Redetotry wrote:Anne, I'm all for home cooking if that is ones choice but it is really something that I think needs a lot of research as feeding homemade dog food is very controversial. Here is an article from UC Davis about why if you do make their food you should know what vitamins and minerals you need to add.
https://www.ucdavis.edu/news/homemade-d ... tudy-finds
Thank you, BJ.
I definitely agree that this can be a controversial topic. A fun one, though, I think.
I also strongly agree that more research needs to be done. A LOT more research.
From here on out, BJ, when I say "you" I am not talking about you specifically, or even personally.
I'm not.
I am just using the universal "you" as a kind of catch-all for anyone who might be interested in reading this essay further.
Thanks for understanding.
We should all keep in mind that vets and veterinary schools can - and do - get grant money from dog food companies. Grant monies can be helpful to keep the curriculum going. Veterinary schools train veterinarians. Veterinary schools also write reports. In the real world, the cost to do research and to write reports is often done with the aid of grants.
Know, too, that studies have also been done on commercial dog foods by (hopefully) non-partisan government entities. Often the official studies on commercial dog foods are. . . inconclusive. Some studies show the commercial foods coming up short. Tons of links are out there, if anyone is interested in doing their own research.
Happy to provide some interesting links, should anyone be interested pursuing this further. Let me know.
Oh, and while we are at it, do a Google search on current dog food recalls. There are generally one or two of these recalls nearly every day. Reasons from the mundane to the potentially lethal. From the small specialty dog food makers to the Really Big Guys.
Fun reading.
Another thing to keep in mind is that commercial dog food producers are not in the business of formulating the best possible, most complete, most nutritious, dog food with the highest quality ingredients. Commercial dog food companies are in the business of producing the highest volume of dog food as possible at the lowest possible cost for resale.
It's just how business works.
In the last couple of decades, it has been my personal and, admittedly, totally non-scientific observation that those of my dogs that lived their entire lives eating hard round brown balls that came out of a colorfully printed bag purchased at the grocery store (or from the pet food store) lived three to four years less than my dogs did when I started making my own dog food.
And these were not just random dogs. They were dogs of a specific breed, all in a family; i.e. they were all related one to another. Mother-father, sister-brother, etc.
I feed raw beef (usually bottom round, which I then cut and cube) purchased at the meat counter at my local grocery store. I feed rice and also a variety of fruits and veggies mostly grown organically in my back yard. Those that I am too lazy or unable to grow I buy from the produce department at my local grocery store. The meat is fresh, human-grade. The produce is fresh, human grade. The rice is locally grown, I buy it in large 25# bags at my local grocery store.
Yes, Karen, I am talking Winco Foods here. Thank goodness there is one near to me, and the prices are affordable, or I would be way down the chute by now.
Commercial dog food producers don't talk too much about the specifics of where they get their ingredients. Maybe they are backing their 18-wheelers up to the back door of Winco in the middle of the night - but somehow I don't think so.
Nor do they want to talk too much about what actually goes into that colorfully-printed bag with the big picture of the happy smiling dog on the front of it. You know, the one with the nice jingle on tv that makes the consumer want to reach for that particular bag.
If anyone reading this would like to have a bit of fun, take out your current bag of dog food and read over the five or so inches of ingredients printed on the side of the bag in a print size too small to read. Have your magnifying glass ready. And your chemical encyclopedia might be a good to have in your hand, too.
You’re going to need both of them.
If any of you know, and can recognize off the top of your head, what all of those dozens of things listed on the bag actually are, and what they actually do, and the purpose for them actually being in the bag (not to mention the long-term and cumulative effect they might have) - then you are a definitely a better person than I am.
I did mention above what goes into my dog’s food. No magnifying glasses or encyclopedias necessary or required. On the other hand, if you don’t have a Winco nearby, you may be in a world of hurt.
Long list of ingredients on my bag of rice: "Rice".
My final point is this:
Some research suggests that dogs have lived with humans for around forty-thousand years. Other research suggests that it might be more than one-hundred-thousand years. Dogs and humans, both being omnivores, eat much of the same things. Certainly not all, but actually quite a lot.
Likely, over these hundred-thousand-years or so, early dogs – let’s call them proto dogs - adapted to eat what humans ate, and to also eat the human’s leftovers. Those proto-dogs that could not adapt – evolve – to survive, or even flourish, eating human foods did not live long enough to add to the gene pool.
Those that did adapt – well, pretty soon they weren’t proto-dogs at all anymore.
They were just plain dogs.
Then, after all of these hundred millennia or so, with everything going along fairly smoothly, here comes Mr. James Spratt. Mr. Spratt is credited with developing the first commercial dog food in 1860, or thereabouts.
Mr. Spratt was not a nutritionist. Mr. Spratt was an electrician.
It took another fifty years or so for this weird commercial dog food idea to finally take wing (up until then everyone just made their own dog food – there were no other options), but once it did, it eventually became the extremely competitive, billion-dollar industry we know today.
Billion-dollar industries generally don’t care much about the individual consumer. Their primary goal is to get that individual consumer’s dollar in their billion-dollar industry's pockets.
By whatever means necessary. Advertising is one way.
It's just how it is. It's how business works. It's how businesses stay in business. It's for the dollars, it's not out of the goodness of their hearts.
That’s about it, I guess. I could probably go on for another page or two, but I suspect that everyone reading this has fallen asleep by now.
Either that, or are now throwing mudballs at their computer screen.
Am I trying to tell everyone – or even one single person – what they should feed their dog? Nope. Not me. Not ever. Not my business.
Definitely, to each his own. Live and let live.
But do yourself a favor, though. Maybe just for fun. Read that ol' dog food bag the next time you get a chance.
Thanks.
Anne
