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Most of what I've talked about has been from my own experiences and what books I've read. This article or blog will be no different. Today I want to talk about oral health of your dog. Lots of my clients ask me about the right dog food, dental cleaning, brushing their dogs teeth, and how to properly maintain your dogs health overall. Over the years I've experimented with different methods like changing dog food from name brand name to generic, raw and grain free. What I've found was to be pretty interesting.
When my dog's Snickers and Lucy were around five years old I got a book called Raw&Natural Nutrition for Dogs by Lew Olson, PhD. This book dives into the history of dog food what your vet may or may not know about nutrition. Startling it's much the same as maybe your general practitioner for your own health. This book dives into that. Plus has recipes like a cook book for meals that help with your dogs current health conditions or maintaining health. Meal preps for example help with diabetes, joint problems, and epilepsy just to name a few. This is probably the best books I've read on the topics of canine nutrition.
For my team it was about what they were eating and about the vitamins they were getting. Turns out for me the dog food you probably feed your dog has the vitamins and minerals your dog needs. The problem is there's lots of other junk they don't. Most of the protein that your dog needs to use to recover is processed to the point of it being almost useless to the dog. The protein in some of the most expensive brands they say it's their first ingredient probably aren't lying but when it's processed that much there needs to be a supplemental protein and that usually comes from peas
.
When I started to really pay attention to their oral health. They were having lots of plaque build up and yellowing of the teeth. I decided to give lots of research to what I could afford to feed them. They eat way more protein than we do so it was expensive. I decided to give this diet a try and put them on it for a full month. Once the month was over I realized that it was working and working well. Most of the plaque was gone and their teeth were pearly white. For maintaining the health I found having one week every month dedicated to real raw food was crucial for their health. If you do a raw diet make sure you find a way to help the dogs go to the bathroom. If you don't have adequate amount of fiber it could be hard and may see diarrhea when trying to pass the bones. I use for this problem coconut oil in the food with broccoli. Lot's of exercise as well played a contributing factor in keeping the digestive track working. I can say to this day with Snickers being 13.5 years old he's never had a dental cleaning at the vet and he still has all of his teeth.
My recipe for Snickers and Lucy was simple. Most protein for the amount of money. Eggs, Chicken quarters uncooked!! When you cook bone it makes it brittle and can seriously hurt your dog if consumed. I also use broccoli, plain yogurt! no sugar added. When prepping, I always cut the quarters from leg and thigh. Fed one part to the dog not both, 2 eggs with shells to spoon fulls of yogurt, and one cup of broccoli, and finally two table spoons of coconut oil. This is for a big dog. So the recipe i s just what I know my dog needed. I've done this process with no matter what food he was on. Whether it was the cheapest form of dog food do to not being able to afford much to being on some of the best dog food. I've found that with my dogs it never mattered. Their teeth always improved.
This is food for thought. Remember most marketing is done to make you call to action. Food marketing is no different. We are marketed to for even health care, what hospital, drugs to take, cat litter to buy. Dog food is not different. When you are thinking about your pet dog make sure you are aware of all options for your dogs health. "Keeping yourself closer to the dirt" is probably the best way to keep your dogs healthy and live a longer fuller life.
Until next time!!