dog food?

[Guest vin]

I have done the BARF diet with dogs in the past..but I am almost afraid to admit what i feed my 2 dogs these days..

apart from rabbits pre frozen and given raw or sometimes i boil em for a few minutes..and the odd bits of other raw meats i pick up from time to time.

I give them " Acana ,wild prairie" it is supposedly the next best thing to BARF in a dry biscuit type food.It smells good enough to eat yourself.

My older dog will not eat anything else..I have tried her on everything that comes in a sack and she would not touch anything unless you covered it in some cheap crap tinned shit..I have seen her go 5 days and start tripping out when i have tried to force her to take on the latest sack of so called good grub.. she will eat this acana stuff no probs and she is looking a lot better on it..my younger dog would eat anything that resembles food in any way... but i cant be arsed messing about with diffferent diets for each dog..It costs a fortune but is high concentrate so it does last me quite a long time with all the other stuff they get from household leftovers and my freezer... I could'nt justify the price if i kept a lot of dogs i would have to find a cheaper alternative..but for my 2 little dogs i dont mind spending a bit extra.

[Rain 232]

eukanuba or arden grange as a base and a pound of meat either trip or beef does the trick for me

[johnharris 177]

I use minced chicken and csj dry food, been feeding it for last 6 months and they look good on it

[ianh 83]

i tried that markus muhle dry dog food, was reccomended on here by skycat or casso (on another thread) cant remember which, and i have to say its really good. bit pricey but i mix it up with that and raw and its awesome, and he dont stink my camper out either now, he used to have some horrific wind!

[barry lurcher 27]

any one using taurine tablets told vet i am feeding minced chicken carcus and veg he said no probs but add some taurine its very good for the dogs heart apparently i already mix veg with it boil it up add codliver oil bit of rice well i just got a tub of taurine tablets off net gonna try em any views thanks

[graham4877 1,181]

I use ALPHA RACER plus raw meat every othe day!

[barry lurcher 27]

The Importance of Taurine for Dogs and Cats

 

Posted February 16, 2008 by jhofve in News from Dr. Jean. Tagged: cat food, cats, dog food, dogs, pet food. 3 Comments

 

Back in the 1970s, thousands of dogs and cats were mysteriously dying due to a form of heart failure called dilated cardiomyopathy. At the same time, there were reports of cats going blind that were often associated with cats being fed dog food. But within a few years, the same problems were discovered in cats eating a “premium” cat food sold by veterinarians. Finally, in the late 1980s, the problem, in cats at least, was traced to the deficiency of a basic amino acid called taurine.

There are 22 amino acids, the basic building blocks of protein. Animals can manufacture many of them in their liver, but some must be obtained in the diet—these are called “essential.” In humans and dogs, taurine is not essential, but it turned out that in cats, it is. Taurine is found primarily in muscle meat, and is completely absent in cereal grains. The lack of taurine in the diet caused serious eye and heart diseases to develop.

But what happened to the cat food? Thousands of cats had been eating the same “complete and balanced” cat food since it came on the market in the 1960s, so why should they suddenly start dying a decade later?

The answer lies in a part of the history of pet food that the big manufacturers don’t want you to know.

Before WWII, more than 90% of commercial pet food came in cans, and contained mostly meat. However, metal was needed for the military, and by the time the war ended, 85% of pet food was dry kibble. It still contained a good amount of meat, and this is what prevented taurine deficiencies from occurring.

The primary machinery for producing what is familiar to us today as dry food is called an extruder; it was introduced in the 1950s. However, to get the right crunchy texture, the recipe called for a higher proportion of starch. This started the trend of ever-increasing quantities of cereal grain, such as corn, in dry foods. At the same time, meat processors were getting more proficient at getting more meat from livestock carcasses. Less meat was available (and what was available was getting more expensive), so pet food makers substituted other animal tissues leftover from slaughter, officially called “by-products.” Over time, the result was a high-grain, low-meat dry food, for which the profit margin was—conveniently—much higher than for canned food.

Unfortunately, cats were about to pay for the pet food companies’ profits with their lives. With virtually no muscle meat in even the premium dry foods of that period, cats eating that food were missing crucial taurine, and suffered the consequences of corporate greed as sickness, blindness, and death.

When studies fingering taurine deficiency as the cause of these ailments were published, pet food manufacturers hastened to supplement taurine in their diets. Curiously, because bacteria in the cat’s digestive system evidently prefer canned food to dry, they needed to put three times more taurine in canned food than dry. The problem disappeared, and everyone lived happily ever after…or did they?

Because dogs make their own taurine from other amino acids, it’s been thought that they didn’t need such supplements. But in the last few years, researchers have discovered that a few dogs evidently can’t supply their own taurine needs; at least not on a diet of cereal grains and by-products. Certain lines of spaniels, retrievers, and particularly Newfoundlands developed the same form of heart disease that was killing cats. Now, this disease is actually pretty common among dogs of all breeds, but what was interesting about these particular dogs was that supplementing taurine could reverse their heart disease. As it turned out, many of these dogs were eating lamb and rice dog foods. Lamb meat has a relatively low level of taurine compared to chicken, the most common pet food protein. (Beef, venison, and rabbit are also much lower in taurine than poultry.) Consequently, a few pet food makers have started to supplement taurine in some (but not all) their dry dog foods.

However, the basic reason remains the same for dogs as cats: there isn’t enough real meat in the food to sustain a meat-eating predator like a dog or cat. The vast majority of dry pet foods out there contain little or no real meat, but instead use cheaper substitutes like grain proteins (corn gluten, wheat gluten, soy protein), and by-products such as meat and bone meal.

Here at Only Natural Pet Store, we stock only the best natural pet foods. You won’t find any low-end foods full of by-products here, so you can be confident that your pet is getting the best nutrition available. Shop now for your dog or cat!

While all processed cat foods and some dog foods are supplemented with taurine, in some cases more might actually be better. Taurine is a helpful and valuable supplement for pets with liver disease, seizure disorders, and Type I diabetes (the most common form in dogs). Here are some products that contain extra taurine: just found this fecking ,vets i am feeding minced chicken carcus and guess wat its got the most in it f*****g vets again

[blue staffy 145]

just changed to csj meal its good stuf at a good price my dogs get minced meat and chicken and any rabbits they catch and my mate gives me any deer he shoots badly

[rapidjenky 97]

mine get original chappie dry food as a staple.

mixed with lamb and beef heart raw, along with different raw vegetables either grated or shredded.

 

raw egs, just crack the shell open and let them get on.

raw or tinned fish, sardines, mackerel, pilchards

beef brisket bone, has a huge amount of fat and meat still on the bone but its quite soft so the dogs can much the lot

also beef cock root, yes its the muscle at the base of a bulls cock, they get throw away at work and at the end of the day its meat.

pigs trotters roasted but not very often as im to lazy to cook em.

 

i never feed mine rabbit, just feel they see rabbits in the field as food instead of wanting to give them to me lol. dont need to so i dont. the ferrets get them.

i would feed cooked rabbit i i could be bothed to cook them just for the dogs.

[rapidjenky 97]

always been told to stay away from

grapes and rasins

chocolate

garlic

onion

used to add evening primrose oil as a vet told me it was better then cod liver oil for a dogs coat and at the time i had an EBT who suffered from skin conditions.

[graham4877 1,181]

always been told to stay away from

grapes and rasins

chocolate

garlic

onion

used to add evening primrose oil as a vet told me it was better then cod liver oil for a dogs coat and at the time i had an EBT who suffered from skin conditions.

 

i use that an all mate, but i used to add a tea spoon of of butter in as the bitch i just lost had shit skin after a month of doing that her hair had come back on her back legs and all the flakes of skin had gone!

[nitestalker 28 209]

i hav mine on formula 1 28% greyhound feed nuts wit a mix of fresh rabbit venison and tripe keeps them in good order atb

[Tally Ho Hunter 60]

raw chicken mince and a little bit of working dog meal sorted

[nat 8]

I get that garlic fr the horses but il leave it just incase, dogs doing fine atm

[craigyboy 1,274]

my dogs eat nothing but raw meat,they have never had any tin or complete shite,if for some reason i forget to get some out of the freezer then i always have bags of pasta and tins of pilchards in,so they get that,but mainly its raw hare,rabbit,beef,chicken,lamb,tripe,venison,pigeon,duck,pigs trotters,ears,turkey heads and necks,chicken necks and feet,i let them graze like sheep when theyre out and add acv to their water and thats it and boy are they fecking healthy

forget garlic for the reason sandy gave and id sack cod liver oil as well,if you wanna give it summat then give it salmon oil

Edited September 29, 2011 by craigyboy