the nutritional help you get!

Fact: There is no need to buy dog food. You can prepare healthy meals for your dog by following some simple guidelines and adding proper supplements.

Find my homemade feeding guideline here:

http://www.foundersvet.com/home_cooking.htm

Better yet … become a pet food expert in only 30 minutes by reading: How to Feed Your Dog if You Flunked Rocket Science.

Red Flag #2: Your vet tells you that commercial pet foods are the best way to feed your dog and contain all the nutrients they need. Don’t believe it!  For the most part, canned and kibble diets are highly processed with questionable ingredients that challenge the claim that they promote ‘health’. Most are no better than prison diets — cheap sources of calories with nutrient values set at minimum standards. They also violate the 3 hallmarks of optimal nutrition: Freshness, wholesome food ingredients, and a diet that offers a variety of food choices.

There are many undesirable ingredients in pet foods and even trusted name brands like Iams and Science Diet can contain them. You must learn to read pet food labels and also discover the source of ingredients that companies purchase to manufacture their diets.

When buying dog food, first become a pet food detective. Read blog post: Beneful by Purina — the next pet food disaster. Avoid feeding this ‘hog food’ (and others like it) to your dog!

Red Flag #3: You get a scolding from your vet when you tell him you are feeding a raw food diet. If your vet tries to scare you off with horror stories about bacteria and parasites in raw meat — perhaps he missed the latest pet food recall. For years, pet foods have been found to contain aflatoxins (deadly molds that grow on grain crops and peanuts), endotoxins from pathogenic strains of bacteria not killed by heat, and most recently melamine — a chemical added to produce a higher nitrogen content fooling pet food manufactures to believe they are buying food stuffs that contain more protein. Bottom line: The pet food industry lacks government regulation and safety inspection practices, which allows pet food to be tainted with various contaminates that can make your dog sick or even worse kill your dog!

For Google lovers, just type in: pet food contamination. You won’t find any reports of raw meat diets killing pets, but caution applies here, too. Raw diets must have proper storage and be fed correctly to ensure safety. Do some research before feeding your dog his ancestral wolf diet and don’t be surprised if he howls at the moon.

Next week … I will let you in on Rosie’s new raw food diet — winner of the best wholesome food list category. Plus, it’s the ONLY pet food that has been Certified Food Safe under Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP).

Here’s a look at its line-up of superb ingredients:

Chicken (ground with bone), chicken liver, chicken gizzard, organic cranberries, organic spinach, organic broccoli, organic beets and organic beet fiber, organic carrots, organic squash, organic apples, organic blueberries, probiotics — for gut health: Pediococcus acidilaticici, Lactobacillus acidophilus, Bifidobacterium longum, Entercoccus faecium.

(FYI: Rosie’s poops are the best ever!)

And here’s another hint: This company uses only USDA inspected free-range meats with no hormones or antibiotics. And they are the only pet food company to employ HPP (high pressure process) to destroy harmful bacteria without heat!   See how it works in this surprising video:

http://www.iptv.org/video/detail.cfm/1033/mtom_20080118_3320_clip

Care to guess which diet Rosie is thriving on? Leave your comments … and find out if you are a winner next week. All winners will be rewarded with a free copy of my e-book; How to Solve the Mystery of Your Itchy Dog.

Do a little homework — Good luck!

Eric Christensen

Dog Chef Dr. Terifaj and founder of The DOGie Bag, with beloved canine companion, Rosie.

Who is a dog chef?

Anyone who can boil water and worries that dog food is not the real deal that consumers have been brainwashed to swallow. Ever wonder what dogs ate before Ralston Purina dreamed up the booming business of making dog food decades ago? Reality check: The family dog ate whatever our grandmothers or great grand mama’s cooked up. True to the heart of all dog chefs, we ain’t taking chances on food that has been marked unfit for human consumption.

Over the years, savvy pet owners have painfully learned that any product labeled as dog food deserves to be well scrutinized. Today’s informed pet owner must do their due diligence before buying any pet food. This task begins by deciphering pet food labels to weed out inferior ingredients. Read how to become a pet food detective. Next, you must buy from companies who can prove they practice quality control manufacturing methods and use only human grade meats and grains in their product lines.

From my research, here are a few companies that are not willing to risk making your dog sick in favor of pleasing corporate fat cats: Nature’s Variety, Natura, and Honest Kitchen. To buy online top quality pet foods, see a full listing reputable pet food companies at Only Natural Pet Store.

Now back to my confession. My dogs eat what I eat—sometimes it comes out of a can or carton—right off the shelves at my local Trader Joe’s. No, nothing labeled as dog food gets into my cart. I grab cans of white chunk chicken, pink Alaskan salmon, light meat tuna in water, and sardines. Next, I head straight for the refrigeration section and load up on cottage cheese and plain yogurt from growth hormone free (no rBST) cows and eggs from drugless (no antibiotics) free range hens! And I am choosing organic whenever I can.

So, on my craziest days, dinner is just a can of chicken or fish or a few scoops of cottage cheese mixed with some brown rice—compliments of my plug it in and just add water rice cooker. No dog chef can afford to be without this magic time saver. One batch makes enough rice to fill dog tummies for a week. All in all, it only takes this busy dog chef less than one minute to prepare what any hound would consider a feast!

And remember… I did, after all, write the book: How to Feed Your Dog if You Flunked Rocket Science—the smart way to feed your dog on your budget. So, if you can boil water, bake chicken, open cans, and follow a few simple instructions…you too can become a dog chef. And I will guarantee you a healthier, happier dog for many years to come. But for those of you who would rather scrub toilets than cook, or like the idea of buying dog chef prepared meals you can just warm and serve—see the company that my dog Rosie inspired, The DOGie Bag.

Bone-a-paw-tite!

Fat gets an underserved bad rap from those who failed nutrition 101 or skipped the class completely. Newer research confirms the healthy role that good fats play to prevent degenerative diseases like cardiovascular disease, arthritis, diabetes and even cancer.

Remember when margarine became the new health craze and butter was banned from the kitchen table?  I do. Sometime during my teenage years the familiar stick of butter was replaced with a new shiny plastic tub. As I am now celebrating fifty-hood, it’s been a few decades and now we are back to butter. Why? Because food scientists tampered with the real thing, butter, to create a “healthier” but fake fat. This new healthier fat came in convenient tubs for easy spreading and melted faster too. Best of all, this new butter was better for us (brainwashing commercials overrode our common sense), so we became overnight converts as millions of dollars were poured into clever marketing campaigns by the food industry’s newest profit center! 

And we liked the taste of our new chemically modified guilt-free butter until we learned about dangerous trans fats (created by manufacturing) and hydrogenation (chemically alters fatty acids to prevent spoilage). Well now … one of those margarine ads got it right when they exclaimed: It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature!—insinuating no one could tell the difference between real butter and the fake one. Maybe you can fool your taste buds but not your own body chemistry—all cell membranes are composed of specific fatty acids. Without these fats, our cells cannot perform vital functions. Deficiencies in essential fatty acids play a key role in the progression of common degenerative diseases that plague Americans and people of other industrialized countries.

All processed foods that have been chemically modified (to cut costs and improve profits) and refined (extracting nutrients to extend shelf life) must be met with serious skepticism in regards to our health. These unnatural flawed foods are leading us to repeat another disastrous experiment in the food lab such as the one we had with margarine. 

 Now we are learning that popular vegetable oils lining grocery store shelves have also been chemically modified and stripped of natural good-for-us fats by commercial manufacturing methods. These industrial oils have seeped into our salad dressings, supermarket cooking oils, packaged processed foods and of course pet foods! They have been called adulterated oils because their flawed chemistry creates a biochemical imbalance in the body. 

A simple understanding of biochemistry and physiology of cell membranes explains why these engineered fats deserve the real bad rap and why you need to avoid them. For a thorough discussion (and life changing experience—it was for me!) the book, Fats That Heal Fats That Kill by Udo Eramus PhD, is truly a must read for any truth seeker. 

Authoritatively known as the father of fat research, back in 1986 when Udo first published his findings, he revolutionized our understanding of the terms, good fat, bad fat and busted the cholesterol myth! The consequences of eating bad fats and not enough of the good fats will change your opinion of fat forever. No longer a dirty three letter word—natural fats are perhaps the most misunderstood essential nutrient ever discovered!

Bottom line: insure your dog’s daily intake (and your own) of essential nutrients* by eating more whole foods and adding these two essential fatty acids to your supplement program: 

• Linoleic acid (LA)—parent omega 6 fatty acid.  Best sources: the seeds and oils of sunflower, safflower, and hemp plants.
• Alpha-linolenic acid (ALA)—parent omega 3 fatty acid. Best sources: flax seeds and walnuts.

I strongly believe that eating good fats (from seeds, nuts, and animals that are allowed to eat their native diet—which excludes feedlots and fish farming) is the missing link to optimum health. To be sure my dogs are getting a healthy source of essential fatty acids, I have added Udo’s Oil 3-6-9 blend to their meals.**  This seed oil looks and tastes like no other—and it’s made only from organic sources. Surprisingly, the health benefits far exceed the virtues of olive oil as Udo explains in his book.

Udo’s 3-6-9 Oil Blend 17oz

I now soak up this thick golden nectar on a toasted whole wheat bagel and love the rich earthy taste. However, my personal decision to cut back on carbs (nutritional research shows the benefits of eating less carbs and more fats—ending the era of  the low fat dogma) will not limit my  use of  this wonder oil. I also use it to make my salad dressings and drizzle it over veggies. 

There is no mystery as to why we are a nation of unhealthy people and pets. Processing and manufacturing techniques, created primarily to manipulate flavor, extend shelf-life, and reduce cost, have striped vital nutrients from the foods we eat. It’s that simple. Nutritionally depleted foods have been blamed for our modern day malnutrition—and that includes all processed pet foods!  You can reduce or avoid feeding processed pet foods with my alternate feeding plans outlined in my e-book, How to Feed Your Dog if You Flunked Rocket Science.

Take home point: We have been seduced by a profit driven food industry to buy their junk food—becoming addicts of convenience and meals on the run. As a result, we face epidemic levels of obesity and chronic degenerative diseases that plague modern man and modern dog. Your health is your choice. Make the better choice for you and your dog!

* Essential nutrients are the raw ingredients (specific vitamins, minerals, amino acids and fatty acids) that must be in the diet to provide vital cellular functions.  Therefore, the absence of any essential nutrient over time will lead to disease.

** Suggested range of intake for dogs: ½ to 1 teaspoon per 10 pounds body weight daily.  Adjust intake on the low end (1/2 tsp per 10 pounds) for maintenance and increase to the  higher end (1tsp per 10 pounds) if your dog is health challenged.

While Purina can claim that Beneful contains beef (simply because it is listed somewhere on the label), you would be a fool to buy their buzz: “contains meaty chunks with real beef.” What they don’t mention are the actual protein sources they have chosen to use: ground corn, chicken by-products, and corn gluten—the first three ingredients listed on the label. For flavor, they add sugar and sorbitol, ingredients #11 and #12, and to engineer the food to make it look like meaty chunks, artificial dyes (Yellow 5, Red 40, Yellow 6, Blue 2) are added to this witch’s brew!

Isn’t food chemistry amazing? And with the help of slick TV and Internet ads, pet food companies can sell hog food to dogs as long as there is an ample supply of stupid consumers. Ignore advertisements and learn to read labels. Don’t buy hype.

For a quick lesson in how to market and sell anything, visit:

www.beneful.com/Dog-Food/Original

To stay ahead of the pack, you simply must learn how to read pet food labels. I tell my clients it’s required reading before buying any pet food. You need to look beyond attractive packaging and even name brand favorites like Science Diet and Iams. These pet industry giants put their profits into clever advertising, not quality ingredients. In fact, after reading my take home points below, your dog may be dining on your leftovers tonight!

Here are some take home points found in How to Feed Your Dog if You Flunked Rocket Science:

• Protein is the single most important ingredient in selecting your dog’s diet. So, choose only the best quality of commercial foods or prepare your own diet at home. Look for commercial diets that list the source of animal protein (such as chicken, turkey, salmon, rabbit, duck, and venison) as the first and second ingredients.
• Meat meals can be inferior sources of protein, depending on how they are manufactured. If used, they should be listed as the 2nd or 3rd ingredient.
• Grains do not add much in the way of useful protein and should be considered primarily as a source of calories for active dogs. Carbohydrates from grains should be restricted in overweight dogs, as they can contribute to obesity.
• Avoid all brands that list any meat by-products or grain by-products such as wheat and corn gluten, gluten meals, and wheat middlings. NO by-products, period!
• Look for natural preservatives like vitamin C and Vitamin E—avoid artificial chemicals such as BHT, BHA, and ethoxyquin. Added color dyes and artificial flavors are NOT acceptable. These are attempts at making poor quality products look and taste better—fooling you to buy them and your dog to eat them!

FYI: According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which regulates pet-food labeling, terms such as “gourmet,” “premium”, and “natural” don’t have any official standing. Foods labeled as such aren’t required to contain any different or higher-quality ingredients or to meet any higher nutritional standards than any other complete and balanced pet food. And the famously secretive pet food industry is no different than, say, Coca-Cola when it comes to protecting its recipes, ingredients, and manufacturing processes. It is, after all, a multibillion-dollar business.

And remember—home prepared diets are always an option any time you choose to prepare a meal for yourself or your family. Just cook a little extra for members of your furry family. Good sources of protein are chicken meat, lean ground turkey meat, fish, eggs, and cottage cheese.

For examples of honest premium pet foods—see my picks of the litter:

Frozen Raw Diets:
  Nature’s Variety: naturesvariety.com
  95% meat, organs, and bone; grain-free; and contains small amounts of fruits and vegetables. Organic available

Kibble:
  Natura Pet Products: naturapet.com
  EVO—Grain-Free kibble, made from human-grade food sources

Canned:
  Evanger’s Dog & Cat Food Company: evangersdogfood.com
  Great selection of 100% canned meat diets. Organic available

Check out the ingredient lists posted on these websites and compare with the diet you are feeding.

Now that you are a bona fide pet food label detective—you can find the real deal. Pass up bargain pet foods—don’t bargain with your dog’s health!

Think of the digestive tract as an amazing tubular processing plant that can turn a chicken dinner into loads of energy while extracting essential vitamins, minerals and amino acids needed by vital organs like the heart, kidney, liver and immune system.  In the simplest of explanations, its primary function is to digest food, chemically breaking it down through the action of enzymes to ensure vital nutrients will later be absorbed by the intestines. 

Food in its natural state, uncooked, contains live enzymes, making it easier for nutrients to be digested and later absorbed.  But when we cook food above temperatures of 118 degrees, valuable enzymes are destroyed by the heat.  Fewer natural enzymes force the pancreas to crank up its own enzyme production which can result in deficiencies over time. This is important because further down the intestinal road your dog will not be able to absorb nutrients (proteins, fats and carbohydrates) that have not been properly digested. These undigested proteins, fats and carbohydrates can fuel the growth of unwanted bacteria—upsetting the delicate balance of intestinal microbes and the battle begins. Your dog may succumb to uncomfortable bloating, gas, bloody stools, diarrhea and even bouts of vomiting.

But don’t give bacteria a bad rap, yet.  Bacteria are natural inhabitants of the gut and the friendly ones, also known as the good bacteria or probiotics, are instrumental workers in this processing plant.  Your dog depends on his or her friendly bacteria to make certain key B vitamins, assist immune functions, and protect intestinal cells from invasion by harmful lurking bacteria.  No other organ in the body is equipped to handle loads of bacteria that are found in the gut.  In fact, when bacteria is found anywhere else in the body such as the kidneys, lungs, or bones, we call that an infection.  Now that is some real food for thought!

This can be easier to understand when you realize that animals expose their bodies to the outside world whenever they swallow or breathe in air. The digestive tract (gut) and respiratory tract (sinuses, airways and lungs) are on guard 24/7 ready to battle harmful microbes, environmental pollutants and toxins. In a healthy state, other organs remain sheltered from these outside health hazards.  This is until, of course, something goes wrong. The immune system breaks down and natural protective mechanisms are lost.  The bad boys gain entrance and crash the party.  Could you help your dog build a stronger gut defense — maybe hire some hefty bouncers?  Yes! One simple solution that gives your dog a fighting advantage is to keep your dog’s gut in a healthy state of balance.  Make sure the numbers of good bacteria living in the gut far outweighs the bad guys and you can help tip the scales in favor of your dog.  High numbers of good bacteria will simply crowd out the bad guys, denying them a place to set up camp.

To keep the good soldier bacteria happy and doing their jobs, they need the right environmental conditions and food supplies.  Does this sound familiar?  Health in a large part is determined by what we eat all the way down to the simplest of life forms, bacteria!  And what your dog eats will either befriend the good bacteria or give ammo to the enemy.  The increasing popularity of raw food diets are showing health advantages over factory made pet foods because they are uncooked, leaving naturally occurring enzymes intact to aid in digestion and they closely mimic the dog’s native diet – using fresh wholesome meats, bone, and organs.   

Simply put, nature designed a raw food diet for our friendly wolf descendents.  However, the family dog who has been denied access to his native fare, now struggles to adapt to our more convenient modern way of life – commercial, factory made diets.  These heavily processed diets are devoid of any food enzymes, may contain unhealthy by-products and chemical food additives – all adding to the digestive burden.  Home cooked diets offer a much better option because you control the quality of ingredients.  But remember, cooking will nuke these healthy food enzymes too. 

Better digestion will also provide a better environment for your dog’s friendly bacteria.  To help your dog absorb more nutrients from the food you are feeding, simply add some powdered enzymes to each meal.  Even dogs already eating a raw food diet can benefit from adding extra enzymes.  Try adding digestive enzymes to your dog’s diet and watch for these commonly reported benefits:

• Improved digestion results in less gas and firmer stools.
• Better hair coats and less skin problems.
• Older dogs show more vitality and improved mobility.
• Improved immune function provides natural resistance to disease.
• A reduction in seasonal allergy symptoms.

Other factors that can set up hostile living conditions for good bacteria are the use of medications – especially antibiotics and steroids like cortisone.  These medications are among the most widely prescribed drugs in veterinary practice. If your dog is on these medications or has taken them in the past, he or she needs help to re-establish healthy numbers of good bacteria.  And here is the good news: healthy recruits of good bacteria, probiotics, can be safety and cheaply given to any dog.  They can be used as treatment or given as prevention to increase the number of good fighting soldiers.  Most of us are familiar with yogurt and other fermented foods that contain live strains of friendly bacteria.  Fermented foods have been hailed for centuries as healthy food and the reason being they promote a healthy gut.  Even our ancient healers understood the healthy benefits of eating these fermented foods long before the microscope was invented! 

If your dog suffers from digestive problems, stool eating, arthritis, poor hair coat or allergies – it’s time to think gut.  Many dogs start to show improvement in just a few weeks when given the right combination of digestive enzymes and probiotics.  I recommend the multiple blend of enzymes and probiotics selected by a company called Ultra-Pet Products: Total-Zymes and Total-Biotics.  This product line was developed by John Taylor ND, a naturopathic doctor who has successfully used enzymes and probiotics to treat human patients and himself for years.  Five years ago, he turned his attention to pets.  After studying products available in the marketplace, his research told him he could develop better products at a better price.  Ultra-Pet Products is a sister company to his human supplement line, Natural Wellness. 

Another company, Nature’s Farmacy has developed a supplement containing both enzymes and probiotics named DOGZYMES.  Their products gained popularity among the dog fancy – going back almost 20 years ago.  They continue to enjoy positive testimonials by breeders and those who show dogs professionally. 

I strongly advise that you experiment using both digestive enzymes and probiotics to see what works best for your dog.  You can expect to enjoy positive results within the first month or two.

The gut is a key player in your dog’s health and can be a major determinant of whether or not your dog gets sick.  So, keep the gut happy, never ignore a gut reaction, and you will surely help your dog to enjoy better health! 

Before the advent of commercial pet food diets some 50 years ago, family dogs thrived from the benefit of common sense and our grandmother’s cooking. Before the craze of pre-packed convenience foods, the relatives of today’s modern dog enjoyed and prospered eating the same foods we did. That’s right folks — those dogs belonging to your grandparents ate real people food and thrived. We are not talking Big Macs and French fries, just fresh meats, whole grains and all the vegetables that a dog could dig up in the garden. Sadly, today’s modern dog suffers from the economics of food technology, which has failed to live up to its claims of being a “natural” and “nutritionally balanced” diet.

So, let’s first ask the question, what is an “all natural” dog food? I believe the meaning of “natural” would have its roots in Mother Nature herself and therefore be something that exists in nature. Bags of kibble and cans of dog food only exist on the shelves of pet food supermarkets! So, the next time you are hunting down the aisles of your favorite pet store, don’t fall for hyped-up advertising claims of dog food being “all natural” or their newest buzz word, “holistic”. Instead, grab hold of your common sense and think about it. Is this how you eat? Furthermore, there is nothing natural about forcing your dog to eat the same diet day after day. And Mother Nature herself never stopped to read the ingredients on a label. She simply designed the ancestral dog to catch and kill prey animals. Remember the advertising slogan used in a popular ad for margarine, “It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature.” It carried a warning not to try and imitate her genius!

Keep this warning in mind the next time you visit the supermarket and do your dog a favor by picking up a real bird! Still not convinced? Ask your dog what he wants, baked chicken or the stuff in the bag? Without a doubt your dog will gladly pass on a bag filled with inferior protein sources, processed by-products, and preservatives. And for you die-hard skeptics out there, ask yourself why you don’t eat the same engineered diet that has been formulated to “meet all your nutritional needs” every day? Do you know how many grams of protein, units of vitamin E, milligrams of calcium, and number of calories you eat every day?

Let’s face it folks, the billion dollar pet food industry is thriving because of brainwashing ads, endorsements by veterinarians who fail to recognize that people are smart enough to cook for their dogs, and the sad fact that convenience itself has become too popular in our everyday lives. Remember the basic tenets of good nutrition: go for variety, choose fresh wholesome ingredients, and avoid processed foods. Commercial pet foods violate all the basic principals of this sound nutritional advice. For my dogs and the clients that I council, the conversation pretty much ends when I pop the final question: Would you eat anything labeled as dog food?
Not only do pet foods contain ingredients that dogs and cats were not designed to eat, there is documentation that pet foods can contain toxins and harmful bacteria and can make your dog sick!

Thanks be to those who challenge the status quo and then prove it wrong. When I learned that Donald Strombeck, DVM, PhD, a professor of mine who taught gastroenterology at the School of Veterinary Medicine at U.C. Davis, CA, had written a book entitled Home Prepared Dog and Cat Diets—the Healthful Alternative, I knew he had something sobering to say. At first I was simply reassured by his statement that diet is one of the most important considerations in a pet’s care and that it is a major determinate of health and life expectancy. Wow, after 40 years of his work in gastroenterology, my professor confirms the connection between diet and health. He then goes on to blow the whistle on the pet food industry! Not only did he report that pet foods are not nutritionally complete and balanced, but sited nutritional deficiencies that result from feeding prepared diets that are very different from the diet of a foraging animal. Not only do pet foods contain ingredients that dogs and cats were not designed to eat, there is documentation that pet foods can contain toxins and harmful bacteria and can make your dog sick!

How can this happen? Because of the failure to regulate the pet food industry and set minimum standards as to quality of ingredients used in the manufacturing process. Bottom line: your dog is not protected from ingesting harmful and even deadly contaminants. In short, our food supply is under the watchful eye of the USDA . Anything labeled as pet food also carries the warning: Not for human consumption! Is it any wonder why veterinarians are called to treat so many mysterious cases of vomiting and diarrhea, often labeled as inflammatory bowel disease or food intolerance, which magically resolve when they are switched to homemade diets…

If you truly value the health of your dog, you cannot afford to ignore the importance of good nutrition. What you choose to feed your dog will ultimately decide his fate in terms of health, longevity, and the quality of his life. So, add some extra people food (poultry, fish, eggs, cottage cheese, brown rice and veggies) to your grocery list and invite your hungry dog back into the kitchen!

And if want your dog pal to experience the healthy delights of homemade meals—and you are just too busy to cook or hate the kitchen—bring home the DOGie Bag. Fetch these pre-cooked meals and have them delivered at www.dogiebag.com.