Dogs should be fed healthy diets free of toxins and foods that are dangerous to their health.  If you eat healthy, there are many foods in your diet that work for dogs.  However, you should be aware of the foods that are NOT good for your dog.  Here is a link to an excellent  list of Foods to Avoid Feeding Your Dog.  What we now need is a list of toxins and products that can be found in commercial dog foods that dogs should never eat.   Do you want to know  What’s Really in Pet Food ?  Once you have digested the reality of the situation, here is an article on Selecting a Commerical Pet Food.  When all is said and done, perhaps it is time to explore a RAW Diet for your beloved dog.

http://www.akcchf.org/pdfs/poisonous_plant_guide.pdf

This week I had the first case in history of raisin
toxicity ever seen at MedVet. My patient was
a 56-pound, 5 yr old male neutered lab mix
that ate half a canister of raisins sometime
between 7:30 AM and 4:30 PM on Tuesday.  He
started with vomiting, diarrhea and shaking
about 1AM on Wednesday but the owner didn’t
call my emergency service until 7AM.

I had heard somewhere about raisins AND
grapes causing acute Renal failure but hadn’t
seen any formal paper on the subject. We
had her bring the dog in immediately. In the
meantime, I called the ER service at MedVet,
and the doctor there was like me – had heard
something about it, but … Anyway, we
contacted the ASPCA National Animal Poison
Control Center and they said  to give IV fluids
at 1 & 1/2 times maintenance and watch the
kidney values for the next 48-72 hours.

The dog’s BUN (blood urea nitrogen level) was
already at 32 (normal less than 27) and
creatinine over 5 (1.9 is the high end of normal).
Both are monitors of kidney function in the
bloodstream. We placed an IV catheter and
started the fluids. Rechecked the renal values
at 5 PM and the BUN was over 40 and creatinine
over 7 with no urine production after a liter of
fluids.  At the point I felt the dog was in acute
renal failure and sent him on to MedVet for a
urinary catheter to monitor urine output overnight
as well as overnight care.

He started vomiting again overnight at MedVet
and his renal values have continued to increase
daily. He produced urine when given lasix as a
diuretic. He was on 3 different anti-vomiting
medications and they still couldn’t control his
vomiting. Today his urine output decreased
again, his BUN was over 120, his creatinine was
at 10, his phosphorus was very elevated and his
blood pressure, which had been staying around
150, skyrocketed to 220 … He continued to vomit
and the owners elected to Euthanize.

This is a very sad case – great dog, great owners
who had no idea raisins could be a toxin. Please
alert everyone you know who has a dog of this
very serious risk.

Poison control said as few as 7 raisins or grapes could
be toxic. Many people I know give their dogs grapes
or raisins as treats including our ex-handler’s. Any
exposure should give rise to immediate concern.

Onions, chocolate, cocoa and macadamia nuts can
be fatal, too.

Ingredients

10 lbs of hamburger meat

l large box of Total cereal or comparable brand

l large box of oatmeal

1 jar of wheat germ

1 1/4 cup of vegetable oil

1 1/4 up of unsulfured molasses

10 raw eggs

1- envelopes of unflavored gelatin

pinch of sale

Mix all ingrediens together, much like you would a meatloaf

Divide into freezer bags and freeze.  Thaw as needed.

According to the source:

It will put on the weight in a few days.  Makes coats soft and blue black in black dogs.   Also stops  dogs from  itching and chewing at their  coats/skin.  Can be used as a total canine diet or as a supplement.  Good for picky eaters.

What’s Really in Pet Food

After reading that, if you are ready to feed a raw diet to your dog, here is a article written by an Australian Vet on the subject.  More information is available at Tom Longsdale’s website Raw Meaty Bones.

Diet guide for domestic dogs and cats

Dingoes and feral cats keep themselves healthy by eating whole carcasses of prey animals. Ideally we should feed our pets in the same manner. Until a dependable source of whole carcasses becomes available, pet owners need a satisfactory alternative. The following recommendations, based on raw meaty bones, have been adopted by thousands of pet owners with excellent results.
The diet is easy to follow and cheap, and pets enjoy it.
• Fresh water constantly available.
• Raw meaty bones (or carcasses if available) should form the bulk of the diet.
• Table scraps both cooked and raw (grate or liquidise vegetables, discard cooked bones).
Puppies and kittens
From about three weeks of age puppies and kittens start to take an interest in what their mother is eating. By six weeks of age they can eat chicken carcasses, rabbits and fish.
During the brief interval between three and six weeks of age it is advisable to provide minced chicken, chicken carcasses or similar for young animals (as well as access to larger pieces that encourage ripping and tearing). This is akin to the part-digested food regurgitated by wild carnivore mothers. Large litters will need more supplementary feeding than small litters. (The meat and bone should be minced together. Meat off the bone can be fed, but only for a short time, until the young animals can eat meat and bone together — usually about six weeks of age.)
Between four and six months of age puppies and kittens cut their permanent teeth and grow rapidly. At this time they need a plentiful supply of carcasses or raw meaty bones of suitable size.
Puppies and kittens tend not to overeat natural food. Food can be continuously available.
Natural foods suitable for pet carnivores
Raw meaty bones
• Chicken and turkey carcasses, after the meat has been removed for human consumption, are suitable for dogs and cats.
• Poultry by-products include: heads, feet, necks and wings.
• Whole fish and fish heads.
• Goat, sheep, calf, deer and kangaroo carcasses can be sawn into large pieces of meat and bone.
• Other by-products include: pigs’ trotters, pigs’ heads, sheep heads, brisket, tail bones, rib bones.
Whole carcasses
• Rats, mice, rabbits, fish, chickens, quail, hens.
Offal
• Liver, lungs, trachea, hearts, omasums (stomach of ruminants), tripe.
Quality — Quantity — Frequency
Healthy animals living and breeding in the wild depend on the correct quality of food in the right quantity at a correct frequency. They thereby gain an appropriate nutrient intake plus the correct amount of teeth cleaning — animals, unlike humans, ‘brush’ and ‘floss’ as they eat.
Quality
Low-fat game animals and fish and birds provide the best source of food for pet carnivores. If using meat from farm animals (cattle, sheep and pigs) avoid excessive fat, or bones that are too large to be eaten.

Raw food for cats should always be fresh. Dogs can consume ‘ripe’ food and will sometimes bury bones for later consumption.
Quantity
Establishing the quantity to feed pets is more an art than a science. Parents, when feeding a human family, manage this task without the aid of food consumption charts. You can achieve the same good results for your pet by paying attention to activity levels, appetite and body condition.
High activity and big appetite indicate a need for increased food, and vice versa.
Body condition depends on a number of factors. The overall body shape — is it athletic or rotund — and the lustre of the hair coat provide clues. Use your finger tips to assess the elasticity of the skin. Does it have an elastic feel and move readily over the muscles? Do the muscles feel well toned? And how much coverage of the ribs do you detect? This is the best place to check whether your pet is too thin or too fat. By comparing your own rib cage with that of your pet you can obtain a good idea of body condition — both your own and that of your pet.
An approximate food consumption guide, based on raw meaty bones, for the average pet cat or dog is 15 to 20 percent of body weight in one week or 2 to 3 percent per day. On that basis a 25 kilo dog requires up to five kilos of carcasses or raw meaty bones weekly. Cats weighing five kilos require about one kilo of chicken necks, fish, rabbit or similar each week. Table scraps should be fed as an extra component of the diet. Please note that these figures are only a guide and relate to adult pets in a domestic environment.
Pregnant or lactating females and growing puppies and kittens may need much more food than adult animals of similar body weight.
Wherever possible, feed the meat and bone ration in one large piece requiring much ripping, tearing and gnawing. This makes for contented pets with clean teeth.
Frequency
Wild carnivores feed at irregular intervals. In a domestic setting regularity works best and accordingly I suggest that you feed adult dogs and cats once daily. If you live in a hot climate I recommend that you feed pets in the evening to avoid attracting flies.
I suggest that on one or two days each week your dog may be fasted — just like animals in the wild.
On occasions you may run out of natural food. Don’t be tempted to buy artificial food, fast your dog and stock up with natural food the next day.
Puppies, cats, ferrets, sick or underweight dogs should not be fasted (unless on veterinary advice).
Table scraps
Wild carnivores eat small amounts of omnivore food, part-digested in liquid form, when they eat the intestines of their prey. Our table scraps, and some fruit and vegetable peelings, are omnivore food which has not been ingested. Providing scraps do not form too great a proportion of the diet they appear to do no harm and may do some good. I advise an upper limit of one-third scraps for dogs and rather less for cats. Liquidising scraps, both cooked and raw, in the kitchen mixer may help to increase their digestibility.
Things to avoid
•Excessive meat off the bone — not balanced.
•Excessive vegetables — not balanced.
•Small pieces of bone — can be swallowed whole and get stuck.
•Cooked bones — get stuck.
•Mineral and vitamin additives — create imbalance.
•Processed food — leads to dental and other diseases.
•Excessive starchy food — associated with bloat.
•Onions, garlic and chocolate — toxic to pets.
•Grapes, raisins, sultanas, currants — toxic to pets.

]]> http://blog.englishshepherdcentral.com/2010/01/whats-really-in-dog-food/feed/ 0 http://blog.englishshepherdcentral.com/2009/07/poochie-meat-cakes/ http://blog.englishshepherdcentral.com/2009/07/poochie-meat-cakes/#comments Sat, 18 Jul 2009 16:13:37 +0000 Lynda http://blog.englishshepherdcentral.com/?p=230

As you know if you follow my blog,  I am not comfortable with feeding my dogs most of the commercial dog feeds that are available.  I am consistently on the lookout for  interesting alternatives .  Here is a  really good basic dog food recipe that I found at www.allrecipes.com.

The comments from dog owners said that their dogs loved it and even dogs with decreased appetites due to cancer therapy would eat the muffins.

This recipe is also easy to add or change ingredients.  Things like sweet potates, broccoli, liver, spinach, blueberries, salmon, chicken, turkey, etc. could be used to modify this recipe.

Each muffin has about 327 calories which is equal to the energy found in a cup of dry kibble.  The average grown dog weighing 10 lbs needs about 350 calories a day.  A growing puppies may need almost twice the amount that they will need as adult dogs.

This recipe makes 36 muffins and they can be frozen for future use.

INGREDIENTS

DIRECTIONS

This story is not over.    The following  article appeared in the Shanghai Daily in China.

Emergency Recall of Dog Food after Pets Poisoned

 A SHANGHAI dealer has issued an emergency recall of a batch of Optima dry dog food with a production date between August and September last year.  Some dogs eating “Optima Puppy Lamb and Rice Dry Dog Food” have been poisoned by aflatoxin – a naturally occurring toxic chemical that comes from a fungus found on corn and other grains.  It can cause severe liver damage.

“Three dogs have been confirmed dead, and they all ate the batch of Optima food,” said the Shanghai Naughty Family Pet Co, a pet clinic on Hongqiao Road. These dogs were fussy about their food, had diarrhea and vomited, all symptoms of aflatoxin exposure, staff said..

The clinic is now treating its fourth patient, a two-year-old Yorkshire who showed symptoms after eating Optima dog food. “Yesterday he vomited four times,” said a woman surnamed Tan, the dog’s owner. “Before he got so severely sick, he ate very little, shivered or just lay on the floor.”

Tan said she had bought the Optima dog food on November 18.  “I started to use the brand last March. My dog never showed anything wrong until he ate this bag,” she said.

Since the end of November at least 20 dogs are believed to have died in Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjing and Hangzhou from liver complications. Some pets died within 10 days of showing symptoms.

An agent of Shanghai Yidi Pet Co Ltd, a Shanghai dealer of Optima food, admitted that a “severe quality problem” was found in the batch, and they were recalling the products.  Yidi said pet owners should return the contaminated food to be exchanged for other brands.

Yidi purchased the batch of Optima dog food from a Taiwan supplier, according to an agent who declined to be named.  An imported feedstuff registration list posted by China’s Ministry of Agriculture shows that the Optima dog food’s production enterprise is Australia-based Doane International Pet Products.   But Tan said her purchase order said the food was made in the United States. “American-made Optima is a very famous brand. That’s part of the reason I chose it,” Tan added

Jan 13th – The story  continues  – but will we ever know the truth?  Isn’t this the same government that denied  that melamine was present in the food chain of infants.. many of which died.     

BEIJING, Jan. 13 (Xinhua) — China’s quality watchdog Tuesday denied ever authorizing the import of Optima brand dog food allegedly linked to the deaths of dogs in Chinese cities.     The General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (GAQSIQ) said in a statement that local entry-exit inspection and quarantine units had also never allowed the import of the dog food.

Some media reported the Optima brand dog food was imported from Australia and caused the deaths of dogs in Shanghai and other cities. Chinese domestic media citing vets who treated the sick dogs said the food was suspected of containing aflatoxin, an extremely toxic and carcinogenic fungus found on corn and other grains that can cause liver damage.

 The GAQSIQ said responding to the media reports, investigation was carried out immediately, which showed that the GAQSIQ has never authorized the import of such brand dog food and local entry-exit inspection and quarantine units across the country have also never allowed the import of such dog food from Australia.     According to relevant regulations, domestic importers are required to apply for a permit before they can import pets’ food and the imported pet food much go through examination and quality safe test by relevant inspection and quarantine units before being allowed to enter country and put on sale.