What about this homemade pet food? Or raw? There's BARF and RMB's and ground and supplements and so much more but how do we know we're doing what's right?
Bottom line: do what works for your pet.
In my case, Indy hates kibble in all its incarnations so for him, raw food works. For my cats, they love kibble but it makes them fat and the litter box is ever so full and frightening (and stinky! Oh the stench...) if they have it. Raw really works wonders for them. Pfeiffer, or phatty pants as she is affectionately known, grew to immense proportions when she was the store cat by ripping open bags of kibble and helping herself. She has since become a housecat (terrorist with claws) forced to eat raw for lack of dry goods. While she has never been able to lose the weight brought on by her early years of indulgences she now has a beautiful coat where before she had what appeared to be greasy, almost slimy fur. Works for her.
The other side of the equation is Caramel. Hated kibble as a pup, I finally gave in around 6 months and let her eat raw which appeared to work for her for quite some time. Eight months or so ago I switched her and Indy to a less expensive brand for strictly economic reasons and dropped the variety in her diet to next to nothing. She and Indy previously ate a huge selection of commercially prepared raw foods but the cost was to much at the time. About 3 months ago I noticed that she had developed baldness in front of her ears and that in spite of omega-3 supplementation she was shedding an astronomical amount of fur. It's amazing how much hair a 33lb dog can produce! Turns out my "discount" brand didn't use whole chickens in their mix, instead it was ground chicken backs. This meant I was using mostly bone and skin and not much meat for sustaining my girl creating a huge mineral imbalance leading to a copper and zinc deficiency. She was tired, balding and grumpy. Now I have a homecooked recipe formulated by a canine nutrition expert designed to replenish her depleted stores of copper and zinc and detoxify her organ systems after the damage caused by an unbalanced diet. Two weeks in and her coat is softer, no hair regrowth yet but I remain hopeful that it will come in time.
Learning experience, I couldn't screw around with Caramel, she's got a more sensitive internal balance than Indy but I am taking this as a precaution and reanalyzing what I feed him to prevent possible issues for him in the future too. Know your dog or cat, and if something seems out of the ordinary it might be, so do yourselves a favor and check it out.
No comments:
Post a Comment