Dog Diet Tips

Please feed me!   That’s what the hungry strays say to us most of the time.   In a natural life a dog would go for long periods without food and then gorge himself when he caught something.   It’s been proven recently that domesticated dogs evolve quite rapidly, over a period of tens of years instead of hundreds.   When they see us having three meals a day, it’s hardly surprising that they would like the same.

So many of the pet food manufacturers advise keeping the dog strictly on one ration – always theirs of course!   It’s a good for business promotion.   We have never found it to be of particular importance, in fact it is very boring and might, in some cases, even be harmful.  If the diet is not entirely suitable or contains unpleasant additives, it may have a long term adverse effect.  

In the wild dogs would eat many different things – meat, fur, bone, grass, offal, grain etc.   This is how they’ve survived for thousands of years.    We like to feed a varied diet that is as natural as possible.   This is the way to vitality and long term health.   Organic is the best for any living creature but we don’t dole out the same food for each meal.   Dogs like variety, just like humans!

Breakfast here is organic porridge, that’s for us as well as the dogs.    There’s no need to cook the oats when you’re feeding them to your doggy pals.   We find that some of our dogs like them with milk and we always use goats milk as cows milk can cause tummy upsets.    A handful of oats in each dish (more or less according to taste, size and condition) and soak with the milk.   That’s it – yum, yum.

Of course, some of the dogs just have to be different.  Nolene is a little lady and likes everything just so.   Milk in one bowl, dry oats in the other please.   She goes between dishes until they are empty.   Nolene likes breakfast better than any other meal and pads round endlessly until she gets her oats.   Since she was at one time paralyzed and is prone to stiffness in her joints we think she knows what it is good for her.

A few of the other dogs like oats on their own but mostly they have milk to mix.   An easy, quick breakfast, inexpensive too and satisfying.   We have long noted the link between food and behaviour in dogs and a soothing, filling dish of porridge makes for a contented dog.

We don’t do lunch, except for a treat – a bone or rawhide chew, maybe a pig’s ear or a dry biscuit.   Plenty of fresh water, changed twice daily and a rock of sulphur in it is good for the skin.    What’s for tea?   Organic biscuits and meat – not canned but from the butcher is best.