MORE QUESTIONS ABOUT FEEDING A RAW DIET

Dear Jubilee,

We first heard about the BARF diet when we were visiting some friends who have a Jubilee Airedale, and we want to know more. The BARF diet is new to us, and we are not feeding it exclusively.  I do have a few questions:.
 
1.  In reading your articles about making the mush, I noticed a comment about using salmon oil NOT flax seed oil with puppies. Do you have any more information?  Is flax oil harmful to puppies?  (My daughter is in Africa with the State Dept.and is interested in feeding her new puppy the raw food diet) How about adult dogs?  (I have put flax oil in my mush)  With all the carcinogens in fish oils, I thought the plant Omega-3 would be a better alternative. Am I hurting my dogs?

 2.  Also, what other supplements like vitamin E, B or C do you routinely give?  (Unlike humans, I thought dogs were able to manufacture vit C so I haven't added any to their diets. Also, our 2 Airedales love apples, strawberries, blueberries and melons, so we give them some fruits regularly when in season)  What do you advise?

3. The amount of food you suggest doesn't fit with what I'm experiencing--my dogs seem hungry all the time and I feed about 1/2 C mush with 7-8 chicken neck bones both am AND pm.    The male has even gained a few pounds so we are cutting him back a bit while the smaller female has not gained weight. (They get the same exercise- brisk am + pm 1+ mi walks)

New Convert in Virginia

Dear New Convert,

1. You are NOT hurting your dogs. Some dogs have an allergic reaction to flaxseed oil, but when we started, that is what we used exclusively, and our dogs never had a problem. We switched to a very high grade of cold pressed salmon oil because we learned that it is easier for dogs to digest. They do not digest grains well so flaxseed oil has to go through, as I understand it, another step before they can assimilate it. We just liked the idea that the salmon oil was nutritionally more readily available to them. Other people use fish oil capsules. The important thing is the omega 3 oils that they get from any of these oils.

2. We have tried a lot of different things: we used to give E, B and C as individual vitamins. Then we went over to Whole-Istic multi vitamins for people. Then we fed Berte's blend, a powdered canine multivitamin available at www.b-naturals.com. We are now thinking of returning to the use of E, B, and C as individual vitamins because our dogs started having goopy eyes, and the only changes in their diet were the changes in vitamins.

Dogs used to manufacture their own vitamin C, but because of so much pollution today, it is not clear that they get enough. Also dogs that are on vitamin C their entire lives have fewer cases of hip dysplasia and other joint problems. It cannot hurt them, so we choose to give it every day unless we are fasting. Vitamin B is critical to dogs and they should get it daily (somewhere I have an excellent article by Wendy Vollhard on this). We give 200 U of Vitamin E daily. Regardless of how you give the vitamins, the important thing is that you use capsules and not tablets -- tablets are pressed at very high heats which interfere with the potency of the vitamins.

By the way, the fruits are wonderful for them, especially the berries and the apples. Ours love them.

3. The amount of food that we suggest is a starting point. If your dog gains unwanted weight, reduce the quantity. If your dog loses weight, increase the quantity. As long as you can easily feel your dog's ribs and the backbone is not jutting out, then your dog is not too fat or too thin. We are in the habit of feeling our dogs ribs and backbones every day and making adjustments as needed.

Jubilee