Dogs do, on the other hand, fall for the unhealthy sweeteners that often turn up in poor-quality food to make them more palatable. They include cane molasses, corn syrup in any form, sugar, sorbitol, sucrose, fructose, glucose, ammoniated glycyrrhizin (the name alone should be enough to warn you off), and propylene glycol.31 Blackstrap molasses and honey are fine when consumed sparingly in treats; you just don’t want large amounts of them in anything your dog eats on a regular basis, lest your pup start jonesing for sweets.
The same goes for salt (a.k.a. sodium chloride on many packages), which is no better for your dog than it is for you. As with sugar, it’s used to make generic meat products more appealing. Give your dog enough food with this needless seasoning and he’ll soon be competing with you for the pretzels and popcorn.
41. ARE DRY AND CANNED FOOD THE ONLY OPTIONS?
No. Premixed (but requiring you to add ingredients such as meat and water), freeze-dried, dehydrated, rolled, frozen, and fresh-chilled (cooked and refrigerated before shipping) dog foods have become increasingly common in recent years. All claim to provide a healthy and balanced diet in a convenient, nonperishable (or at least long-lasting) form.
Not all are as balanced or as convenient as others—nor as appealing to every dog. I tried one of the dehydrated varieties, only to discover that, after adding water, I had to wait 10 minutes before the food reconstituted itself. Used to more immediate gratification when he spots me puttering around the kitchen, Frankie waited impatiently for dinner. Upon finally being presented with a doggie version of grits, he turned up his nose at the bowl. I’m not sure whether he wanted something to sink his teeth into, or whether it was an olfactory issue; Frankie refused to discuss it.
But that’s hardly a statistically significant sample (except to me). I’m told that dog food rolls—which have the consistency of liverwurst—are so tasty that bits are used as training treats, and that they’re the only thing some finicky pups will deign to dine on.
All in all, these products run the gamut in taste, texture, and Rex appeal. If you decide to use them in a diet plan, it’s always best to check with your vet—and with the Whole Dog Journal, which has reviewed many of them. At a minimum, make sure you choose a food that’s labeled “complete and balanced.”
42. AREN’T BETTER-QUALITY FOODS MUCH MORE EXPENSIVE THAN BIG COMMERCIAL BRANDS?
The difference in price between a high-quality company’s food and a major manufacturer’s “premium” product isn’t all that significant, but with the big companies you’re also paying for advertising, whereas the smaller businesses generally spend more on the product and less on pushing it. And for some niche varieties, such as freeze dried and dehydrated, you’re eliminating the water weight that bulks up other products—and inflates their prices. To economize on high-class kibble, buy in bulk and store the unused portions in sealed bags in a cool, dark place.
More to the point: pay now or pay later at the vet. Crappy32 food is bad for your dog’s health. Period.
43. HOW DO I AVOID FOODS THAT MIGHT BE RECALLED?
With difficulty. If possible, restrict yourself to products that list the country of origin of their ingredients and the location of the manufacturing plant.33 When I realized that one of my (former) favorite brands of chicken strips, sold by a small company promoting its healthy products, were produced in China, I stopped buying them. The company claims that they spot test each batch and I’m pleased about the disclosure of the factory locale—which is more than many large manufacturers do—but I think I’ll wait until they move their production to the United States in case some melamine slips through, thank you.
In September 2007, a few months after the massive pet food recalls, Congress passed the Food and Drug Association’s Amendments Act (FDAAA), which mandated new standards and improved labeling within two years. Don’t hold your breath for anything to happen. In 2008, a year after the FDAAA’s passage, instead of starting from scratch and writing new, more effective legislation, committee members dredged up the old laws and added huge loopholes. And, as we went to press in 2009, the early warning and notification systems mandated for pet food recalls were nowhere in evidence. To find out about recalls, your best bet is to check the ASPCA’s website, www.aspca.org.
44. GIVEN ALL THE MANUFACTURING PROBLEMS, WHY CAN’T I JUST PREPARE FOOD AT HOME FOR MY DOG?
You can. There’s a common misconception that dogs should never eat human food. More accurately, your dog shouldn’t subsist on table scraps or eat scraps that are unhealthy for them.34
Which is a comparatively recent development. Dogs did fine on scraps when they lived on farms. The first prepared dog food was a response to city life: In 1860, James Spratt created Patent Meat Fibrine Dog Cakes to provide London’s shipyard pups with more nutrition than they could get from scavenging hardtack (biscuits). Many of the mass-prepared dog foods that followed in the United States continued to feature meat, if not prime cuts, until the Depression. With the rise of highly processed dog food after World War II, any real health benefits were sacrificed for convenience and low cost (especially for manufacturers). The fact that so much human food is equally unhealthy explains why table grazing isn’t an ideal nutritional plan for your pup.
I came to home cooking for Frankie reluctantly, because I tend to avoid cooking for myself. When I learned about the problems with many commercial dog foods, I simply switched to better brands. Then Frankie was diagnosed with diabetes and my vet prescribed a kibble in which “chicken meal by-products” was the sole ingredient that seemed to have even a remote connection to the natural universe. And none of the good-quality brands fit the recommended high-fiber/no-grain /low-fat bill.
I won’t go through the saga of seeking a home-cooked diet tailored to a small, insulin-dependent dog. Suffice it to say, the two holistic practices I consulted were long on supplements and general advice—and, in one case, on testicle-site massage (see question 27)—and short on actual portion sizes and ingredient proportions. It took lots of independent research and many weight/age/exercise level calculations to come up with the ideal Frankie formula. Diets that need to be adjusted for other health problems, or those geared toward modifying behavior (which I discuss in Chapter 6), pose challenges that may make home cooking extremely difficult if not impracticable.
Even if your dog is healthy, deciding to prepare meals in your kitchen requires more than throwing some good ingredients together. For an adult, you’ll want to create a diet that includes, roughly, 25 to 30 percent protein, 30 to 35 percent fat, and 30 to 35 percent carbohydrates (preferably complex), 35 in the appropriate portion size for her weight and exercise level.
My favorite source for balanced recipes is the amusing and informative Becoming the Chef Your Dog Thinks You Are by Micki Voisard,36 a self-described Master Dog Chef (www.dogchefs.com). Other recommended books include Dr. Pit-cairn’s Complete Guide to Natural Health for Dogs and Cats, Home-Prepared Dog and Cat Diets by Donald Strombeck, and Real Food for Dogs by Arden Moore.
Another option, though not an inexpensive one, is a nutritional consultant, who will tailor recipes to your dog. Reputable businesses, including The Possible Canine (www.thepossiblecanine.com) and Veterinary Nutritional Consultations Inc. (www.petdiets.com), will not send the diet directly to you, but will fax it to your vet for approval. Health research geeks—if you keep the Merck Manual on your nightstand, that means you—might start with the National Research Council’s Nutrient Requirements of Dogs, available from The National Academies Press (books.nap.edu), a dense, comprehensive resource intended for professionals.
45. WHAT ABOUT THE BONES AND RAW FOOD DIET?
The premise of this “evolutionary” regimen—introduced by Australian veterinarian Ian Billinghurst in Give Your Dog a Bone (1993)—is to put your pup in touch with his inner wolf. Eschewing grains and focusing on raw meat, vegetables, eggs, and other foods found in nature (mostly; somehow yogurt found its way in), the diet seeks to replicate the preprocessed menu of canids pas
t. And the program deems chomping on raw bones so atavistically enjoyable as to enhance a dog’s immune system.
Even setting aside the issue of the considerable differences between today’s domestic dogs and their ancestors, I can’t help but be suspicious of an eating plan that has BARF as its acronym. Why risk being mistaken for a dog bulimia manifesto? With a simple word substitution, the diet’s advocates could have had the clever, nonpuke referencing—not to mention vocabulary-enhancing—BARC, for Bones and Raw Comestibles.37 Too late; it’s mine now.
Having gotten that out of my system, as it were, BARF has many appealing aspects, not the least of which is its avoidance of cooking. Many breeders swear by the plan and one vet I spoke with said many of her patients thrive on it. The diet has become so popular that it’s spurred the creation of local co-ops that buy meat in bulk from butchers, as well as of lines of packaged, dehydrated food and supplements (which would seem to defeat the whole dancing-with-wolves premise).
Probably the most controversial aspect of the diet in its purest form—aside from the care that needs to be taken to avoid salmonella38—is the question of whether the benefits of chewing bones, even raw ones, outweigh the risk of having them splinter and lodge in the esophagus or digestive tract.
As it happens, Frankie is on a modified BARF diet. He eats mostly lightly cooked vegetables, meat, fish, and eggs, no grain. Bones are not an issue. Pre-diabetes, when I used to give him uncooked marrow bones, he licked out the tasty, high-fat centers, chewed off the bits of meat left on the outside, but only nibbled desultorily on the bones themselves before losing interest. I guess he’s more evolved in the bone-gnawing department than he is in the eat-while-you-can arena (see question 36).
46. DOES MY DOG NEED SUPPLEMENTS?
It depends on the diet she’s following—and how you feel about supplements. I try to eat enough vegetables, fish, cheese, and chocolate and drink sufficient quantities of red wine to fulfill my daily vitamin and antioxidant requirements without resorting to pills. Because Frankie can’t follow the same regimen, I give him calcium and a multivitamin. Those who buy packaged dog food—as opposed to home cooking—shouldn’t need to add nutrients; that’s what AAFCO approval is meant to ensure. And as with the human varieties, pet supplements aren’t regulated. If you’re thinking about buying mineral-enhanced designer water for your dog, I have some oceanfront property in Tucson that might interest you, too. But that doesn’t mean I necessarily recommend unfiltered tap water. As has been widely reported, the water systems of several cities throughout the United States are laced with pharmaceuticals—the result of people flushing expired drugs down the toilet. You really don’t want to dose your dog with even small quantities of antibiotics—or with Viagra.
47. HOW DO I GET MY DOG TO BE LESS PICKY?
I’ve heard it suggested, including by vets, that if your dog is “gaming” you by not eating his food, stop feeding him for a few days. When he’s hungry enough, he’ll eat whatever you put in his bowl.
I don’t question the effectiveness of that advice. It would doubtless work on a picky child, too. So what if the snubbed food has the potential to make your dog sick—which is why he didn’t eat it in the first place? You’ve proved your dominance over a starving pet.
True, dogs can be manipulative. Frankie sometimes barks and rushes to the front door, even if there’s no one there, hoping that after I’ve left my desk, I’ll head to the refrigerator for a snack—and give him one, too. (Okay, I admit it worked a few times; I’m on to him now, though!) But doggie deception is generally geared toward getting food, or getting more of it, not acquiring a particular kind. Trust your pup. Dogs have—and develop—food sensitivities and allergies. If yours isn’t eating the comestibles you give him, try different comestibles (yes, I’m trying to accustom you to that word, the better to popularize my future raw food diet).
It could also be a question of your dog not liking a food’s texture or smell; the latter often occurs as dogs grow older and their sniffers get weaker. Adding a small portion of something more desirable to kibble often does the trick.
Food switching can upset a pup’s stomach if you don’t do it gradually, and it’s essential to check with your vet if your dog has lost his appetite. But dogs are, literally, creatures of habit, and don’t mind eating the same thing every day if they like it.39 So if your pup balks at his dinner, he’s trying to tell you something. Please listen.
48. IS IT OKAY TO GIVE MY DOG DIET PILLS IF SHE’S TOO HEAVY?
Sure, if you have money to burn and don’t mind turning your dog into a guinea pig. Doggie diet aids are relatively new, but if they follow the path of the human variety, they’re likely to prove harmful down the line. My prescription: feed your dog less—or better—and exercise her more. Canned pumpkin, for example, falls into the “better” category. It’s a low-calorie—if you don’t make the mistake of buying the sugar-filled kind—high-fiber food that makes your dog feel full. By substituting pumpkin for half a portion of kibble, many owners have seen their pups shed unwanted weight. Because it’s naturally sweet, most dogs really love it, too.
If your dog knows how to raid the refrigerator, get a good lock for it. If she’s able to pick the lock, get her a job as a dog actor (or thief). She’ll get plenty of exercise—and you’ll have added incentive to keep her trim by avoiding overfeeding.
Of course, if she has an actual glandular problem, then pills are okay.
49. MY DOG HAS HALITOSIS. WILL THE BREATH MINTS I’VE SEEN IN PET STORES HELP?
They’ll help for about as long as they help your alcoholic uncle Dave cover his whiskey breath at family gatherings. In dogs, bad breath is generally caused by tooth and gum problems. Forget the faux-candy cover-ups; you need to get to the source of your pooch’s halitosis by checking with a vet or veterinary dentist.
50. SO DO I NEED TO BRUSH MY DOG’S TEETH?
I’m afraid so. Some 75 percent of dogs—the number is higher in small dogs—suffer from periodontal disease by the time they’re two or three years old. It can be headed off, to a large extent, by beginning to brush in puppyhood. I avoided brushing during my first few years with Frankie because, well, I didn’t want to. His teeth are short but sharp, and I suspected he’d be opposed to having me put anything besides food or toys into his mouth. Besides, I never let him chew gum or eat sugary snacks.40
The bottom line: At one point in my quest for a diabetes-friendly diet, three different vets looked into Frankie’s mouth, clucked, and recommended a professional cleaning, suggesting that, if unchecked, the bacteria massing in Frankie’s gums might course through his immunity-impaired bloodstream and attack his heart, brain, lungs, and liver. Doggie dentistry and muzzles being mutually exclusive, the procedure requires general anesthesia, which makes it very expensive. And by the time I got him to the dentist, he had to have seven teeth removed.
To ensure that Frankie won’t end up capable only of gumming his food—or look even more like a little redneck pup than he already does—I became a teeth-cleaning fool.
Note: Don’t fall for advertisements for anesthesia-free cleanings outside of a vet’s office. For one thing, the dangers of anesthesia have been greatly exaggerated; under proper monitoring, the risk is minimal. More to the point, non-professional plaque removal is worse than no cleaning at all. Periodontal disease starts below the gum line—an area that’s painful to reach. The purely cosmetic cleaning that a groomer can legally perform may fool you into thinking that your dog’s teeth are healthy when they aren’t. Moreover, such necessary adjunct procedures as x-rays, polishing, and flouride rinse have to be done under anesthesia in order to be effective and safe. The cost? Again, pay now or pay later. In dogs, as in humans, scientists are increasingly finding links between periodontal disease and heart disease and other life-threatening conditions.
If you’re wondering how to convince your own dirty-mouthed dog to submit to this process, here are some tips.
START SLOWLY AND STAY UPBEAT
> Getting your dog used to having a foreign object that isn’t food or a toy in his mouth is more than half the battle. Dip your finger into low-salt beef or chicken bouillon, let your dog lick it off, and then rub your bouillon-soaked finger gently over a small area of teeth and gums (luckily, you don’t have to get inside the teeth; your dog takes care of that with his tongue).
Act excited, like this invasion of dental privacy is a treat, until you’ve managed to convince your dog to be equally enthusiastic. Expect it to take a few days, minimum.
ADD ABRASIVENESS
In surface, not attitude. Continue to be enthusiastic while, with a finger now swathed in bouillon-soaked gauze, you rub the teeth and gums with small circular motions.
SWITCH FROM BOUILLON TO TOOTHPASTE (OR RINSE OR GEL)
But not to your brand, which can upset your dog’s stomach; dogs can’t be trained to rinse and spit, so yours is going to swallow whatever you use. Mint isn’t a preferred taste, in any case; canine toothpaste flavors range from malt and chicken to wild salmon.
Note: This step can be eliminated and you can continue to use low-sodium bouillon if your dog likes it. It’s cheaper and, except for the small amount of salt, doesn’t have any potentially unhealthy ingredients.
SWITCH RUBBING INSTRUMENTS
When your dog is used to the toothpaste, get him accustomed to whatever instrument you plan to use. Options include toothbrushes, dental sponges, and dental pads. I like the finger brush, a kind of rubber finger puppet with a rough surface at the tip. It gives you more control, or at least the illusion of it. If you use a brush, work the toothpaste down deep into the bristles; otherwise, your dog will just eat the toothpaste and skip the uninteresting part of the process.
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