Tuesday, March 8, 2011
In which we give up on the doggie diet
I am not at all happy with the results of the girls' diet change. I think they have slimmed down a bit, but it's been sort of a pyrrhic victory. They have highly reduced energy levels and much longer recovery times after running, skiing, and/or skijoring. I do not like. Back to their regular kibble and being fat, happy, and strong! Yay!
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I do not like raw diets for doggies because raw diets seem to include bunnies. :( That said, what's in their kibble? Not enough protein and too many carbs? Maybe they would stay trim AND have lots of energy if they ate actual meat?
[Obviously, I am not a dog dietitian, just wondering out loud.]
Follow up comment: The kibble page says this: "Includes nutrients from fresh fruits and vegetables." I don't get it. Are dogs supposed to (want to) eat fresh fruits and vegetables? As far as I know, wolves mainly (only?) eat dead animals. Bears seem to eat all kinds of things. My dog loved carrots. Dogs != bears. Dogs also != wolves. But, it seems like they would want to eat more like wolves than like bears. (Or humans!)
3rd comment of the evening: Maybe you should buy them an elk carcass. You could take pictures and become famous. :)
The dogs are happier too, they don't know and don't worry about their own longivity. I bet they prefer a shorter but happy life over a longer but unhappy life, because they don't worry about tomorrow.
They have the highest quality kibble on the market--human-grade meat is the first ingredient. The food they grew up on has corn as the first ingredient, but they were supplemented hugely with farm scraps and hunting scraps, so it's difficult to duplicate exactly what they had in those years.
Dogs and wolves do eat fresh greens--they chew grass and other sweet weeds all summer. My girls like broccoli and spinach, and loooooove carrots. They also eat moose and caribou marbles, which are rich in greens during the summer and willow during the winter. My girls also eat Millie's raisins if any happen to escape her litter box. :O
I'm sure they would love to have actual meat as part of their regular diet, but I don't buy CAFO meat, and I'm not a hunter, so my meat supply is a combination of unreliable (when my hunter friends share their spoils) and expensive (when I buy from the all-locally-raised-free-range-animals butcher).
I think it's really interesting that you noticed the physical changes so soon after adjusting their food intake. You must be very much in tune with their behavior and mannerisms.
I wish more animal owners payed this much attention to their pets.
"Dogs and wolves do eat fresh greens--they chew grass and other sweet weeds all summer."
Interesting. I thought they only did that to puke. :)
No, they keep them down. :) Oh, and Linden adores blueberries! She eats them right off the bush. It's funny how the sisters have their individual preferences that the other doesn't care for. :)
Poking my head up to note that that's one of the big differences between caniforms and feliformes - wolves (and allied caniformes) don't really have to be constitutive carnivores.
Though, I'm not a vet - not sure what's `best` for a breed.
Sounds like you need to go fishing for dog salmon next summer though! ;)
My dog also enjoys veg and will soon "tidy up" any dropped oats, rabbit/rat raisins, crumbs etc. Dogs are natural scavengers and wouldn't naturally have a diet of pure meat only as will eat almost anything edible they find - also they can be very healthy as vegetarians just like we can (unlike cats, which are obligate carnivores).
Anyway, like anything it's a case of balance - a little overweight and fit is probably far healthier than skinny and unfit.
Sometimes you just have to make choices considering the whole animal, not just their physical state.
I once faced that decision with one of my (former!) cats. Looking for another problem, the vet found an enlarged heart on my 10 year old cat and suggested that I give him a half of a baby aspirin twice a week to protect him from strokes. The cat, which did not take pills easily, sulked for three days after each pill. After weeks of trying every trick in the book to give him the pill in a way that would not get him so mad, I finally gave up. (He ended up living well into his 20s!) The days that he sulked were not worth any possible benefit in a longer lifespan.
I would rather have a happy pet that may not live quite as long than one that is unhappy for all of those days! Your girls love to run; it seems almost cruel to put them on a diet that reduces their energy so much.
If it's still a concern, maybe you could mix the two kibble types? Would they eat around the boring stuff though?
I actually had been mixing the two kibble types, gradually increasing the amount of the "geriatric" stuff so as not to switch too suddenly. It's about when the ratio approached 1:1 that I noticed the undesirable physical changes. Now I'm just throwing a bit in with their regular, standard food just to use it up, but I won't buy it any more.
Eat around it? LOL. My dogs will hardly refuse food of any type. :)
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