Nutrition for Your Dog
Dangers of Commercial Dog Food Nutrition.
Chances are you’ve had bad advice regarding good nutrition for your dog. How do I know? I was taught it at veterinary school!
This is how it usually goes…
by feeding commercial, nutritionally balanced dog foods.
Like …rickets (calcium deficiency) was common in dogs then, and is almost unheard of these days…
And …canine nutrition based on uncooked meat increases the risk of transmitting some parasites…
Strangely enough none of these scary stories were ever backed by scientific evidence.
Our teachers were just parroting what their teachers had told to them, the way most vets repeat faithfully when advising on nutrition for your dog.
Let’s look at some real science on animal food health aspects…
Pottenger’s Cats
Way back in the 1930’s (when so much great science – done for the good of humanity rather than to keep some corporation profitable – was undertaken) Francis Pottenger performed a study on cats spanning ten years.
This famous classic study revealed some startling truths about animal food health aspects. Though it involved cats, the study provides a strong message on how to choose good nutrition for your dog.
Pottenger kept four separate colonies, all fed on a diet of meat, milk and a little cod liver oil.
In one, both meat and milk were fed raw, in another the meat was cooked, in another the milk was pasteurized, and the fourth were fed cooked meat AND pasteurized milk.
What happened in the raw food group of cats?
The raw food group thrived with good reproductive ability, normal behavior, and resistance to chronic and infectious disease, generation after generation.
What happened in the cooked food groups of cats?
And while the cooked food groups did well in the first generation, by the second generation they were suffering from allergies, arthritis and parasitic and bacterial infections.
By the third generation the health of the cooked food groups had degenerated markedly, in proportion to the amount of their diet that was not raw.
They could no longer reproduce – with rubbery bones, deformities, and rickets; degeneration of the lungs, heart and eyes, thyroid dysfunction, infections of the kidney, liver, ovary, bladder, lungs and testicles, as well as arthritis, meningitis and paralysis.
Behavior also degenerated with the males becoming disinterested in sex, and the females becoming highly aggressive.
Basically – by feeding them cooked food – Pottenger duplicated many of the common illnesses we see in cats today!
And when it comes to optimum nutrition for your dog or cat, he proved that raw food rules!
Commercial canine nutrition
So, who’s right on dog health nutrition?
Do commercial diets really deliver the best dog food nutrition?
Well, how can they?
Commercial dog food diets are processed
Commercial foods – not matter how “elite” and expensive – are processed.
When food is processed it loses nutritional value and its ability to sustain natural health and vitality. Pet food manufacturers chuck in synthetic vitamins and minerals to make it look “complete”.
Trouble is, (as with many human nutritional supplements) the body is not able to assimilate or use many of these artificial chemicals, so they do little good.
Most commercial pet foods contain nasty stuff
Further, they are made up of nasty ingredients including cheap grains (such as corn and soy), fillers, inferior meat meals and by-products, pesticides, preservatives, and artificial colors and flavors, as well as often containing damaging rancid, oxidized fats (especially the cheaper brands).
Dog diseases have grown with the use of commercial foods
Like Pottenger’s cats on a massive scale, we’ve seen a rise in dog health issues as the generations fed commercial convenience diets have stacked up.
Canine allergies
As with the human population (who are also eating increasingly crappy diets) the incidence of allergies in dogs is rising.
Close to 10% of the canine population is now suffering from some kind of hypersensitivity reaction, and, as in the human population, this is expected to increase further.
Canine diabetes
Since 1970 the incidence of canine diabetes has almost quadrupled!
Sugars and processed (damaged) fats found in most commercial canine diets are suspected.
Periodontal disease
Three out of four dogs now have periodontal disease (it keeps vets rich!). A generation ago it was almost unheard of… Could changing dog health nutrition be implicated?
A big giveaway in dogs fed purely commercial diets is the buildup of tartar on the teeth and development of foul breath due to lack of chewing. The teeth are often weak and poorly anchored.
Dental problems, once unheard of in dogs, now provide more than a third of the income for small animal veterinarians! As the tarter buildup festers, it contaminates the bloodstream with bacteria.
While a common result is tooth abscess, these bacteria can lead to damage anywhere in the body, often on the heart valves, and in the kidneys, leading to premature death of your pet.
That’s a heavy price to pay for the wrong nutrition for your dog!
that people brush their
dogs teeth!
And these are just the tip of the iceberg.
Could the radical shift to commercial dog food nutrition have something to do with these canine health problems?
There is a better way to achieve good nutrition for your dog…alternative animal health foods recipes and supplements you can make up yourself!
Return from to NUTRITION FOR YOUR DOG to COMMERCIAL OR BARF DIET?