Recent Meal - Just Stir!

Homemade flaked grain mix (quinoa, oat, spelt, maybe something else), poured hot water over it.

Tad of Honest Kitchen Preference (hot water again)

Coconut oil (the white chunk at the top)

Western Supreme Lamb (meat, organs, veg - great mix!)

Wholistic Pet Canine Complete
Animal Essentials Calcium (the other white splotches).

Animal Essentials Omega 3 Oil
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The homemade grain mix is so easy if you have a health food store that has bulk and boxed grains and cereals. For a few bucks I have a big bag full that will last me a while (since it's a minor portion of a meal when I use it).

It's easy once you have the supplies. If you don't have a local store that carries it you can get most online.

The hard part is the organ meats. I love Western Supreme because, depending on the species, you can get parts like spleen and kidney, which aren't commonly available. You should use more than liver! Heart is excellent - halfway between muscle and organ, high in taurine, among other attributes. Remember, every part of the carcass has it's nutritional benefit.

While the Preference has calcium, I didn't use enough to cover the whole meal, so I included the calcium powder.

I worry less about developing deficiencies because I strive for variety, within which I balance as best I know how.

Junk Food - from owner to pet (now I get it)

Driving trips can put you to the test for healthy eating and healthy feeding. Feeding the dog was easy compared to feeding myself.

Driving alone means you don't have someone to help prepare food. It also means that you're more likely to look at food as entertainment (I drove for four and a half days this trip). I have a great book called Healthy Highways that tells you where all the health food stores and vegetarian restaurants are. I love this book, and use it, but not for every meal. I don't have the time nor the patience to find the places, then spend a precious hour eating there. I want to get the long trip done. So I do what everyone does, eat while I drive, and eat fast food.

Fast food is usually a novelty for me. Not that I have the healthiest diet, but jeez, how do people eat this stuff every day? Every day! You know lots of people do. No wonder they look at you crooked when you talk about health food for pets.

If people eat processed food, fast food, fried salty food every day, their perspective on their pet's food will reflect that. Not that they want to feed their pet badly, but their understanding of what's healthy is skewed by their own experience.

They also have a skewed idea of convenience. If they drive through and pick up a burger that they eat while driving, of course doing more than scooping dry food that they pick up at the supermarket will seem like too much. I've heard that so often, that they won't do more for their dog than they do for themselves, and they do so little for themselves.

I need to have compassion for where they're coming from, but sometimes it seems so obvious that indeed they feed themselves badly, that I can't understand how they do it day in and day out.

No wonder there are rampant health problems related to food - in people and in pets.

Who Is This Dog Anyway?

Vida's Dogster page

Travel Food

A road trip with raw food is tricky. Ease depends on your willingness to cut corners - nothing my dog can survive, I say. If you have some raw, some dehydrated, and a little dry and canned, it's no problem.

Now that even modest motels often have fridges in the rooms, you can do almost anything.

I bring a couple servings of raw food and cocoon them in a cooler. Anyone can feed at least a day and a half that way.

I have a little bit of Holistique kibble in a ziplock, and some small pop-top cans of merrick stew (yes, dog food). These are for those quick and late dinners.

If I can warm up some water I have Honest Kitchen.

I'm foregoing Oils on the drive, only bringing along my Wholistic Pet all-in-one pouch for supplementation. Once I get to my vacation destination I'll share my flax oil with her. Figure a month off of coconut oil is a good switch. We'll see, since I've been feeding it consistently since November (when I get back I'll switch off the wholistic pet for awhile).

Should only take 4 days from CA to NH.

Once I get there I should be able to get some prepared raw food. It's a bit of a drive, so I also have Honest Kitchen and some flaked grains, so I'm good to go.

It's odd trying to figure out how much one's dog eats in a month. Who really calculates that?

Of course I can't forget the chewies! Fish skins and bully stix!

Never Run Out Of Dog Food Again!

Great title, eh?

No tricks, nothing up my sleeve.

Got plain oatmeal and eggs? Then you've got dog food.

No need to rush to the store or feed Fido a haul of treats, just raid your kitchen.

Plain bread, eggs, plain meat, plain cereal, veggies, cottage cheese, yogurt - these all make great meal fixin's.

Now I wouldn't say that this alone would be the best longterm diet, but there's no reason a healthy dog can't eat an odd meal.

Of course you can always use it as a chance to fast your pup too! Skipping a meal a week is a good thing for dogs.

Examining Philosophies of Feeding - grains in summer

There are a lot of theories on feeding dogs out there, even among fresh food advocates. I think it's good for people to examine them on a regular basis, and not take them for granted.

One that I was thinking about this morning (as I fed my dog some flaked grains with veggies and oils) was the idea from Levi of grain meals. I especially remember the anecdote she writes about Salukis eating mainly grains in the summer. She says this is because of the heat, to rest their digestion from the protein. Is this an example of interpretation to fit an idea?

This morning I wondered if it wasn't simpler, and not based on nutritional ideas but simple circumstance. First, dogs eat less when it's hot. Certainly summer in North Africa qualifies. They also exercise less. If there is less hunting being done, then there is less meat - for human and dog alike. If there is less meat, it's certainly the human that will get it. Is feeding less meat in summer simply based on their being less meat to share?

This is just one example of the kind of thing one should examine. Or maybe I'm just a wannabe academic.