Changing diet

[HeatherH]

I'm thinking out loud only

I'd like to mix it up a little.
Dutch likes human food so I'm thinking get him off kibble and on to cooked food. Right now he gets 4 cups of proformatrin chicken and rice for adults twice a day and 1 raw egg. What I'd like to give him is just make some rice/chicken/garlic/carrots twice a day no salt no sugar. Make some carrot flour biscuits for his treats.
I know I need to read up a little more, but what else would he need to stay balanced.
Keeping in mind I’d like to more things with him. We hike a lot over different areas rocks and hills not just on trails.

Heather

[Dutchringgirl]

how about going raw. why cooked ?

[HeatherH]

They won't get sick? I still need to read more.

Like do they need vitamins?

[Dutchringgirl]

sick from raw? Nope

[Raven]

I had always heard that garlic was okay for dogs (especially in regard to it being a repellant), but then heard in a small circle that it wasn't, that it alters blood chemistry. Like onions, it should be avoided. As I said, this came from a small circle, and most say it is okay.

RAW is fine but there's a lot to learn, as I've been trying to do for a while now.

Carrot flour? Tell more.

[Dutchringgirl]

garlic is okay in small doses according to weight, I have been giving my girls a small amount and i have NOT found ANY ticks on them this year !!!

[Raven]

What is the weight-to-clove ratio? Daily or weekly?

[karenz]

I boil chicken with sweet potato or green beans for Xander. He gets kibble in the morning and a small amount of his chicken mixture in the evening. He seems to do well with it. I would go raw but I'm scared of bones. I've had 3 dogs to get a piece stuck in throat and it scared the crap out of me. They were raw not cooked so I thought they were ok. Is there a way to go raw without giving bones?

[Stacy_R]

What is the weight-to-clove ratio? Daily or weekly?

Forms of Garlic You Should Not Use:
Dry, Dehydrated, Powdered, Mixed Garlic, Supplement
I also wouldn't use the minced stuff in a jar - you lose some of the qualities.
Cooked garlic does not retain the medicinal properties found in fresh garlic.

Safe Daily Dosage for Dogs
1 clove fresh raw garlic per every:
30 pounds of body weight
or
1 teaspoon (tsp) fresh, raw minced/finely chopped garlic per every:
30 lbs of body weight

[Stacy_R]

Is there a way to go raw without giving bones?

You'll have to add in bone meal for calcium.

[HeatherH]

I was told wheat flour was hard on a dog’s digestion. That they use carrot flour to make dog treats.

So I'm clear that it's actually uncooked meat, not processed steamed or otherwise? They don’t get sick or worms? I found a recipe.
garlic Dutch is about 75lbs and I give it to him once a week
Heather

[johninny]

Heather, the Platinum Performance CJ [ complete joint ] is a superb way of knowing your dog is getting all the nutrients he needs or may protect him [ eyes, joints, tendons, etc ]; it has been highly recommended by vet school journals and the ingredients are well-sourced [ i.e., omega oils from algae which is the ultimate source! ]. i believe any food prepared at home - whether raw or cooked - is well-advised to use this since most of today's food products do not contain the good stuff that drew us to eat them in the first place, plus PP-CJ has so many thoughtful additions like extract of marigold to protect eyes which most foods do not supply to dogs.

however, on the subjects of garlic and of rice:
do not believe rice should be a staple of anyone's diet - at least not the way dogs are fed. almost all rice has arsenic. much rice commercially available today has huge amounts of arsenic. so a dog getting the same food everyday should not be eating food with rice in it. if rice does not have arsenic in it, then it tends to have lots of other heavy metals - whatever it can find in the soil. cadmium has become a big problem recently - which is much worse. go for sweet potato, pumpkin, and the many different kinds of squash. i find ''spaghetti'' squash is an excellent substitute for rice - and if you have a small garden, you can probably grow with great ease most of the squash one could need for most of the year. [ except my puppies have taken to stealing and eating the baby squash from the garden, so last winter i suffered crop failure.]

garlic is a definite poison for dogs. a little bit occasionally will not harm, but fed everyday, the effects build up in the body - lowering red blood cell count and eventually leading to anemia. also, it cumulatively increases the chance of bloat and pancreatitis, which is not a good idea in deep-chested dogs. even what would seem like a modest amount of garlic to us can cause pancreatitis within an hour of feeding, so i would definitely avoid feeding regularly in ANY amount that would make a difference in any way.

instead, concentrate on herbs like oregano [ which you can grow a ton of most of the year once the plant establishes itself ], thyme [ easy to grow in less quantity ], saffron [ can grow on annual basis ], rosemary [ tough to be perennial in colder areas, but possible if protect in winter]. these also help protect from internal and external parasites and act as excellent prebiotics. oh, dandelion is highly recommended for dogs, helping their digestive system, dramatically increasing the bio-availability of nutrients in their food.

[Dutchringgirl]

The primary reason AVMA is against feeding garlic is that it contains thiosulphate, which can cause hemolytic anemia, liver damage and death. However garlic only contains very small traces of thiosulphate and a dog would have to consume a huge quantity for any negative effects. Using Tylenol (acetaminophen) or benzocaine topical ointments to stop itching are far more likely to cause anemia in dogs.

[Owned-By-Hendrix]

I know a few people from my club who feed RAW and swear by it. Every Sunday they just set and hour or two aside (depending on how organized they are) and prep the dog's meals for the week and freeze them. From what I understand, the trick is buy in bulk either from restaurant supply places/costco or shop around for the best deals at local markets. There are a few RAW freeze dried/pre packaged RAW products around (Primal and Nature's Variety are two of them) but those can get crazy pricey when feeding a large dog.

I've looked into making home cooked food before but my schedule won't allow for it as I barely have time to cook for myself. There are nutrition guides I've seen and people say it's pretty easy too. I'll try to find one I thought was very detailed for you. Though I would imagine with RAW or cooked food the trick is in having enough freezer/refrigerator space… And really my fridge is already packed with liquor.

[karenz]

I'm also interested in the cooked meal nutrition info. I had so much liquor I had to buy another fridge so I have plenty of room.

[HeatherH]

If you look at a lot the diets on the net they include rice. I'm not disputing anyone I'll only use it if he has the runs. They also include garlic. They did say sweet potato and squash. I’m checking out the Platinum Performance CJ on my way home to see if the pet valu has it but I think it will be an order on line. Can you believe when I was talking about it this morning with someone else they asked if I was going to cook the rice?
We're going to see if this flies. I still need to look into further. I'm not sure if the husband will be on board either.

[Raven]

My husband was never on-board with going RAW, though when recently and politely said that some evening meals would be, he was fine. He feeds Thor in the morning, so I think that was the motivator for him being against it. Maybe Greg (is that his name?) thinks he'll have to turn into a canine chef?

If you want to research RAW, possibly for the future, there's forums that deal a lot with RAW (some better than others). After I read and got up the nerve to do it, I started bugging folks on here. Lucky SOBs.

With the exception of ground flaxseed (or brown rice for diarrhea), I don't feed any grains, but I'd never heard of carrot flour. If it's literally dehydrated carrots, there'd be plenty of sugar in it, though. I'll have to look it up.

[johninny]

Lisa, i do not see the point of comparing regular garlic consumption to smearing your dog with analgesics. first, i would never do the latter at all; i make sure to buy the antibiotic gels that have no added painkiller, which is getting more and more difficult over the years. but even if one does apply that to your dog's skin, it is not being done regularly and thus there is no cumulative effect.

but to raise tylenol in this context is instructive. its damage is also cumulative just as garlic's is for dogs. one can pop the occasional tylenol for years and then take the one that kills you 2 hours later. to me your argument is like suggesting that it is alright to poison your dog as long as you do it slowly and no one notices.
dogs have individual tolerances for garlic toxicity just as we have our own specific levels of toxicity to tylenol, so that the amount of garlic required to create a one-time, one-serving toxic reaction or the smaller amount served on a regular basis required to create toxicity over time will vary greatly from dog to dog and is not strictly [ or even mostly? ] a matter of weight of the dog.
where the tylenol / garlic in dogs analogy breaks down is that EVERY intake of garlic will do some damage. the question then becomes how much damage at once and how often will more damage be inflicted. any amount of garlic that is enough to bestow perceived positive health benefits on a dog is too much garlic for the health of the dog's blood, gastrointestinal system, liver, and pancreas. the only way to avoid nasty short or long-term side effects is give to so little garlic that it has no positive effects at all --- so why bother and why take the risk.
Stacy, other than Lisa's mention of tick avoidance, i am not sure what medicinal benefits from garlic you or others are seeking for dogs. anti-bacterial and anti-viral activity can be gained through herbs whereas to have much efficacy with garlic would require unacceptably large amounts on a regular basis. this is the only benefit of garlic that i am aware of that diminishes with cooking. so if one were to serve garlic to a dog regularly, cooking does alleviate some of the toxicity while other health benefits are maintained. garlic raw or cooked is very good for the cardiovascular system, but destroying a dog's blood and risking potentially fatal damage to other organs to assure that it has good arteries does not make sense - particularly if we are discussing DS, most of whom get plenty of aerobic exercise and hopefully do not eat sugar and fat on the scale of the human population that needs to worry about such things.

Lisa, as for repelling ticks, ASSUMING actual cause and effect for the 2 girls this year, rubbing a garlic clove on their coats occasionally would probably be even more effective and certainly a whole lot safer.

just to be clear about the troubleS with garlic: gastroenteritis, pancreatitis, liver damage/failure, anemia. these are all serious. when considering the role of garlic in creating these conditions, one must remember that its effects are cumulative and may not present themselves in an obvious way til it is very late. [ suggest looking up symptoms of each of these to see how difficult it would be to recognize a slow build-up; but the extensive discomfort that can be caused on the way to an emergency should give anyone pause.] for example, in the case of anemia, even tiny amounts of garlic cause the membranes of red blood cells to get mushy and cause some of the red blood cells to simply explode; larger amounts of garlic will simply do more cell weakening and more cell explosion. a small, practically useless dose of garlic each day can cause tremendous damage over time. and - another thing to be aware of - the dog's sensitivity to garlic will escalate over time so that eventually there can be very severe reactions to even tiny doses. this escalation of sensitivity also varies from dog to dog and may vary from a couple months to years.
finally, to be clear on the topic, one clove is enough to cause one-dose [ one time exposure ] toxicity that requires treatment in some dogs. it is not likely to do so for most of our dogs, but regular administration of much less than this can have dire results and at the least certainly will result in degradation of the dog's well-being over time.

[karenz]

Johninny.... I found your post very interesting. I have always read and been told to never give a dog garlic. Or onions grapes raisins and chocolate. But I never knew the extent of what it could do. Other than kidney failure. I have never feed my dogs any of these but I know I've thrown them a piece of scrap meat that has been seasoned or cooked with onions and garlic. I'm glad I read this because I will never do that again. Very interesting. Thanks

[Raven]

John, you must have heard from that same small circle I did. So, by your description, garlic behaves the same as grapes inasmuchas it is individual to each dogs' system. Two grapes could be fatal to one dog but 115 might be fatal to another.

Do you have references for the information on garlic? I'd be very interested in looking it over. (If you already cited them, sorry, missed 'em.) I guarantee if I did a search, it would produce site after site of "it isn't harmful" peppered with the occasional "yes, it is" without much cited (trusted) documentation.

Seems we've been through this before with other things: the changing do's and don'ts.