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Food
There are many dog food formulations out there, ranging from inexpensive grocery-brands to expensive premium food. You should find out what suits your dog best: while many dogs have done just fine on dog chow, others do much better with other foods such as Nature's Recipe, Iams, Pro-Plan, etc. The theory behind the more expensive foods is that they are more digestible and contain less "bulk" and "fill." Hence, your dog will eat less in volume (and thus the extra cost of the food is somewhat offset) and excrete small and firm stools. You may need to experiment to find out how your dog does on different brands. Dogs vary in their individual reactions. Food should be fed once or twice a day. Put the food down and take it up again after ten to twenty minutes regardless of whether your dog has finished eating it. This discourages "picky eating" and lets you be certain of exactly how much food your dog is eating. Frequently, a problem is first indicated when your dog's feeding goes off, so scheduled feeding like this (rather than free feeding) will tip you off to potential problems right away. The larger or younger your dog is, the better multiple daily feedings are; simply divide up each day's portion into individual feedings. Fresh water should always be available, and changed at least once a day. Vegetables People food Eating problems: gulping, etc. Home Cooking Food For anyone considering switching over to a raw diet, do your homework first; don't just jump in blindly. All of the books below should be available at either Amazon.com or Direct Book Services. Most folks start with the Pitcairn book. The first Billinghurst book spawned the unfortunate acronym, BARF (Bones And Raw Foods). Kymythy's book is also very easy to comprehend and use - she even includes charts and blank grocery lists. Goldstein's book is an excellent read.
Wellpet is an email listserv dedicated to natural pet care and diets; warning, it's a high-traffic list, but for starters, their web site has a lot of the basics and great FAQs. Their web site would be the best place to get basic info about feeding raw and why. It's an inexact science, be warned. Subscription info there too. See http://www.wellpet.org/subscribe.htm. There's also a discussion group on OneList called rawdiets, and another email list called K9 Cuisine. |
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