This is our beloved Kingston. We call him a MOG - because he is truly part man, part dog. We love him just as much as we love Kaelyn. He is a real member of our family and we cannot imagine life with out him. We are so blessed to have such a wonderful spirit around us all the time - who can put perspective around things by taking it all back to such a simple level - it's all about love and fun!!Kingston turned 3 this past May (May 3rd - it was his "golden" birthday!). About a month ago, as I was putting his daily kibble in his bowl for dinner, I started to think about how odd it was that we give our dogs this same dry kibble every single day of their lives. When we lost our kitty Fremont earlier this year (11 years old) to kidney failure, I started to blame the food we gave him and the water he drank out of the faucet every single day of his life. So why do we never question what we give our dogs? I mean, arguably, kibble is not a natural thing for the dog to eat. So what did I do???
I went to the library and took out all the holistic dog food books they had. I could not believe what I was reading about the horrors of processed dog food. It really all comes down to the same science as for us humans. We aren't meant to eat processed foods and neither are dogs. They are carnivores (and eat some vegetables) and should eat accordingly. I'm not going to go into details on what I learned, but I will just say that dog food causes tremendous health issues for dogs. Especially the cheaper dog foods (even most of the expensive ones, quite honestly). But it all comes down to this - our dogs/pets would live twice as long if we kept them on a raw, more natural diet. On average, dogs live 10-11 years. If on raw food, they would live an average of 27. Of course, that varies based on breed - but you get the point. The question became clear: How could I make such huge changes to our own eating and leave our dear MOG on kibble?
We've had Kingston on very high-end holistic dog kibble (not cheap) for a very long time because he has always had some intestinal issues (diarrhea). He was currently taking Wellness brand - and doing better than on anything else, but still had the occasional bout of explosive stuff (weekly). And forget it if you tried to give him pretty much any treats that were not completely holistic.
Long story short, for week one I started making his own food. I look back and Samantha (our summer visitor) must have thought I was nuts. It was quite intense as far as the amount of ground meat, the rice, the veggies, the supplements, etc. I never did get it completely down...but Iwas determined. Right away on the cooked "real" food diet, his poop changed for the better. He also had less gas. We also started making his own treats which was super easy.
Week two I got a different book and it focused on Raw food. I know people who've done this and I was NEVER interested in this approach. But after a week of cooking a meal for another "adult who eats for 3 adults," I realized that not only was the raw food diet better for him, but SOOOOOOOO much easier on me!
So week two I started giving him raw meat that I was buying myself. I wasn't feeling great about this option b/c I don't trust our meat packers to be very sanitary...so I went over to our holistic pet store where we were getting his kibble. Low and behold they sell pre-packaged, large-volume, raw meet with everything included so you don't have to supplement. And it was way cheaper than what I was doing by doing it all myself.
So there you have it. He's a raw food doggie. His demeanor has changed, he's much calmer, much more satisfied with his meals, and his poop speaks for itself! I don't think I'll ever go back!
Love this post. We currently give Cassy California Natural. She has a super sensitive tummy too. It costs about $50 a month (give or take). How much does the raw food set you back per month? When we were expecting Ella, we used to tease the pets they were going to have to eat Ol' Roy when Ella got here.
ReplyDeleteOhhhhh that is so great! Props to you for being willing to do that. Seeing the veterinarian side of the pet industry is leaving me just as discouraged as the retail was, because none of them ever, ever mention food. One pet owner with a new puppy asked one of the vets what he recommended... total blank slate... and the vet said "Purina is pretty good". I almost choked. Another vet got an egg out of an egg bound parakeet (egg stuck inside) and never once mentioned adding calcium to the bird's diet to help prevent it from happening again. I told the owner later and he didn't really care or listen because I'm just a tech... man I wish the vet had known or said something. But I think that diet as a preventative is just as important to every living creature as it is to us, and you really do need to go back to what we evolved to eat... and eat that. We're a sack of organs that you put things into and you can't just put what you want in there and then get surgeries and take drugs when things go wrong. Jeez. I think you are on to a worldview that everyone else will catch up with in 50 years and they'll look back at the McDonalds era and find it ridiculous. How can we advance medicine so much but ignore the fundamentals of our health--our fuel?
ReplyDeleteThat's interesting about the dog lifespan I had no idea it could be increased that much. Most people don't know that on birdseed cockatiels (and other small hookbills) live an average of seven years... but on a mixed whole food (fruits and veggies) and pellet diet (pellets are mainly grains, vitamins, amino acids, omega fatty acids, etc) that contains no more than 10% seeds they can live for 35 years. I hate that most pet owners "can't" or "won't" spend the time/money on more than whatever they can pick up at the grocery store. You shouldn't have a pet if you can't put in the right time for care.
Anyway I'm so happy you guys ended up with such a great dog and such a great dog ended up with you guys. :)
Kdog's kibble was about $60 a month - Wellness brand. I'm still working out the math on the raw meat, but it looks like it will be $100-115 per month. It's pretty steep to put that in front of someone, so most people would reject that notion. But I just can't imagine making a different choice. He's so worth it and I've seen a tremendous diet. The brand of raw we are using is BRAVO. I will say that our wonderful pet food store recommends at a minimum doing a rotation diet - so you do 1/3 kibble, 1/3 canned, and 1/3 raw. At least their getting some of the real stuff that way and it's supposedly a better option than just all kibble.
ReplyDeleteKathy
I love that M.O.G.'s mug!
ReplyDeleteTotally worth it. We were just adding up the cost of having our pets. I'm sure we underestimated, but it came to something like $1500 a year. I spent 25 minutes at the pet store today trying to study all the ingredients in the cat food there. I left with just a couple of samples and didn't purchase anything, yet. Still have more research to do.