So, what do you feed?

I started my pet nutrition jorney in December of '06 when I adopted my first and only dog Uno. He came in eating Iams and would have bouts of random vomiting every other night. At the time, I knew very little about nutrition. In fact the first night I got him, I stopped by wal-mart and picked up a bag of pedigree. Just because I recall seeing those commercials growing up and the fact that they sponsored dog shows. I figured, wow, this must be a stellar food, and cheap too!

He probably ate that for a week or so, and then refused. Then I went to petsmart, hoping to find something that would agree with him and my pocketbook and ran into Nutro sales rep. Of course, she couldnt help by brag about the food like it was the most amazing thing on planet earth. I decided to give it a try, and even though he ate it ok, he continued to vomit. Soon after the big pet food recall of 2007 ensued. Animals were dying left and right and I was terrified. I began researching everything to death and stumbled upon a plethora of information regarding pet food industry, lack of regulation and disease correlation in companion animals. I threw away the rest of Nutro and purchases couple natural brands, merrick and eagle pack. As the time past and with increase in grain-free popularity. I decided to switch Uno to Orijen, then acana and began to rotate between various grain free brands.

After switching to grain-free, he stopped vomiting and I noticed an increase in energy, better muscle tone and healthier coat. About a year ago, I began reading about raw diet. My biggest reservation was cost and causing nutrient deficiency from feeding improperly balanced food. The more I've read about it, the more confident I became and for about a year, I began to feed him a rotation of grain free kibble and raw. Once I had little more space for a freezer and found some sources of free and inexpensive meat, I decided to take the final plunge in October of 2011.

You may ask, why did you switch to raw if he did well on kibble?

I believe that no matter how you look at it, nothing can ever substitute real food in its natural form. By the time kibble is at the end of its production, it does not resemble meat or veggies in any form. Its heated at high temperatures which destroys natural enzymes and vitamin/minerals present in whole food.

Its an equivalent of us living our whole lives eating nothing by total cereal or nutrition bars. Even though its supplemented and offers acceptable levels of nutrients to ensure our survival, it can never be compared to eating real food.

With that said, I do not paint all commercial food with the same brush, the quality varies quite drastically and its up to us to put the necessary time and effort into researching what we think is best.

For me there were couple things that I simply could not dismiss:

1) Plaque buildup on teeth- I pretty much had to brush Uno's teeth on weekly basis to keep the tartar at bay

2) Big and smelly poo- well, enough said, I dont think anyone enjoys picking this up after their dog.

Since the switch, I dont brush Uno's teeth (I'll occasionally have to wipe the canines with cotton ball and baking soda), and his poop is very small and firm which is a big bonus.

I'm still in the research mode and have been tweaking his diet to figure out what works best for him. He gets variety of meats: chicken, turkey, pork, beef, fish, venison, rabbit including bones and organs. He also gets salmon oil, coconut oil, eggs and I just started him on solid gold seameal.

So far he's been doing well, so unless something changes, I'm sticking with it :)

Here are few pics I took last night of the prep process, basically it involves thawing out a bunch of meat, then I use a scale to weigh out everything and portion it out into zip lock bags, then store in the freezer. This way I can make enough food for 3-4 weeks and just get a bag and serve immediately instead of making new batch every day.

1) Thawed out venison

2) Green tripe, beef kidney and liver

3) Portioned out meals

4) Supplements I use (solid gold seameal, wild salmon oil, organic coconut oil)

Dinner time!