Some dogs gleam with health. They are alert, full of energy and their coat is shiny. Others who come in have dull, lifeless coats, they are prone to skin conditions and have a variety of ailments. So why is one dog fit and well and never sees the vet, whilst another dog is always on medication and rarely away from the surgery? Just as it is with people, a healthy diet and environment promotes a healthy constitution – we are what we eat. It’s the same with dogs and other pets too.
Factory manufactured pet food is convenience food – alright when you are in a hurry. Chappie is the canned food we favour because it’s made from fish and cereal – no animal has been factory farmed and died in a slaughterhouse to make it. There seems to be an absence of reality in life today, such is the power of advertising! It isn’t any harder to feed fresh food but the hype tries to convince us otherwise. Pet food manufacture is a mega lucrative business. It didn’t exist a few decades back. Were the dogs dying in droves and limping to the vets? No way – they were fit and healthy and lived to a good old age. Dogs are carnivores after all.
We know the world is coming to an end, and sooner that it might, because of us humans. The dogs and cats and our pets aren’t causing global warming – it’s us humans. Feeding locally sourced food and cutting out the manufacture, packaging, storage, transport and huge cost is one way to help right the enormous harm we are doing to our beautiful planet and all the animal inhabitants who we say we like. It’s not that hard to find a butcher who buys locally produced stock. Feed fresh meat and fish bits (using up the surplus parts of the carcasses that would otherwise go to waste) and you’ll not only be providing an additive free diet and keeping your dogs and cats healthy, you’ll be doing your bit to help the environment as well.