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by Sunsilver on 30 July 2009 - 20:07
When I was a child, most of my dad's family had farms. The farm dogs were fed table scraps and leftovers, and most lived long, healthy lives. The main risk seemed to be being run over by farm equipment or stepped on/kicked by livestock!
They also loved to eat the poop from the calves that hadn't been weaned yet...
by michael49 on 30 July 2009 - 23:07
by VomRuiz on 30 July 2009 - 23:07
Euk is expensive, but the rep that comes into my store convinced me of how wonderful prebiotics are, (and gave me lots of coupons!) So I am trying it out.
I still add Alaskan Salmon oil a couple times a week, it really helps with the dry coats.
~Stacy
P.S. I do end up wasting a lot of food, since I can't feed most of it to the dogs. I have to learn to cook smaller portions :(
by DDR-DSH on 31 July 2009 - 00:07
I also grew up poor, but didn't feel poor most of the time. My mother and grandparents went through the Depression. We learned to make do with whatever we had. It can actually be kinda fun.
Nobody had all the conveniences and comforts that people take for granted, now. At least, nobody I knew. Now, most of us have so much made-in-China junk that we don't know where to put it all. The storage business has gotten just huge! And, believe it or not, Los Angeles County (where my family lived in the 40's and early 50's) had a property tax for personal items. They would actually send someone around to take an inventory on your personal effects, furniture and the like. I think it was supposed to be a sort of wealth tax. It only lasted a few years.. maybe to 1957.. and then it went away. Everyone was very nervous and upset when the tax agent came around to snoop in the house. We didn't have much, so there was not much to tax. Back then, there were not even any real grocery stores such as we know now.. No "supermarkets". Most stores just sold canned goods, dry goods, produce, and you had to go to a butcher to buy meat. Dairy products were delivered at the back door and there was a special little door there for that purpose, to get your milk. I remember hearing the clinking sounds of milk and cream bottles being dropped off early in the morning, around 6AM. Bread was delivered, too, or you could buy it directly off the little Helm's truck. It was a little square van with wrap around windows and "jail bars" inside. Big, gorgeous cream puffs and pastries were on display.
It was a good time. The skies seemed more blue and the sun was gentler and softer.. a big golden yellow orb. The summers seemed almost endless. For sure, you never forget these happier times of your youth. I think our memories are not so prone to hang onto the bad things. Of course, there are always some bad things. I do remember seeing dogs with distemper back in the early 70's. Horrible! Thankfully, it is seldom seen, anymore.
I remember seeing my first dog crate back in the 60's.. It was made of luan mahogany. Sheer genius, I thought. The Doskocil travel crates for airlines really caused a sort of revolution, you know?
by michael49 on 31 July 2009 - 02:07
DDR-DSH
I want to comment on a couple of things,just my personal experience.We have a long deer season in Alabama,so I take advantage of this as a way to feed my dogs fresh venison.I have a friend that processes a lot of deer during the season.He saves the bones,scrap meat,entrails ect. for me in his cooler untill I pick them up.I took some of this and put it in a pile,a fairly large pile on my property at the edge of the woods. I positioned a couple of game cameras on this pile in hopes of getting some pictures of fox and coyotes.In addition to these I also got pictures of dogs,mine as well as others.The thing is once the meat became rancid after a few warm days my dogs would not eat any of it,they would rub and wallow in it,but would not eat any of it.The other dogs were pit bulls,healthy looking dogs that fed on this untill it was completely gone,3 months or so.The cameras are equiped with infrared and take videos.It was really interesting to watch it unfold.Dogs during the day,never at night,foxes and coyotes at night,but never at the same time.Pieces of skin and entrails were eaten first,then the muscle meat was torn from the bones,bones left untill there was nothing else,and then eaten.I wondered about the raw diet thing at this point,a combination of bones and meat daily along with other things,but in the wild,or as close as I could get to it,that certainly was not the order in which they chose to feed,wild foxes,coyotes,domesticated dogs all ate it in the same order.My dogs fed the scrap meat and bones in their kennels ate it the same way.In the big excercise yard,there are still bones that they chew on now,but not eaten with the meat.They ate kibble when the deer scraps were gone,leaving the bones lying there. I have to wonder if we're feeding the raw diet correctly. The statement about my dogs not eating the rancid meat,tells me that they prefered it fresh if they had that option.
My dogs won't eat raw fish either,even if i clean them they still won't touch it,they'll eat kibble first.I don't know,maybe they're just spoiled.Any comments on this are welcome.
Michael
by michael49 on 31 July 2009 - 02:07
DDR-DSH
I want to comment on a couple of things,just my personal experience.We have a long deer season in Alabama,so I take advantage of this as a way to feed my dogs fresh venison.I have a friend that processes a lot of deer during the season.He saves the bones,scrap meat,entrails ect. for me in his cooler untill I pick them up.I took some of this and put it in a pile,a fairly large pile on my property at the edge of the woods. I positioned a couple of game cameras on this pile in hopes of getting some pictures of fox and coyotes.In addition to these I also got pictures of dogs,mine as well as others.The thing is once the meat became rancid after a few warm days my dogs would not eat any of it,they would rub and wallow in it,but would not eat any of it.The other dogs were pit bulls,healthy looking dogs that fed on this untill it was completely gone,3 months or so.The cameras are equiped with infrared and take videos.It was really interesting to watch it unfold.Dogs during the day,never at night,foxes and coyotes at night,but never at the same time.Pieces of skin and entrails were eaten first,then the muscle meat was torn from the bones,bones left untill there was nothing else,and then eaten.I wondered about the raw diet thing at this point,a combination of bones and meat daily along with other things,but in the wild,or as close as I could get to it,that certainly was not the order in which they chose to feed,wild foxes,coyotes,domesticated dogs all ate it in the same order.My dogs fed the scrap meat and bones in their kennels ate it the same way.In the big excercise yard,there are still bones that they chew on now,but not eaten with the meat.They ate kibble when the deer scraps were gone,leaving the bones lying there. I have to wonder if we're feeding the raw diet correctly. The statement about my dogs not eating the rancid meat,tells me that they prefered it fresh if they had that option.
My dogs won't eat raw fish either,even if i clean them they still won't touch it,they'll eat kibble first.I don't know,maybe they're just spoiled.Any comments on this are welcome.
Michael
by Two Moons on 31 July 2009 - 02:07
by DDR-DSH on 31 July 2009 - 06:07
That is really interesting! I remember reading not long ago that the dairymen in the alpine regions of Switzerland were having a hard time getting rid of cattle carcasses when the bovines died in the field. There were no large predators to take on such a project, so what they would do is that they would dynamite the carcass and blow it into small pieces which could be eaten by smaller predators and scavengers such as foxes. Some people were very upset by this practice and were trying to stop it. LOL.. I can just see a beautiful alpine meadow, and "BOOM!!!", a bloated cow carcass is blasted to bits, flying through the air. There is another video on YouTube of a whale carcass that they tried to do the same thing with, same reason.. Huge chunks of rotting blubber and meat were flying very long distances, much farther than the authorities thought was possible, and nearly striking onlookers up by the road. Imagine getting hit by fifty lbs of rotten whale blubber!
The best bitch I probably ever had was a Quanto Wienerau granddaughter, and when I first went to meet the litter and the breeder, they were all feasting on a calif carcass on his patio. He'd gotten a feeder calf from one of the local dairies and he let the dogs eat on the carcass for a week. I have to say that those were some big, healthy pups. He really did it "Natures way".
At one point, a long time ago, I had a couple of dairy goats, and I had to kill and butcher one of them. I gave the head to the dogs, and they had a lot of fun with it. They ate the ears and the entire upper and lower jaw and defleshed everything, so that only the brain case was left. Now, here is the wierd thing.. The goats have a feature which protects their eyes from damage. When poked by something (like the horn of another goat) the eyeball can easily go way back into it's socket. So, here was this ball shaped bone object, about the size of a soccer ball, with two perfectly undamaged eyes looking out from it! The dogs could not to ANYTHING to those eyes! The result was truly macabre, and frightening, when you first saw it! That would scare the bejesus out of someone if they found it under their bedcovers, or on their doorstep!!!
by Two Moons on 31 July 2009 - 16:07
Anyone use it?
I hate to see dogs or cats for that matter pampered with gourmet this and that, some of it looks good enough in the advertisements to bring home and eat myself...lol
It boils down to economics and life styles in the end, and whatever your situation your dogs should be able to make the best of it with enough of whatever they get.
by keepthefaith on 31 July 2009 - 16:07
So about three weeks ago, we started preparing food for them at home. The formulation is simple:
40% is a mix of boiled deboned chicken (legs & thighs) /ground beef
30% are veggies like boiled and pureed carrots and cabbage
30% is rice
The first two are based on weight after cooking. The weight of the rice is pre-cooking. I came up with the formulation after a fair amount of research on the net. We cook about two weeks of feed at one time. Everything is mixed after it is cooked and then frozen. We did have to buy a small additional freezer to hold the prepared food as well as the raw meat/chicken which we buy when it is well-priced.
The dogs love it - and they really look forward to their meals. I know the quality of the food the dogs are getting. Frankly, it is food that a human could eat without a problem. It is probably more healthy than the average American diet.
The cost is working out to about $60 per month for two dogs - a little more than we were spending on kibble at Costco.
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