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Monday, 02 April 2007 |
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When you open a tin of dog food spare a thought for its ingredients. In it you have a lot of variety. Diseased livestock, rancid grain, animal meat that had already died before it got to the slaughterhouse, cereals that contain poisonous pesticides, meat that when alive was fed on meal containing growth hormones and antibiotics to help decrease to risk of possible disease outbreaks because of the cramped living conditions ... Would you like to eat that? So why give it to a loved and trusted member of the family? Pet food supplies is today big business but it hasn’t always been that way. In the first half of the twentieth century food manufacturers had an enormous problem with food they couldn’t sell. It was either contaminated with disease or pesticide, rotten or contained such things as heart and brains and eyes that the general public didn’t particularly enjoy eating. Then some bright spark (I imagine his family is now stinking rich) had the idea of packaging all this rotten, disgusting and potentially lethal offal into a can and marketing it as ‘pet food’. The rest is history. The bottom line is this: if you wouldn’t eat it, don’t give it to your pet.
But there is an alternative. Many people assume that dogs are carnivores and are unable to eat anything other than meat. This is a preposterous idea. Dogs love anything they can get their greedy paws on, even fruit. By changing their diet to fresh, healthy food you will notice the difference very quickly. I normally buy my Boxer fresh chicken or turkey and cook it myself in the oven. I also give him fresh vegetables like carrots and potatoes, fish sometimes and eggs. You have to be very careful to take out each and every bone and not to give him too much. Recently I did a bit of math and realized that annually I paid less by giving him fresh food than I would have if I had bought some of the more expensive kinds of ‘pet food’. If your dog is displaying odd behavior or unhealthy symptoms, you would do well to take a look at his eating habits. Behavior such as licking his paws or rubbing his face against things can be a clear symptom of him being allergic to grain, which is a common problem among dogs who eat canned dog food. It may be that you had never thought of cooking for your Boxer before. Maybe the whole idea seems a little silly or too much like you are spoiling your dog. The truth is it does take more time to prepare, but it is not as if you will have to be slaving over a hot stove for three hours every day. With the proper organization it becomes a routine which you won’t even think about. And having a dog whose health increases is definitely worth that extra little bit of trouble. After all, he is your dog. |
