toshman

If your feeding a BARF diet to a senior then it's more then likely you would just cut down the amount of food being fed. This would be because your senior pet was doing less exercise.

But really with BARF diet you adjust the amount to suit your dog no matter what age it is.

Yes, I agree with that, and that's probably the only adjustment I make to the old girl's diet...she gets a little less than she would have done when she was actively doing agility and tracking etc.

And I agree, too, that you adjust amounts to suit the dog at any age...I'm always just looking at my dogs and thinking (almost unconsciously) "She's looking a bit porky today - she needs a little less than usual this week" or the opposite for my boy Tosh as he has more trouble keeping the weight on. It's all a matter of common sense, isn't it?

Cheers...

I'm just curious as to the difference between a regular dog food and a seniors diet. The seniors diet seem to have less protein and less fat. Why is that better for a senior dog? Also if you are feeding barf, how do you make the same adjustment to diet?

This will answer some of your questions...

http://web.archive.org/web/20050404212053/...ary.asp?page=20

Tomas.

I'm a bit cynical when dog food companies such as contained in the above link do write-ups and 'scientific studies' on what we should be feeding geriatric dogs!! They're in it for the sales, aren't they? The more different types of food they produce and can market to people with old dogs, young dogs, small dogs, big dogs, dogs with skin troubles, dogs with anything else you could possibly think of (and I see now you can even buy breed-specific foods!!) then presumably the higher their sales are. Fifteen years ago none of this stuff existed and dogs did perfectly well without them.

So in answer to your question, if you're a BARF feeder then I don't think you need to think about adjusting your dog's levels of fat/protein/calcium/phosphorous etc. as it grows old - that's the beauty of a natural diet! I have a 13YO cattledog racing around the back yard here and she still gets the same raw diet she did 12 years ago. Her teeth are strong and white and she copes perfectly with anything I throw at her. Just like the younger terriers.

JMHO, of course!

The rain god has to go on holiday for the weekend unless its after 7pm or before 8am in the morning .

I hope someone will give us poor people who can't attend a run-down on the Sue Hogben workshops etc. after the weekend?

Can I hijack for a second and ask how the ADAA titles work? (assuming they do titles?) Do you have to register your dog with them separetely or use your ANKC registered dog's name to earn ADAA titles on? Oh gosh I hope I'm making sense I'm just curious is all!

I can answer that! You do have to register your dogs with ADAA, and become a member yourself - a simple one-off process. Most people register and run their ADAA dogs in their call names, unlike ANKC, so it's a much less formal process too. And yes, ADAA have titles, which are different from ANKC. Just think two completely separate organizations which have nothing to do with one another.....

There's an American author called Suzanne Clothier who has written some great books e.g. "Bones Would Rain From The Sky" - her website is http://flyingdogpress.com/index.php (you have to register to see all the stuff) and she has written a lovely little booklet called "Following Ghosts - Developing the Tracking Relationship" about tracking...well worth the USD6.50 it costs.

She also has an article called "Scent Games - Educating Your Dog's Nose" which is available free once you register on her site. Some good pre-training games for tracking dogs.

Hi all - when we bought our Border Terriers the breeder suggested we avoid beef in case it brings on CECS - none of their dogs have it but she advised this as a better safe than sorry type thing. Since then I've done a bit of research and it seems to me the breeder was going off some old research - because current info mentions its probably more to do with gluten etc rather than beef.

Hi Garden Girl - I have BTs too, and more to the point, one with CECS symptoms. There's lots of stuff out there now about it, but have to say I've never heard the one about not giving them beef!! I know there is a fair bit of "grass-roots" evidence that grains do not appear to benefit dogs who are symptomatic. I feed my dogs a raw diet - including beef, lamb, chicken, fish etc. and they both get small amounts of grains in various treats etc.

CECS is genetic - I don't believe it can be "brought on" by diet, but I do believe that if you have a symptomatic dog then you need to look at its diet carefully.

JMHO, of course,

Toshman