Friday, November 14, 2008

Dog Food



I used to think it was obnoxious for people to cook for their dogs, but now that I have one, I'm starting to rethink it. I mean look at the picture - don't you just want to bake him a liver cupcake?

Chinese contamination scares aside, dog food is some questionable stuff. Talk about processed: it can't go bad.

It's a mistake to equate human needs with those of a dog but I'm beginning to think that my dog shouldn't eat industrialized food any more than I should. As I read somewhere on-line on one of the many, often wacko web sites about feeding dogs raw and/or natural foods, maybe when a dog turns its nose up at its food it has a good reason. Maybe they're not being finicky, they just don't want to eat downer calves and lab animals.

For now we're supplementing our dog's "natural" dry food with soaked oats, veggies, and boiled chicken. It's not perfect, but it's a start, and it's not expensive. His favorite vegetable by far is bok choy, which means that he eats in instead of playing with it.



What do you feed your dog?

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11 comments:

Seth D. said...

i read it too fast and thought it said "when people cook their dogs," and then i looked at the picture and thought wow, he sure does look tempting.

on second reading it all came back together and made sense the way it was written.

in closing: your dog is very cute, and i am going to eat him.

Anonymous said...

what a cute pup! I fix my fur baby boiled chicken breast or tuna.
Need to be careful of what kind of human food you give him though. Some it can be harmful..
http://www.peteducation.com/article.cfm?c=2+1661&aid=1030

Michelle said...

Rachael Ray actually has a number of pet food recipe on her website. She too asked herself about the highly processed food she was feeding her dog.

Maggie said...

Your puppy is SOOO cute!!!

I try and cook for our dogs a couple of times a week and give them safe leftovers as a treat on their regular food. I do also indulge them and give them raw sometimes (the cats too.) All four of our animals REALLY love the raw.

The thing I hate is dog food commercials and the "don't hurt your dog and change his food" line. Can you imagine eating the same thing day after day?

Anonymous said...

how often does your pup sleep like a baby?

and i know you've already watched this, but since you asked... Pug eats a bell pepper

Anonymous said...

oops, apparently the link doesn't work... Pug eats a bell pepper is here: www.vimeo.com/1926031

Anonymous said...

Congrats on your new dog!

I have an (almost) 3-year-old St. Bernard, and I've seen a huge difference since I switched her away from the industrial stuff to dog food without any grain, corn, wheat, etc.

I looked into the raw/whole food diets, since that's primarily what I eat, but I didn't want to *have* to cook for the dog every day. (Plus traveling and boarding would be a pain.) So she gets EVO brand, with a lot of veggies and meat scraps on top of it.

She's pretty active anyway, but I've noticed that she has more stamina than she used to (mixed blessing!). And since she was a pup, she's suffered from chronic empty-stomach vomiting. Several times a week, she'd eat grass and throw up on our walks. Since switching her to her current diet about a month ago, it hasn't happened once.

My dog is a huge foodie. She loves roasted cauliflower and red pepper and sliced cucumber, etc. etc. She's a huge fan of any kind of dairy, as well as canned tuna. Finally, she LOVES the frozen beef bones from Codman. I agree that if your dog turns up his nose at his food, he's probably trying to tell you something.

Epitome of Masculinity said...

I also read it too fast. I thought it was a post about Chinese food and the headline was "Dog. Food."

Adriene Rathbun said...

I cook for my two dogs. They have either ground beef and rice or roasted chicken and potatoes. They too, LOVE vegetables. My little Yorkie Poo's favorite thing is spaghetti squash with butter! Our Cairn Terrier will eat tomatoes until you quit feeding them to him. Agree, we must think about what goes in our mouths AND our beloved animals!

Erika said...

Don't have a dog at the moment, but we used to have a big yellow lab that LOVED bitter greens. I never had to compost the stems from things like mustard greens--he's eat them. I had a small kitchen garden behind the garage, and every so often he'd come prancing out from around the corner w/ a big stem of kale hanging out of his mouth. After a while I only planted greens there, so that he could always help himself.

I miss that dog...

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