The Dog Blog with Kathryn Socie
Becoming Slow Food Localvores
How can I meet the nutritional needs of my dogs through local sources without going broke or spending a stupid amount of time making meals?By Kathryn Socie, 9-16-08
 |
|
 | |
|
It’s the same scene every morning in my house. Get up, dogs out, feed cats, dogs in, feed dogs. It never changes. Never. Sure, if we’re traveling the cats aren’t typically in the equation, but since I rarely go anywhere without the dogs, there is little deviation from this general schema. The routine is so every day for me it’s been incorporated into my autonomic nervous system. Seeing as it’s a bit like breathing, I tend not to notice the ‘isms implicit to it all.
Like, for instance, the fact that black-and-white dog lays down to eat, hugging his bowl between his front legs, shoving his entire head into the depths of his meal. It’s simply a part of my daily fabric, but pure entertainment to anyone newly introduced to it all. Well, that and the fact that the dog eats at a rate of 1 cup of kibble per half hour.
Yep, I have a high-powered, fast-moving, insane border collie cross that eats every meal one kiblet at a time.
When someone comments on it I have to explain his complete and utter commitment to the slow food movement. Sure he’s a dog that goes anywhere and everywhere at unimaginable speeds, starting each day with a renewed level of “go,” but he believes in taking a moment, or 30, to sit down and eat. In fact, I would even argue that he is a proponent of consuming his foods from local sources; given his tendency to snack in-between meals on carcasses (or chunks) we come across on the hillsides near the house.
Recently, in the midst of explaining the behavior of my canine localvore, I began to wonder. There are a number of companies that produce dog food made from free-range organic meats and ingredients, including the BARF (Bones & Raw Food) products, but none that don’t travel a seriously long distance to get to Montana. Even the food I spent a lifetime researching, inquiring from holistic veterinarians, digging in the journals for chi-square values, following the pet food recalls (horrors, really) travels an astounding 1,200 miles to rest between my dog’s paws on the kitchen floor.
And why? Isn’t this cow country? According to a State of Montana web site there are 2.6 million head of beef cattle living in Big Sky country, which translates to three head of cattle per Montanan. If you add the number of harvested wild game to this equation, it seems there’s a whole lot of protein available in my home state.
Granted, my math skills aren’t the best, but something seems wrong with this equation. Why am I shipping kibble in from California?
So begins my quest to find a solution to this conundrum.
Can I meet the nutritional needs of my dogs through local sources without going broke or spending a stupid amount of time making meals (I have my limits)?
Like this story? Get more! Sign up for our free newsletters.
Comments
We're rapidly getting to be over near-$40 bags of cat and dog food, and are about to disengage from yet another unsustainable scenario. Well, I guess we can afford it, but what gets me is when the critters look at me after I feed them, as if to say "WTF? Not this again!"
Fortunately my wife is a fantastically good cook (buffalo steaks here momentarily, and produce from our garden & the Farmer's Market.) <drool...>
So the critters are getting more leftovers than they used to. And, although I don't even kill wasps anymore without compunction, I believe we'll harvest a doe muley or two, mainly to feed the dogs. We'll see what the cats think. They don't hold back their opinions.
The horses are going to be eating our hay, of course, and the barley I just got in from harvesting. Unless it turns out I can make $$ selling it to home brewers. Or other folks who want nice plump heavy organically produced barley for something other than beer!
Once you start eating healthy there's no going back, and before long I suspect our critters will agree.
Frankly, thats the route I'm thinking of taking. The dog food industry is a strange entity for sure and I'm starting to think a bit more than a scam. For centuries dogs ate scraps and then suddenly the veterinary community says "no" to sharing human food-- and then strangely enough become retailers of kibble. Weird. Why? In the name of making money, of course, and because average Americans eat terribly perhaps. Its definitely time to put some thought into doing the pet food thing a bit differently.
Try growing your dog's food........no carbon footprint!
Working in veterinary clinics the healthiest dogs I came across were ranch dogs fed "slop" and ate a lot of rodents dug up in their daily outings-- a bit like a coyote diet, minus the grasshoppers (which seem to make up a big part of the coyote scat around Missoula).
But...my dogs loath veggies unless they come encased in or are surrounded by meat. In fact, just last night they both licked a stir fry pan clean of protein, taking the meat and eating around all veggies (one was caught spitting out the broccoli like a small child). This morning, oatmeal was scoffed at, but there was at least some effort put into it.
Any pointers on making non-meat more edible to these picky two would be great!
--------------
smith
<a >California Dui</a>
--------------
smith
<a >California Dui</a>
--------------
smith
California Dui
Also try unsalted peanuts and you can leave the shells on the trail....good mulch.
Hey, maybe this isn't for everyone, but worth a try.
About 20 years ago while still living in California we had a huge vegetable garden, apple, figs and avacado trees. It became a battle between humans, squirrels and the dogs who got the avacados first. Dogs LOVE avacados and makes their coats shine. All of our dogs ate lots of raw veggies. Raw carrots also work as a great breath freshener. Like with humans avoid raw cauliflower as old dogs have enough gas without that added to the mix. My golden retrievers lived to ages of 16 & 18 and I attribute some of that to the raw veggies as part of their diet. No, I never fed them any canned food. Table scaps and a good dry food were all part of the mix.
They are just not yet convinced that this whole vegetable eating way of being is for them...I'll keep trying.
Thanks so much for all of the great thoughts and input.
I have rawfed my cats and dogs for over 6 years. I came to feeding this way because one of my cats was dying from a completely avoidable disease .... diabetes. She had been fed what I thought was the best food money could buy for the first 6 years of her life. Now I realize that the grain and other inappropriate food stuffs in the commercial food were exactly what caused her to be sick. My vet warned me when I told him I was going to start rawfeeding her ... he said it would kill her! Raw meat, bones and organs just made sense to me though. When I thought about barn cats who have survived for eons on mice and other small rodents and usually live without illness to very ripe old ages. My cat is still alive today (she is now almost 13) and quite healthy having to receive an insulin injection only every couple of days.
Dogs and cats are carnivores and benefit the most from being fed a species appropriate diet. Vegetables and grains are of little/no benefit since a dog/cat does not have the proper digestive enzymes to break down plant material. Veggies pretty much come out the way they went in. The domestic dog is an extremely close relative of the gray wolf, differing from it by at most 0.2% of mtDNA sequence15,22,23 and should be fed as such. http://www.mypetcarnivore.com/dog-wolf.html
Carnivores thrive on raw meat, bones and organs. Raw food is "live" food whereas processed food no matter how "top shelf" it is considered to be is dead food. Food in a bag or a can has been heat processed and its natural enzymes and nutrients are either altered or destroyed. http://www.mypetcarnivore.com/rawfeeding_basics.htm
It is the best thing I every did for my crew. It is not a cure-all but it has healed a multitude of conditions that we were dealing with .... bad teeth, skin problems, chronic constipation, anal gland problems, body and mouth odor, etc. All of my animals now enjoy a variety of whole foods like chicken, rabbit, goat, lamb, turkey and deer.
You can find many local sources for such foods ... check out farmers and butchers that have grass fed meat that is raised naturally. You may pay a little more than a bag of dog/cat food but you will save the first year you don't have to have your dog's teeth cleaned at the tune of several hundred dollars. Your animal's health will improve dramatically ... it has been an amazing journey for us!
Thanks!
Thanks for the info.