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Hmmmm...........


persephone
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Good article persephone :thumbsup: I really wish that more dog owners would research their dogs' diets instead of just succumbing to the propaganda put out by the pet food manufacturers. I use dry food myself, but only 1 cup a day, the rest of their diet comes from meat and bones, cooked offal, eggs, yoghurt and whatever we have leftover which usually doesn't amount to much LOL.

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I do the same as Miranda - less than half my dogs diet is from dry food and the rest fresh meat, bones, eggs, sardines, veggies etc and my left overs. The only real differece is because I have a dalmatian I feed a low purine diet with no offal or red meat for her and I am also careful which vegetables she gets. The BCs get red meat more often but it is usually chicken.

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I do the same as Miranda - less than half my dogs diet is from dry food and the rest fresh meat, bones, eggs, sardines, veggies etc and my left overs. The only real differece is because I have a dalmatian I feed a low purine diet with no offal or red meat for her and I am also careful which vegetables she gets. The BCs get red meat more often but it is usually chicken.

Oh yes I feed canned sardines, salmon and mackerel too, I forgot about those :thumbsup:

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Most of my dogs are on around 80% raw now. I've gradually increased the raw, now that I have a reliable supplier and can keep the freezer stocked. I still haven't made the complete jump with the puppies and I also have one adult who for some reason does not like raw, he prefers his dry food :offtopic:

I think I have found a happy meeting of the two foods and the dogs look good too.

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Ok.. now you have me curious :rofl: may I ask why the dallies don't need as much purine?Do they have different metabolisms ?

Dallies and a few other breeds metabolize purine differently to other dogs. Higher purine diets leave them prone to urinary tract and kidney stones. :offtopic:

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Thanks, PF.. :offtopic: Makes it hard to manipulate diets then..now the hard question....why the difference?What is it about dallies and whatever others that makes them prone?

are they similar breeds? Is it a 'modern' discovery/problem? is it an ancestry thing?

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Thanks, PF.. :rofl: Makes it hard to manipulate diets then..now the hard question....why the difference?What is it about dallies and whatever others that makes them prone?

are they similar breeds? Is it a 'modern' discovery/problem? is it an ancestry thing?

Given that one of other 'prone' breeds is Bulldogs, nope, not much similarity there. :offtopic: I don't think people really know yet. Not all Dallies are prone to it either.

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I feed my 3 dogs 100% raw and have for the past 7 years. I swear by the diet and refuse to feed them commercial food.

I will never, ever understand how people can think that a kibble diet is a well balanced diet. To me it's like eating a human equivalent diet of spam, cuppa soups and anything else which comes out of a packet - not good in my opinion. I much prefer a diet of meat, fish, veggies, fruit etc - as fresh as possible.

I see my dogs the same way - I feed them mostly raw meaty bones, raw meat, a variety of fish, a variety of organ meat, minimal veggies, minimal dairy (yogurt & cottage cheese). They are carnivores designed to eat meat and tear meat off a bone - so I really can't understand how a kibble diet caters for those needs.

It's not just about diet either - other things come into play - such as annual vaccines, heartworm medication, flea & tick medication, worming medication etc. I replaced annual injections with annual titre tests. I feed them garlic (in moderation) to fight off fleas and am looking into doing something about the amount of worming medication they receive.

It's all about the immune system. A healthy immune system = a healthy dog which can fight of diseases etc. Fleas, mites etc aren't attracted to dogs with healthy immune systems. To me it just doesn't seem right to bombard a dog with all sorts of chemicals so I am looking at alernatives.

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Thanks, PF.. ;) Makes it hard to manipulate diets then..now the hard question....why the difference?What is it about dallies and whatever others that makes them prone?

are they similar breeds? Is it a 'modern' discovery/problem? is it an ancestry thing?

Given that one of other 'prone' breeds is Bulldogs, nope, not much similarity there. :thumbsup: I don't think people really know yet. Not all Dallies are prone to it either.

Genetically no dalmatian can metabolise purines. Most dogs produce allantoin in their urine from the breakdown of proteins that they eat, dallies produce uric acid in their urine. This is unique to dallies.

There is a project in America where one pointer was mated to a dally to introduve the genes back into the gene pool and then the low uric acid offsring bred back to dallies. It is now about 5 generations from the outcross and moves have beeen made try to get them recognised by the AKC similar to the introduction of the bob tail gene in boxers. At this stage they haven't been recognised

http://www.dalmatianheritage.com/about/schaible_research.htm

Edited by Janba
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I agree wholeheartedly with this article. I give my Chi about 1/3 high quality dry food (eg eaglepack, natural balance etc) and the rest raw, chicken necks, eggs and "stew" (chicken/veg) type meals. She looks fantastic and has a sleek glossy black coat.

I cannot see how any one type of manufactured food can supply everything on an ongoing basis - it isn't even "fresh"! Us humans seem prone to reducing complex, unknowable things of nature, like nutrition and reducing them down to their parts, adding the parts back together and presuming that we have the whole answer!....

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Does anyone else find that sardine cause really bad diarrhea? Harrison (10 months old) has this reaction (he does LOVE the sardines, though)

I don't find it has any effect on their droppings but I only feed 2 cans between 3 dogs.

ETA The dogs are medium size 1 is 18kg and the other two about 25kg

Edited by Janba
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Janba - I am feeding ONE can between 3 dogs - think I'll just have to stop giving them to Harrison

Poor Harrison, they obviously just don't agree with him. Have you tried him on tinned tuna instead? I sometimes feed it and it doesn't seem as strong.

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Does anyone else find that sardine cause really bad diarrhea? Harrison (10 months old) has this reaction (he does LOVE the sardines, though)

I can't feed them to my Greyhound, even a teaspoon of sardine mixed with a meal gives him the runs. I'm thinking of trying the mackeral, i thought fish is fish, but it's worth a go.

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Poodlemum - are you feeding sardines in oil? Perhaps it's the oil and not the sardines.

Try tuna in springwater and see if that makes a difference.

Might also be worthwhile trying the mackeral - mine LOVE the mackeral.

I must admit - I never feed sardines/runa/mackeral as an entire meal. I generally add a tablespoon of tinend fish as a 'side' to whatever else they are eating.

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