Speaking of Protein...

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Fundog
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Speaking of Protein...

Post by Fundog »

Quote from Mattie: "Again from my experience is isn't the amount of protein which seems to be the problem but what the protein is."

Ah-ha! This is one of those things I've been trying to learn more about. As many of you already are aware, I have been trying to make a concerted effort at improving the quality of my girls' diets. As many of you also know, it has been a big tug-of-war between my husband and myself concerning the issue, as he is quite confident (even adamant!) that the very least expensive generic dog food is perfectly suitable and complete, even "good" for them. I have been learning that maybe it isn't. I have been learning that much of the protein found in these manufactured dog foods is "ash": meat and bones and other animal parts and by-products that have been basically burned and ground into powder.

So I have been trying to improve upon this by feeding more "whole" foods-- foods in a recognizable form, palatable to humans (this morning for breakfast they each got a grilled pork chop, some frozen peas, diced apple, and some potato shreds. Mr. Fundog used to have a HUGE fit about this, but he has finally relented, and agreed to let me feed the girls "people food" about half the time.

So.... granted that the type of protein matters as much as the quantity, please list some of the better sources of protein foods. I know that some foods are higher in protein than others, while some foods are better to be given only sometimes, rather than everyday. And I also know that some vegetable based protein foods, while having their merits, do not make a "complete" protein unless paired with another food (rice and beans together, for example, make a complete protein. So do peanut butter and cheese). I also know that including some vegetable protein (beans, nuts, legumes, etc.) is a very sensible thing to do, as long as it is not the only source of protein. Dogs are not meant to be vegans-- they need animal products in their diets too.

So can anyone expound on this for me, and help me gain a better understanding? Oh-- and I'm still trying to pin down quantity as well. For example, how much meat does a 40 lb. non-working dog need in one day? I know that one pork chop is enough meat to adequately nourish the average human, not just for one meal, but for the whole day, and that the rest of the human's daily intake should consist of vegetables and whole grains.
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Nettle
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Post by Nettle »

The protein that dogs are designed to metabolise is animal protein - so meat and fish. Fed as whole-carcase (which we mostly can't do but which the dog is designed to eat) it is far from pure protein - it is cut with roughage, minerals, vitamins, tissue salts - in fact all nutrients dogs need AND can readily absorb.

Vegetable protein is hard to access even for vegetarian animals. Either they chew cud, re-ingest fecal matter, or have stomachs like fermentation vats. Protein and other nutrients are very hard to process even then, which is why herbivores need to eat almost constantly and carnivores eat once a day or so.

Cereal protein is even harder to metabolise, being new on the nutrient scene compared to animal and vegetable protein. Most cereals have to be processed in some form before most animals can survive on them.

"Protein" by itself, as listed on a sackful of ingredients, does not necessarily imply that it is accessible or healthy. For instance, it is only a couple of years ago that massive recalls had to be made on pet foods because the cereal content (imported from China) had been massively adulterated by melamine - a toxic chemical banned in most countries - because the melamine raised the protein profile. If that had not caused a huge amount of pet deaths by kidney failure, would we ever have known that melamine had been added to the cereal?

Caveat emptor.
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Mattie
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Post by Mattie »

One of my uncles had a farm in North Wales, he had a ***** that wouldn't eat any food given to her, she prefered to get her own. Every day she would go up the fields for a rabbit and wouldn't come back until she had eaten it. She was also seen at various times taking fruit and veg which they grew their own and on odd occasions she would go and eat a little wheat or barley but not very often.

Ideally I would love to see what a dog that feeds herself eats in a year, not only what she ate but what was in it. Rabbits are likely to have grass in their tums which a dog will eat. Based on what this dog ate during the year I would love to try and work out an ideal diet for my dogs.

Unfortunately this isn't going to happen, we have interferred so much with dogs that many are now allergic to raw meat including my little Joe. Many couldn't eat a whole rabbit because of they way their mouths are, etc.

Dog food manufacturers seem to develop their foods on how cheap they can feed the dog and alter the ingredients to do this. To me we are starting at the wrong end, we should be starting at what a dog would eat if they had to provide their own food and get it as close as we can to that.

We are told that baked beans in tomotoe sauce with cauliflower cheese is a good meal, lots of protien, but is it the right protien. There is protien in both the beans and cheese, both different protiens so which would be the best?
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monib1969
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Re: Speaking of Protein...

Post by monib1969 »

Hi

OK here I go ... lol. Mr FUNDOG won't like me :lol: . I am 100% an advocate of homemade/raw diet, simply because this is what is best for our pets adn what nature intended us to eat. Nature didn't intend for us or our animals to eat processed "man" made foods that are loaded with preservatives, salts, sugars, and Lord knows what else we aren't aware of. So here's my spiel on kibble and especially generic......

Up until about 60-65 years ago BEFORE the advent of dry food, dogs were fed scraps from the home, leftover etc... It wasnt' until the manufacturers of our human food realized that they could make money off of all the waste and scraps they throw away each year. Hence the dog food industry began. So when a slaughterhouse slaughters it's animals, all the blood, carcasses and parts considered unfit for human consumption are dumped into a huge BIOHAZARD dumpster. Once this dumpster is full, it is then transported to a rendering plant. Now this offal has obviously been rotting for a few days as most get dumped weekly and some picked up monthly where it is super nasty and basically "black soup" at that point swarming with maggots. Now this along with roadkill, spoiled meat from restaurants and grocery stores, plus in the US animals that have been euthanzed at vets' offices, dead farm and zoo animals which is part of the 4D's in kibble (dead, diseased, dying or downed), and cows or other slaughterhouse animals that are sick or downed (meaning they cannot walk) all go into generic kibble and cheap foods and are your by-products and meat meals.

This "raw product" as it is called (dogs, cats, cows, sheep, pigs, hooves, heads, roadkill, etc) sit on the floors of the rendering plant waiting to be processed, and in the meantime sits rotting until it is processed. So your pup gets a whole host of maggots mixed in with his kibble meat. Not to mention flea collars and regular collars are not removed, and neither is the packaging that meat from grocery stores is stored in either. These plants deal with hundreds of thousands of tons of waste per month. there is no time to remove these. This all eventually gets blended and cooked at 265 degress into a soup where it is later dried and extruded into the cute little shapes your doggies kibble come in.

Now at 265 this is not hot enough to kill off many harmful bacteria like e-coli, salmonella etc.... so many dogs have loose stools because of the bacteria in these foods, and people wonder why. Nor is it high enough to kill the bacteria/virus that causes mad cow. And since many contaminated heads and animals go through this, we end up contaminating our livestock and house pets. The mad cow in 1999 in England was directly linked to the feed the cows were fed which contained scabies infested sheeps heads (rabies which is animal specific to sheep only). So this should be disturbing to EVERYONE as we took an herbivore (cow) that eats only grasses fed it livestock feed that is not grass only but contains MEAT something a cow absolutely does not eat, and because of this crossed over a form of rabies that is specific to ONE animal only and infected another animal, the COW. This is a very scary thing as mad cow can lie dormant for 30 years in a human and causes the same symptoms as Alzheimers in elderly people. So many who are diagnosed with Alzheimers may actually be suffering from scabies passed onto cows causing a form of scabies/mad cow which is then passed onto humans. These same contaminted products are being fed to your dog when you feed him generic kibble with by-products and meat meals. So these low quality meats, if you can even call them meat, will absolutely cause behavioral problems in animals. Not all but many.

Now onto the fillers, corn bad and useless to a dog, wheat gluten bad and cause of the major recall a few years ago. Brewers rice, a by-products of the beer making industry, nothing but junk, just hulls without any grain and mixed with the grains that were too poor of quality to be used in the beer making industry. Beet pulp, pure sugar from the sugar beet used to make high fructose syrup for candy, soda etc... Cellulose, any crafter should know what this is, wood pulp. Don't see many dogs eating trees unless thay are suffering from Pica. BHT/BHA, Ethoxyquin all cancer causing preservatives,no longer used in human food preservation. Plus ethoxyquin was never used in the human food industry. It is a rubber stabilizer used to make rubber more pliable and conform to various hot and cold in car tires without rot. Outlawed because the ppl that WORKED withit, not ingested it, suffered from GI problems, cancers of the GI tract, stomach and colon, anal cancers,stillbirths etc. But yet it's ok for a pet to eat??? I think not!!! Soy meal or soy products, causes many skin reactions in pets and allergic reactions. The list goes on and on and on ......

So even if you do not feed a complete raw or homemade food there are far better alternatives compared to generic or traditional garbage. There is EVO, Innova, Canidae, Taste of the Wild, NAtural Balance, HAlo's Spot for kibble. Priced inorder from highest to lowest, at least here in the states. I prefer dehydrated if one cannot feed raw/homemade. honest Kitchen is the one we feed, it is made from 100% HUMAN grade ingredients, you could eat it and be safe, I dare you to eat the generic food :lol: All you do is mix it with water and let it hydrate for a few minutes. There are others, but HK is the most economical. You also have the prepackaged raw, like the meat chubs (excellent to mix in) and actual patties,meals etc. But not affordable for everyone. So, even if you do not continue with homemade I would go with one of the holisitc kibbles I mentioned over the traditional Purina, ALpo and generics. If you read the ingredient list and compare the generic with the better holistic foods you will see a HUGE difference. Plus your pet will be far healthier for it too. The little extra cost in a quality food far outweighs the enormous vet bills you can have while feeding junk.

For more info on what is REALLY in those commercial kibbles, google closer look inside a rendering plant and be shocked. If you have a sensitive stomach you may not want to watch any of the videos, lol. Even your prescription diets are horrible for your pets. And most people do not know this, but Hill's not only owns it's rendering plant(s), but it is the only one publicly traded on the NY stock exchange. So for them it's about making money, not the health and well being of your pet. and if they keep the vets filled with kickbacks and equipment for selling it, and it contributes to many health issues that dogs go to vets for, it keeps the money circle rolling. Once you look at it for what it truly is, a bottom line, you should be even more aggravated with these companies and want nothing to do with them.

Hope I could help a little with Mr Fundog!!!!
monib1969
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Re: Speaking of Protein...

Post by monib1969 »

Didn't want to mix my menu with my ranting .... Here's a sample of what we feed a 90lb GSD per week that is on an all raw food diet.


Monday

One pound of chicken necks or backs or leg quaters
12 oz. Ground turkey, hamburger, beef heart or chicken hearts / gizzards
One egg w/shell
Salmon Oil
1 tsp. Super C powder
400 units of Vitmain E

Tuesday

6oz. Liver (chicken, beef or pork) or kidneys
8 oz. Chicken necks or backs of Leg Quarters
One egg w/shell
1/4 cup of ground veggies
Salmon Oil
2 tsp. Kelp/Alfalfa mix
1 tsp. Super C powder
400 units of Vitamin E

Wednesday

One can of mackerel
1/4 cup veggies
8oz. Chicken necks or backs or Chicken Leg Quarters
1 tsp. Super C powder
400 units of Vitamin E

Thursday

One pound of chicken necks or backs or Leg Quaters
12 oz. Ground turkey, hamburger, beef heart or chicken hearts and gizzards
One egg w/shell
Salmon Oil
1 tsp. Super C powder
400 units of Vitamin E

Friday

6oz. Liver (chicken, beef or pork) or kidneys
8 oz. Chicken necks or backs or Leg Quaters
One egg w/shell
1/4 cup of ground veggies
Salmon Oil
2 tsp. Kelp/Alfalfa mix
1 tsp. Super C powder
400 Unites of Vitamin E

Saturday

One pound of chicken necks or backs or Leg Quaters
12 oz. Ground turkey, hamburger, beef heart or chicken hearts/gizzards
One egg w/shell
Salmon Oil
1 tsp. Super C powder
400 unites of Vitamin E

Sunday

One can sardines
1/4 cup veggies
1 pound Chicken necks or backs or Leg Quaters
12 oz. Ground turkey, hamburger, beef heart or chicken hearts/gizzards
Salmon Oil
1 tsp. Super C powder
400 Unites of Vitamin E

We gave 1 tsp. of Grand Flex or liquid glucosamine daily to our Mature
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Noobs
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Re: Speaking of Protein...

Post by Noobs »

I don't know why but I can't seem to give Murphy (55lb Lab/Whippet mix) the shell when I give him raw egg! I keep thinking he'll choke on it. But I'll give him a frozen raw chicken leg. Go figure!

Anwyay, question: when you say ground turkey or hamburger - is that raw or cooked?

Very interesting mix you have there, thanks for posting it!
monib1969
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Re: Speaking of Protein...

Post by monib1969 »

Hi Noobs,

We get some dogs that refuse to eat the shell so for those we add a calcium supplement because that is what the shell adds. You can use regular human calcium vitamin supplements. For the raw diet the meat is all raw. But we have had a few rescues come through that we transitioned over to a natural diet and they simply refuse to eat the meat raw. For those guys we just par boil the meat and serve it with the juices, but never the meat with bones in it as bones once cooked can splinter.

You are very welcome ... hope it helps!!
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Noobs
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Re: Speaking of Protein...

Post by Noobs »

Well we're not in a financial position to feed all raw, but I do give him raw chicken legs once in a while. I'm going to start other types of meat later but haven't had a chance to compare prices, etc. He gets plenty of table scraps, and by that I mean I set aside food from my plate for his bowl. :wink: I feed him Natural Balance because our vet thought he might have had a food allergy last year so we started feeding him Potato and Duck (single carb/single protein formula). His food is usually soaked in chicken stock left over from when we roast chicken, or any sort of meat juices left from when we cook, sometimes water left over from boiling broccoli, and he also gets raw veggies.

Before that we were giving him Eukanuba but he got skin rashes and he was at the vet's every few weeks (I would say almost 10 times in the first 12 months we had him) for one thing or another. Since we switched him to Natural Balance he's only been to the vet's for his annual shots (twice in the last year). So we seem to be doing all right.

But ANYWAY I have hijacked Fundog's thread. Sorry!
monib1969
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Re: Speaking of Protein...

Post by monib1969 »

LOL you highjacker you!!!! No, Natural Balance Limited ingredients is one we recommend as well, it is an excellent food, especially for dogs that have had allergic reactions in the past.

Now vaccinating dogs and over vaccinating are another pet peeve of mine, but that's a whole 'nother rant!!!! :lol:
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Noobs
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Re: Speaking of Protein...

Post by Noobs »

Yes, vaccinations... Well for Murphy we have to comply with the laws here in the US (not sure where you are) and he also needs to be current on shots for the kennel/doggy camp where we send him while we're on long vacations. Such is life.
monib1969
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Re: Speaking of Protein...

Post by monib1969 »

Yup I am here in South Dakota. So lucky for me yearly vaccines are not done and rabies only bi-annually, and I titer my dogs to avoid the shot altogether, your state may allow that.

HOWEVER, and with any luck the bill that is waiting to pass on rabies will go through in the states this year. It will require rabies every 3 years in all states and only if the titer test shows not enough antibodies. Simply because there are many holistic vets, nutritionists, trainers etc, like myself, that raise a HUGE stink about this. The rabies vaccine itself is designed to last 7 years. So if your poor dog gets a rabies vaccine yearly in his lifetime he has received min of 18 vaccinations too many if he lives til 21, 10 years and he has gotten 8 too many. Which, btw, before all this "medical intervention" occured and commercial pet foods, our four legged friends easily hit the 20-25 yr mark. Same with yearly "boosters," those like human vaccines are designed to last much longer and some are not even needed after the intial puppy shots. But the "shot market" has become an income booster for vets, plain and simple, boils down to money again.

OK, now I'VE hijacked Fundog's post :lol:
jjphoenix
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Re: Speaking of Protein...

Post by jjphoenix »

orijiin contains all of the 'right sort' of protein even though the protein level is higher than most other foods. there is no way I'd feed mine the generic dog food. However I am a die hard burns/arden grange fan, and i strongly believe it is the best i can feed him. I wish I could feed him raw, but I look at it as I am not a nutritionist and so I would not be able to balance everything as well as people who do it proffessionally, then again only one I would trust such as burns. To be fair I was put off barf because of the amount of people who think some bits out of various prize choice bags will do it as a nutionally balanced diet, unlike you monib1969 who has done it all properly. A friend of mine had a beagle that was fed her equivalant of barf, she didnt weigh her dog then work out what % of what was needed each day etc and the dog had behaviour problems, ate everything in sight, etc. It was eventually put on nature diet food and was a lot healthier, and stopped eating everything (vet suggested coulf be because of a lack of fibre) and that put me off big style.
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Fundog
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Re: Speaking of Protein...

Post by Fundog »

Don't worry about the hijacking, Noobs-- it's all good. :lol:

Moni, there is a sticky in this section about recipes and such-- would you please post you home cooked menus there, so they don't get lost when this thread finally drifts to the bottom? Thanks. :D

I guess I should update everyone, since this topic became somewhat of a "Mr. Fundog is an ogre" thread... We went the rounds again on this subject. It turns out that I have misunderstood him all along, but he doesn't communicate very well. The problem is not that he is convinced cheap kibble is wonderful, but that we cannot afford better at this time. Many of you have already heard, but for those who are new, Mr. Fundog had to have spinal fusion surgery last Summer, and has not been able to work since June. We've been living off my income, our 2009 tax refund, and insurance. But money is running out, and Mr. Fundog is on the verge of panic. Everytime I spend "extra" money on the dogs he has a little stress attack. Understandable, since our teenage son has been going to school with six inches of ankle sticking out of his pants! :shock:

So we talked about all this, and he explained that if he had his way, we would have our girls on the BARF diet, since he personally believes that is best-- but we just cannot afford it at this time. It's disheartening, but I understand now.

However, Annie does need something a bit better than what she was getting, as she has been putting on some extra weight with all the people food I've been feeding (I haven't got the knack of how much is right yet). So last week I went to our local agricultural feed and tack store, and found a dry kibble (weight control formula) that I think will be superior to what they've been getting. It is simply called "Veterinarian Formulated," or VF. It has no corn or soy, and the first ingredient is meat. It contains fruits and vegetables, and it also has glucosamine and chondroitin. So far Annie seems to like it quite a bit-- when I soak it and put my face near it, I can smell the cranberries-- yum! Meanwhile Mr. Fundog wants us to continue to feed Dottie the other kibble-- not because she isn't worth something better, but because the other kibble is only $10.00 a 20 lb. bag, and the VF is $20.00 for a 20lb. bag. Once our finances get better we will be getting Dottie on the VF as well. Meanwhile, this is the best we can do for now.
If an opportunity comes to you in life, say yes first, even if you don't know how to do it.
wvvdiup1
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Re: Speaking of Protein...

Post by wvvdiup1 »

Fundog, I bought a small bag of VF to see how well Karma will like it, since she is a finicky eater. She LOVES it! You're not kidding about the smell of cranberries because I almost put my spoon in it! :lol: However, she loves her EVO and she wants that too! So, what I will do is alternate her dog food to keep her interested as well as give her home cooked meals. Darn, does this dog eat better than me! :lol:
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