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HOME COOKING, Part II
by Dale Ulmer

Dog owners are increasingly concerned about what their dogs eat. That's because many of us think that the major suppliers of commercial dog food have led us astray. We've concluded that profit driven businessmen have lost sight of the effects their products have on our dogs. We can see that at the prices charged for so called premium dry food, let alone the supermarket brands, it isn't economically possible for them to use high quality ingredients and still turn a profit. We can see that canine lives have, on average, become shorter than they were before commercial food came into widespread use about fifty years ago. We know that the incidence of canine cancers, especially among Boxers, has grown alarmingly, and we think that giving dogs food made with ingredients deemed unsuitable for human consumption is one of the reasons. That's why some of us have decided that it's best that we prepare the food our dogs eat.

It's been nearly six years since I began writing on the Internet about cooking for dogs. Until recently, I'd been unable to answer a question that comes up frequently, one about the benefits one can expect to see when switching from commercial kibble to home cooking. I've had no easy answer because I'd never made such a change. When I started writing about cooking for canines, my Boxer Toby had been eating my cooking for three years, but he began as a puppy. After all, I could not have reasonably claimed that he would not have gained sixty-five pounds and become a fine figure of a Boxer had he eaten anything else. I was happy to point out that he was then (and still is) the healthiest dog I've ever known. He's never had to be treated for illness or infection.

At the beginning of August, a new adolescent Boxer bitch became a part of my life. Emily is a rescued unclaimed stray from Pennsylvania. Vets there and here in Wisconsin estimated her age at about nine months. I have no idea what she ate before she was rescued, but it wasn't much. Emily was a far too skinny waif when she arrived here. Ribs and hip bones were her most prominent features. Her coat was dull and it felt rough to the touch.

You can see the changes that an exclusive diet of home cooked fresh food has brought about for Emily in just three months by visiting a web page I've made especially for this article. The URL is http://wildroselane.com/3months/. There are seven pictures, the first taken last July, the last in mid-October. Quite a change, isn't it? Please notice the remarkable change in the shade and depth of her color. Emily's now smooth, soft coat glistens in the later photos, and there's muscle tone to be seen that wasn't there before. On the other hand, she still has a light haw and her ears are as funny as they were the first time I saw them. Home cooking brings about no miracles. It simply promotes good health.

Another question that I find myself answering frequently concerns appetite and the dogs who are finicky eaters. Toby's been a gourmand for as long as I've known him. He thinks the phrase "too much food" is an oxymoron. Emily was very different when she took up residence here. She ate only about two-thirds of the first meal I offered her and simply turned up her nose at the pieces of torn up rye bread with which I'd decorated it. Toby minded not one whit. He was happy to finish her leavings.

I did mind. I had to put some weight on Emily. I thought I'd have no trouble getting her to eat on Sunday morning because I prepared a batch of Toby's long time favorite, mac'n'mac, canned mackerel served over cooked elbow macaroni. Emily displayed astonishing oral dexterity as she ate the fish while avoiding the pasta. By Tuesday morning, the next time I served mac'n'mac, I was certain that I had a problem eater on my hands. Wrong again. Apparently something had clicked in Emily's brain, telling her that although this stuff was unfamiliar, it tasted pretty good and it was comfortably filling. These days, Emily eats circles around Toby in both quantity and speed.

Now that I can employ hindsight, I see that I should have realized that I'd have problems getting my little orphan to eat a lot of my home cooked food. Her gaunt condition testified to the fact that she was in the habit of dining neither sumptuously nor regularly. Since her rescue, Emily'd been eating a well known commercial kibble. How much of it did she eat? I don't know, but I do know that kibble is doled out by the cup. Several cups of kibble can't weigh very much. That's because the moisture has been cooked out of it. Home cooking, with all the water left in, is vastly more substantial. These days, Emily eats about eight hundred grams (approximately a pound and three quarters) of food at each of her two daily meals. That's three and a half pounds a day. I can see how it may have taken a little time to work up an appetite capable of downing food in such quantity.

The extreme difference in water content between fresh food and kibble brought about another big change for Emily. As is the case with all canine kibble consumers, she was used to drinking a lot of water. Dogs fed fresh food drink far less because their food supplies most of the water they need. When she began eating real food, Emily continued her old habit at first. The result was that she did some world class peeing for a week or two until her water consumption naturally lessened. Now, like Toby, Emily takes a drink only in hot weather or after hard play.

A couple of months before Emily joined the family, I made some tentative forays into another method of supplying fresh food to dogs. Those who follow that path opine that it's unnatural for dogs to eat cooked food. You could have fooled either Emily or Toby with that one, but it's obvious that wild canines dine exclusively on raw food. Proudly promoting the unappetizing acronym BARF (Bones And Raw Food), the adherents to this philosophy attempt to feed their dogs as the forebears of Canis familiaris would have eaten.

If you're unaware of standard BARF practice, I should explain that raw chicken is a staple of the raw diet for dogs. Chicken? Bones and all? Those are the usual questions of the uninitiated, to which the appropriate answers are chicken, and bones and all, respectively. As you might expect, those answers give rise to a couple of points of controversy. Everyone knows that chicken bones are dangerous to dogs, right? Well, not according to BARF enthusiasts. They maintain that it's COOKED chicken bones, not raw ones, that are dangerous. Then there's the matter of salmonella poisoning. BARFers maintain that the dog's short intestinal tract and potent digestive juices combine to eliminate the worry. They point to a study of the fecal waste of dogs involved in the Iditarod race. Many of these dogs are fed a raw food diet. Traces of salmonella were found in more than ninety percent of the samples studied, yet none of the dogs showed any sign of salmonella poisoning. BARFers cite the study as evidence that salmonella bacteria pass harmlessly through the canine digestive system.

My daughter is more adventurous than I. She's been feeding a variation of the BARF diet to her Catahoula for nearly two years. Patch is an obviously healthy, happy dog. Obviously, bones and bacteria have been no threat to his well being. Patch sometimes stays with me when my daughter and her family go away. On one such occasion, Toby sampled some of Patch's food. The fact that Toby accepts it is hardly a ringing endorsement for an item of food. Toby will happily and greedily ingest anything vaguely organic. It would be inaccurate to characterize my boy's taste as discriminating. Be that as it may, Toby loved eating raw chicken wings, necks and backs, and, like Patch, showed nothing in the way of ill effect.

Emily tried raw chicken a few times early in her stay. She likes it very much, but after she'd eaten it for the second or third time, I saw a couple of small blood spots in a stool she'd passed. That gave me some concern which was heightened when I read some articles on raw food that appeared in the Whole Dog Journal. Veterinarians who endorse the raw food plan, it seems, strongly advise against giving weight bearing bones, thighs and drumsticks that is, to dogs. Those heavy bones, they warn, pose the same dangers as cooked bones. Some members of that group think that wings ought also to be on the don't feed list. They approve only of raw chicken backs and necks as canine fare.

For the moment, I'm of two minds on the raw food question. On the one hand, the long term example of my daughter's Catahoula gives me confidence. On the other, I was shaken by those drops of blood. I don't know for certain that they had anything to do with Emily's having eaten raw chicken, but they appeared only on one occasion, some hours after she had so dined.

I've watched and listened to Emily and Toby use their massive Boxer jaws to work on chicken wings. There's no question that they demolish those bones pretty thoroughly. I have, in fact, picked up a wing on which Emily has done some serious chewing. It was utterly without internal structure and had the surface consistency of latex. Still, logic suggests that if raw leg bones can produce dangerous splinters when chewed by a dog, smaller bones, although the chances may be less, can do the same. While I wish the feeders of raw food well, I'll no longer try to fix that which is unbroken. Emily and Toby again dine exclusively on my cooking.

Much has changed in the six years that have gone by since I joined the small band promoting home cooking for dogs on the Internet. While it's nothing like a mass movement, the number of those who no longer buy the arguments of dog food suppliers is steadily rising. More books devoted to alternative feeding ideas have appeared. My favorites are Dr. Pitcairn's Natural Guide to Health for Dogs and Cats, Rodale Press, 1995 (ISBN 0-87596-243-2) and Home-Prepared Dog and Cat Diets (The Healthful Alternative), Iowa State University Press, 1999, (ISBN 0-8138-2149-5). Both works include a wide variety of recipes as well as a great deal of helpful information on maintaining canine good health.

The Whole Dog Journal, a monthly publication mentioned above, is, as its name suggests, devoted to many things having to do with natural care for dogs and their training. Many WDJ articles are devoted to alternative feeding practices and the magazine regularly reports on commercial foods and their contents. I'm impressed by the fact that the WDJ accepts no advertising. Subscription information is available at wholedogjl@palmcoastd.com or (800) 829-9165.

Because so many dog owners have begun to conclude that feeding traditional commercial dog foods may be harmful to their dogs, more healthful alternatives have appeared in the marketplace. While I haven't used any of them, I have been impressed by the quality of the ingredients used in making some of them. The Whole Dog Journal is a good source of information on these new foods.

As you might expect, while the food I now prepare for my Boxers is similar to that I made using the recipe in my December, 1998 Boxer Underground article, I've made some changes. Here's an updated version of my basic recipe and procedure:

By this time, the meat should have thawed completely, broken up into very small pieces and begun to brown. When that has happened, turn the heat up full to bring the mixture to a boil. When it does, stir in one forty-two ounce package of quick cooking oatmeal, the kind that cooks in a minute. The mixture will be thick at this point and will require thorough stirring to get the oatmeal evenly distributed. Simmer for fifteen minutes before turning off the heat. Spoon the mixture into smaller containers for refrigerator storage.

Please note that I use canned vegetable for reasons of convenience and economy. If you prefer to use frozen or fresh vegetables, by all means do.

My recipe produces enough food to provide each of my two Boxers with just under a week's worth of eating. It should be a simple matter to divide or multiply the quantities to adjust the recipe for varying needs. I substitute an alternate menu for two or three of their meals each week. The books mentioned above are good sources of additional recipes.

By the way, in addition to giving my Boxers food that I'd eat myself, I share another benefit with them. We both take vitamin and mineral supplements. I won't bore you with the details of my personal program. I'll just tell you that every day Emily and Toby each get one multiple vitamin/mineral tablet of the sort intended for humans. I don't use supplements aimed at pets. The manufacturing and marketing of pet products is unregulated. Undesirable chemical preservatives are commonly used in pet supplements. Each of my Boxers also gets one 200 IU vitamin E capsule daily, along with 1000 mg of powdered vitamin C with each of their meals.

Food prepared according to my recipe (or any other) is certainly not enough to overcome the genetically passed problems (lymphosarcoma and cardiomyopathy, for example) inherent in Boxers, but the results I've had combined with those of others feeding real food to their dogs convinces me that dogs fed this way and given lengthy, regularexercise will lead happy, healthy lives that are as long as their genes will allow.

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