To veg or not to veg

Discussion dedicated to promoting the well-being of your dog through diet, exercise and general health tips.

Moderators: emmabeth, BoardHost

Post Reply
Shalista
Posts: 1363
Joined: Tue Feb 17, 2015 10:04 pm

To veg or not to veg

Post by Shalista »

I'd just like to start a discussion on the topic. I've been feeding bax veggies for a few months now and i know he LOVES them. he devours them first and will chase every last pea across the floor before he starts his meat but does he need them? does it hurt him?

I've noticed in his stool that the peace come out drained out of color but almost completely intact. I'm taking that to mean that yes he's getting SOMETHING out of it but not a lot.

What are your thoughts on feeding veggies?

EDIT - ive heard some people cook or puree first before feeding veggies?
Baxter (AKA Bax, Chuckles, Chuckster) Rat Terrier, born 01/16/13
Suzette
Posts: 1518
Joined: Sun Jun 26, 2011 6:45 am

Re: To veg or not to veg

Post by Suzette »

My dog never really liked eating veggies. I offered them, but she didn't usually eat them. Now I grind her raw food instead of giving her whole meaty bones and I put steamed veggies into the mix. She devours it! I like that she gets veggies in her meals. It simply cannot hurt. The key is to steam or lightly cook them. Raw veggies tend to come out the same way they went in.
My avatar is Piper, my sweet Pembroke Corgi. b. 5/11/11
Shalista
Posts: 1363
Joined: Tue Feb 17, 2015 10:04 pm

Re: To veg or not to veg

Post by Shalista »

yeah im begining to wonder, i just was reading a post from a website Judy gave me about a woman talking about how feeding raw veggies is giving them food they cant digest... which is why we feed raw in the FIRST PLACE, to avoid that. so now im torn about feeding Bax his peas :?
Baxter (AKA Bax, Chuckles, Chuckster) Rat Terrier, born 01/16/13
Erica
Posts: 2697
Joined: Fri Aug 05, 2011 9:35 pm
Location: North Carolina

Re: To veg or not to veg

Post by Erica »

Steaming or pureeing supposedly breaks down the vegetables in a manner that helps them be more digestible. I know a dog who has severe reactions when she eats meat, so her food is a nutritionist-devised mix of quinoa and various other cooked veg, with some multivitamin tablets. If she couldn't digest it at all, she wouldn't be alive after months of this diet! But she is doing well and isn't in the emergency vet every month, so something is giving her energy and nutrients. ;)

This is not a recommendation for a non-meat diet for all dogs, mind! This dog specifically just has a bad reaction to meat proteins.

Overall, if I give Delta veg in any substantial amount (eg when I gave him mashed sweet potato for his birthday), it's steamed or cooked or pureed or some combination of that. I personally don't think feeding veg is bad for them, especially when it's prepared such that they can digest it easily. If it's giving them digestive trouble, rethink what you're giving them.

I am not a nutritionist of humans or dogs, so this is all what I've gathered from my various inexpert reading and ponderings.
Delta, standard poodle, born 6/30/14
JudyN
Posts: 7018
Joined: Tue Jul 26, 2011 1:20 pm
Location: Dorset, UK
Contact:

Re: To veg or not to veg

Post by JudyN »

Jasper gets pureed veg (I buy it ready pureed). OH thinks that when we don't feed him veg he eats more grass. He could be right but I'm not convinced.

I think the bottom line is no one knows whether veg is good for dogs or not. There haven't (to my knowledge) been any properly controlled studies so people are going on guesswork, anecdote, and observations of just a few dogs. I hear all the time of people changing their dogs to raw and seeing clear benefits but that's not the case with veg.

If Jasper has chopped raw carrot it comes out so unchanged I could rinse it off and feed it again :mrgreen:
Jasper, lurcher, born December 2009
User avatar
Nettle
Posts: 10753
Joined: Sun Apr 13, 2008 1:40 pm

Re: To veg or not to veg

Post by Nettle »

The idea is that dogs can't digest cellulose (nor can we) so lightly steaming or pulverising veg. makes the nutrients available to a dog's digestion. Veg. eaten raw and unpulverised still does a job because it acts as an intestinal cleanser (roughage). Bones provide roughage too. If you give raw veg. to a dog with worms, it'll often shovel out a pile of worms along with the undigested cellulose. This does not mean we should stop worming, but suggests (anecdotally :wink: ) that frequent ingestion of vegetable matter helps to keep the gut clean and healthy.

Dogs that get the choice will graze certain grasses and herbs at times, or even all the time. My own observation is that if dogs are fed vegetables, they graze less but still graze. However they have little interest in eating the poo of herbivores (partly digested vegetable matter). Dogs fed commercial food with no vegetables tend to graze much more and be mad for herbivore poo.
A dog is never bad or naughty - it is simply being a dog

SET YOURSELF UP FOR SUCCESS
Shalista
Posts: 1363
Joined: Tue Feb 17, 2015 10:04 pm

Re: To veg or not to veg

Post by Shalista »

Interesting point about the herbivore poo. Bax does graze less than he used to while eating veggies (still obsessively grazes every once in awhile) but he really doesn't show much interest in herbivore poo anymore he used to be ALLLL over that.
Baxter (AKA Bax, Chuckles, Chuckster) Rat Terrier, born 01/16/13
Post Reply