Dog Feeding Philosophy

Summary of our philosophies for feeding our dogs. We share our philosophy so that others can gain from our experiments and readings.

We are on our third generation of dogs and our feeding philosophy has evolved from kibble with no variety to kibble with toppers (human and freeze-dried) to rehydrated freeze-dried meals with toppers (human) and extreme variety. Every pet owner needs to decide what works for them and there is probably no absolute right or wrong.

There certainly is quite an upsurge in commentary about the ideal dog food strategy.  It wasn’t too long ago that everyone just bought cheap kibble in the grocery store and lived with the consequences.  We are in our third generation of dogs and we have gone the full gamut and have done plenty of reading and experimentation.  I thought I would share our perspectives and where we currently are in our experimentation.

I’m not expert and I don’t believe that anything I am saying is beyond debate.  It’s probably pretty much like parents debating what are the proper allowance, dating, and car privileges rules for their kids.  There probably are as many different sets of acceptable guidelines as there are parents.  That being said, I am hoping that our observations might be helpful to others as they develop their own plans.

Part of our experimentation comes from the fact that generation 2 of our dogs had some health problems near the end and it was tough to get them to eat.  So we invested a bit more effort researching the current advice.

Good sources of advice:

DogFoodAdvisor.com:  This website is pretty neutral.  They have a standard for what they believe is the correct set of ingredients.  Then they analyze the package labels and grade each food against website’s standard.  Generally, foods rated 4.5 stars and above are considered excellent.

HealthyPets.Mercola.com:  Dr. Becker is the lead vet on this site and she pulls together data from a variety of sources.  She has written a book that I think is pretty fair.  Although she has a firm set of recommendations, she knows that people will want to tune their approach and she provides hints on how to vary pet feeding taking advantage of her advice.  The 4th edition is shown on the right and she is planning to publish a new version in 2018 with updated nutritional standards.

Perspective on Kibble:  We probably began our search for a better approach when I learned one of the original prime purposes of dog food kibble was to make it easy to pick up dog poop.  This didn’t seem particularly valuable when considering dog nutrition.  Additionally, I learned that the original dog food kibble companies had vast grainery infrastructures.  So it seemed likely that grain-based kibble would come out of their research.  Finally, the fact that the advice was to not change food and feed the same thing morning and night, day after day seemed a little self-serving as well as boring.

Here are some key benefits to feeding kibble:

• cheapest of the dog foods
• helps firm up poops to make easy to pick up
• easiest to store (generally doesn’t spoil)
• theoretically, it is the easiest to tune for calories (although the cons will show that dogs on kibble are just as likely to be overweight)
• hard kibble could be useful for helping keep teeth clean (actually, I am not sure about this as my dogs have always had to have their teeth cleaned).

Here are some of the perceived cons to feeding primarily the same kibble:

• kibble is generally the highest calorie per volume of food … dogs don’t feel full and owners are most likely to overfeed their dogs and drive the weight up.
• grain-based kibble is a good way to fatten dogs up -> just like with livestock.
• some dogs find kibble boring and will tend to not finish their meal and just eat during the day – this doesn’t work if you have more that one dog as you can’t determine which one is eating the food
• there are some reports that grain-based kibble may promote allergies
• there are also some reports that repetitive feeding of the same thing may promote allergies as well
• there are also some reports that indicate a linkage of corn + chicken, common ingredients in kibble, with the growing epidemic of cancer in dogs

The latest comments from health food gurus related to dog food kibble can be summarized as the following and are somewhat similar to paleo diets in humans:

• Dogs share 98% of their DNA with wolves
• Wolves don’t eat kibble
• Wolves devour rabbits and other small animals and eat everything: bones, organs, etc.
• Wolves have a lot of variety in what they eat

Sliwa First Experiments Moving Away from Solely Kibble:  Starting with generation 1 dogs we started to add other items to kibble.  We decided to use brown rice and lamb based premium kibble (getting away from chicken and corn).  We decided that kibble was too boring.  Dogs have a tremendous sense of smell and we suspect that their sense of taste is excellent as well.  Additionally, one of a dog’s favorite time of the day is eating, so why not make it more enjoyable?

In response to these observations, we started heating up human foods to create an aroma and adding it to the kibble.  Favorite additives included cut green beans, peas, and chicken rice soup.  One reason we used additives was to make it more likely the dogs would finish the meal and not need open feeding.  Open feeding is not good when you have more than one dog for helping to monitor weight.

We liked these first experiments and carried it over to our second generation of dogs.  We could prep the meals in a couple of minutes and make an ordeal out of the aroma for making it more fun.

Ranking of Dog Food Types with Examples:

Due to the illness of our 2nd generation of dogs as they approached 13 and 14 years old, we started studying dog diets more.  Based on those studies of experts, here is our ranking of dog food types based upon likely health:

• Raw Diet – Homemade – Balanced: (See Dr. Becker’s book above)
  • Pros:  Top rated and the most fun; can be cheaper than commercial raw diet
  • Cons:  Time consuming; can be messy; moderate risks of bacteria; not easy to travel
• Raw Diet – Commercial
  • Types:  Frozen raw is the purest raw; Freeze-dried or Dehydrated is 99% of the value of frozen raw
  • Pros: Typically balanced; many ad hoc reports of pets health increasing
  • Cons: Most expensive; defrosted frozen risks bacteria and contamination + freezer storage
  • Examples of Frozen:  Darwin (my favorite for this type); Stella & Chewy; Northwest Naturals
  • Examples of Freeze-Dried or Dehydrated:  Stells & Chewy (my favorite); Northwest Naturals
• Cooked Diet – Homemade – Balanced Cooked (See Dr. Becker’s book above)
• Cooked/Processed Diet – Commercial
  • Type:  food is human grade, processed, and is now in refrigerated sections of grocery stores
  • Examples:  Freshpet
  • Notes:  Our dogs really like this food.
• Human Grade Canned Food
  • Protein Examples: sardines, salmon, tuna, chicken, ham, soups
  • Examples:  peas, carrots, green beans, pumpkin, soups, etc.
• Canned Dog Food Food (Hopefully Super Premium)
  • Examples:  Merrick’s is my favorite
• Dry Food (Hopefully Super Premium):
  • Examples:  Origen; Acana; Call of the Wild (my favorites)
• Grocery Store Brands
• Semi-moist Pouched Food
  • avoid propylene glycol additive
• Unbalanced, Homemade Diet (Raw or Cooked)
  • This is listed and Dr. Becker indicating that just feeding chicken and vegetables every day will deprive your pet of the nutrients need for healthy living.

Observations:

We are willing to spend the money but want to invest our time wisely.  I do enjoy prepping the meals for our 3rd generation of dogs (Brandy & Beckett) but prefer not to make it too big of a production.  So we need to find a balance between safety and convenience.

We are also concerned about the challenges of frozen raw.  It takes up space in the freezer; you need to thaw; and, the development of spoilage or bacteria is not unlikely, especially if careless.

Freeze-dried purportedly has 99% of the nutritional benefits of frozen raw without the challenges of spoilage.  There is a concern that dogs will need to have moisture as freeze-dried food absorbs a lot of moisture when in the stomach.  So we add plenty of moisture to our feeding bowls and the dogs always lick them clean.

A common compromise is to add freeze-dried “toppers” to kibble.  This adds more nutrients, makes the kibble more palatable, and makes it more fun for the dogs.  We like this too.

There are lots of anecdotes on the web of dogs who had health issues and changed to organic, fresh, raw and their health was saved.  Of course, these are not scientific studies, but it makes sense and we believe there is a high correlation.  Examples include allergies, digestion problems, joints, etc.

Changing Foods &/or Variety:

The conventional wisdom is finding something that works and then don’t change it.  Of course, this is self-serving to the companies and sure seems boring.  As mentioned above, there are many studies that indicate that over-feeding of a single diet can lead to allergies and other ailments.  Plus, unless the food is superbly balanced, deficiencies and resulting health issues are likely.

When changing foods the usual philosophy is to mix in the new food gently and start phasing out the old food over time.  I think this is to minimize the chance the dog rejects the new food and the owner complains.  Some dogs also have sensitive stomachs and changing the food may result in diarrhea.  Most super-premium foods have probiotics to help promote healthy gut flora and to minimize the chance of soft bowels or diarrhea.

My current dogs love the variety and their digestion is fine.  In fact, you’d be surprised what goes in their food bowls as toppers.  Of course, this is a data sample of 2 … which isn’t very scientific.  But I am now a firm believer that dogs can be cultivated to be healthier and happier with a wide variety.

We used Bone Broth as the replacement for water when getting the dogs used to variety in their food.  The bone broth taught them to lick every last bit and now they do the same even when it’s just water.

Freeze-Dried is the Answer:

We have decided that rather than adding human grade goodies to kibble or adding freeze-dried toppers to kibble, we have decided to use freeze-dried food as the basis of our meals.  We use discs (Stella & Chewy’s) as the base food for our dogs.  We like the fact the freeze-dried meals are balanced with plenty of nutrients, vitamin additives, and probiotics.  Click on the attachment to the right to see the food analysis for one of our favorite blends (Surf and Turf).

We like the variety that Stella & Chewy’s offers as we believe different protein sources is valuable.  We particularly like the following collections:  Surf & Turf, Turkey, Super Beef, Rabbit, and Pheasant.  Others include Chicken, Lamb, Duck, and Goose.  We will usually mix the discs between two varieties at each meal.

We particularly appreciate the convenience.  It’s light, doesn’t easily spoil, and travels well.  When you rehydrate with water (or we sometimes use bone broth) it even starts to smell like the original food.  This has got to be great for our pups.

It’s not the cheapest strategy.  Our dogs are about 40 lbs which means that if we were to feed them solely freeze-dried food we would use 5 to 7 discs per meal (two per day).  Discs are about $0.80 per disc.

We have chosen to give them about half their calories from freeze-dried discs and then add human grade additions to their bowls for fun, variety, and balance.

Summary of Current Philosophy:

• Freeze-Dried: We use Stella & Chewy’s freeze-dried food as the basis of every meal.  We generally target to get 50% of their calories this way.
• Supplements: We add vitamin and mineral supplements to each meal.  Our up-to-date strategy is reported here:  link
• Veggies & Fruits:  We add veggies and fruits to each meal.  The most common is peas & carrots with blueberries.  But it could include on the vegetable side:  cooked broccoli, green beans, sauerkraut, left-over deli salads.  We like this as it fills the pup’s stomach with low-calorie bulk.  Generally, we will used canned veggies (yes, we know these are missing some of the micro-nutrients) but will occasionally use fresh or frozen vegetables.  As for the fruit toppings, we will add raw fruit like blueberries or from fruit samplers for people (melon, cantaloupe, watermelon, honeydew, oranges, strawberries, etc.)  Sometimes we get frozen fruits and will thaw out a container for each meal.  I particularly like either frozen blueberries or a frozen antioxidant mixes from the grocery store.
• When available, we like to add rice.  We particularly like to add chicken and rice soups.
• We almost always add an additional protein source as a topper.  If canned or packaged, we only serve meats that have been stored in water.  Health experts extol the benefits of sardines as they are young and contain low concentrations of toxins.  Not so with tuna and salmon.  We tend to buy line caught, safe, ya da ya da types of fish protein: sardines, tuna, salmon, crab, and shrimp.  Other protein toppers can include cooked chicken, cooked steak, cooked eggs, omlet slices, and deli meats.  Of course, cooking destroys some of the value (unlike freeze-drying), but it avoids the risk of bacteria.
• We add other human goodies from time to time for variety, health, and taste purposes:  sauerkraut, cheese, meat sauces, etc.
• Note that super-premium dog foods include probiotics and we add some as well.
• Sometimes we pureé the foods in a food processor.  Some health experts say it makes the food more accessible.  For example, stomachs have a challenge digesting the cellulose cases of peas.  If the peas are processed it make it more nutritionally available.  We aren’t opposed but it does make it more of production during preparation and clean-up.
• We weigh our dogs on a regular basis and use this to tune our helpings and food.  We bought a vet scale on Amazon (link) and then collect weights.  A chart showing their weights for the first 1.5 years is shown to the right.  We keep adjusting to get close the ideal.  We wish we were as good as this for ourselves.  Note that Brandy and Beckett are within 1 pound of each other, but Brandy gets 20% more as her metabolism is higher and she fetches harder at the dog park.

Click to see Puppy Weights

• It’s important to have a strategy for when your dogs have diarrhea or soft bowel movements.  I’ve talked to some owners whose dogs always have this problem.  I think diets should be adjusted so the bowel movements are healthy.  In my mind, if they become unhealthy and don’t clear fast enough it is a signal to go to the vet.  We find the following remedies are helpful for dealing with diarrhea or soft bowel movements:  chicken and rice soup (rice absorbs stuff in the gut); extra probiotics; and, pumpkin (canned, unsweetened from the grocery store).  Note that fiber is good for regularizing the bowel movements.  Fiber helps if constipated and it also helps if the bowel movements are too soft.
• We use bone broth for additional flavor.  It can be useful when switching foods.
• We use plenty of water to rehydrate the freeze-dried food and to mix with the supplements powder.  The dogs generally lick this up completely.
• Since we aren’t using kibble we definitely have to brush teeth.  We are experimenting with a variety of oral health strategies and will report on this in the future.

For a description of a typical meal go to this post.