Genesee Bird And Pet Clinic 

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Genesee Bird and Pet Clinic, 858-278-1575

Robert Smatt, DVM, MS

Nutritional Information and Recommendations

For Dogs

Dear Clients,

            We at the Genesee Bird and Pet Clinic believe that nutrition is the cornerstone of good health.  Just as you can't build a house on sand, you can't build a healthy body with poor nutrition. The biggest single cause of health problems in pets, especially cats, is poor diets provided by the pet food industry.

            The energy we call LIFE animates the cells that make up our bodies and directs their multitudinous biochemical functions. Foods are the fuel of our bodies. They will not function properly on poor quality foods, any more than a finely tuned automobile will do well on poor quality gasoline.

            Should it be any different for our pets?  Many of the illnesses of people (Type II Diabetes and many cardiovascular problems) can be prevented and even treated with nutrition.  We believe that many of the problems of our companion animals can also be prevented, or at least minimized by sound nutrition practices.

            Therefore, we have developed a scale of nutritional adequacy for feeding our pets.  The scale is as follows, with 10 being the best.

1.  (Poorest) All meat without bones. Remember, the dog or cat in the wild eats everything when it kills its prey, including the intestinal contents. Muscle meat from any species is very deficient in calcium, having very low calcium to phosphorus ratio. In a rabbit, the intestinal contents amount to about 40 percent of the body weight.  The dog or cat in the wild also eats the bones, a source of calcium for its body.

2.  Soft-Moist diets. (Gaines-Burgers, Prime, etc.)  These diets are very high in sugars, chemicals, dyes, etc… They have labels that make interesting reading.

3-4. Soft-Moist and dry combinations. (Kibbles and Bits, etc.)  Also included in this category are the generic brands.  The generic and store brands have been incriminated in the literature for being of poor quality and tend to vary from batch to batch.

5-6. Standard Commercial Diets.  The name brands.  Adequate in most cases for normal, healthy, young to middle aged animals but merely adequate.  (Children will survive too on hotdogs and Twinkies, but how well?) * See Ethoxyquin Handout.

7-8. "Top-shelf" lines.  (Science Diet, Iams)  These are higher quality in their ingredients, but still have artificial preservatives and other chemical additives.  It should be noted that most Science Diet products are formulated with meat by-products, poorer quality protein.  There are some natural products in this category, but often are made of inferior ingredients such as "wheat flour."  Wheat flour is most accurately translated as white flour.  If the product is made with the whole grain, the product will have "ground whole wheat" or "whole wheat flour" as an ingredient.  There are, unfortunately, a number of other low quality products that come with high quality sounding names.  Avoid all pet foods containing dyes, BHA, BHT, ethoxyquin, and grains of any kind.  (See our handout on ethoxyquin).   Ethoxyquin is the fat preservative used in almost all prepared canned and dry foods.  Once a fungicide and rubber tire stabilizer, ethoxyquin is now the most widely used fat preservative found in pet food.  Even if not found on the label fat suppliers probably add it before it reaches the pet manufacturing plant.  The substance is not allowed in food for human consumption in the U.S. and is prohibited in animal foods and human foods in all other countries.  Feeding grains to carnivorous animals is the same thing as feeding refined carbohydrates and sugars to humans. The body ages more quickly, teeth go bad, immune and parasite problems occur more frequently, and aging is more rapid.

            And don’t forget, the processing of food itself. ALL PROCESSED pet foods must be heated to high temperatures by law---canned food to 245 degrees  F for 45 minutes. This denatures protein and diminishes all food value.  The average can of dog or cat food is only 45% useable to the consumer.

9. Natural Life, Solid Gold, Limited Diets.  These products are made with top quality ingredients. However, are additives like wheat, soy, and corn normal dog or cat food, no matter how high the quality? These foods have vitamin C and vitamin E as natural preservatives instead of artificial preservatives.  The minerals are chelated with amino acids to provide better absorption.  They are the optimal prepared diets and are the only prepared pet food lines manufactured that contains good quality protein (no byproducts), no food coloring or harmful preservatives. Once again, we have the problem of feeding grains as a significant part of these diets. DO NOT FEED ANY PET FOODS THAT CONTAIN GRAINS.

10. A homemade diet with fresh raw foods.   We have provided specific directions on how to make these diets. The doctor will discuss any modification of the recipes that should be incorporated for your particular pet.

It is the recommendation of this clinic that you feed a homemade diet, preferably raw. Everything else is a poorer quality and will not serve your pet’s health well. WE ARE ADAMANT WHEN WE SAY YOU SHOULD NEVER FEED DIETS 1-5.  Diets 7-8 are also usually composed of by-products, which are waste materials. By-products are and can be diseased organs, heads, tails, all from animals unfit for human consumption, and yes, euthanised, or road kill, rendered dogs and cats. Once again, these diets are loaded with grains.

            We do not recommend the use of bacon grease.  Besides the high levels of nitrites, the high heat used in cooking bacon creates many other unhealthful compounds.  Therefore, we would also say that you should not use any fat dripping.  Raw fat in moderation is fine.

The Canine Natural Raw Food Diet - A Good Place to Start

          Raw foods are most powerful healers, proven time and time again, most notable in cases of arthritis and skin disease.  Dogs have been waiting for this food an entire lifetime, and they will eat it with gusto as long as there is still some natural remaining taste bud function.  The genetic encoding of the raw food and the genetic encoding of your pet is a match. This is the key to revitalizing a weakened system, causing DNA and RNA sub-unit transfer from food to consumer, and from one species to another and guides the return to a more healthy state.  Heated and processed food destroys DNA and RNA structural intelligence, creating food that is appropriate only for survival, not health.  With this in mind, it is best to begin your pets on the Natural Raw Food Diet (NRFD) gradually, as commercial food severely weakens the entire body, especially the vital digestive fires.

            Occasionally some dogs will experience diarrhea and/or some sores after 2-7 days on the new diet.  Stick with it, it won't last long. He is detoxifying and his body is getting used to complete nutrition.

            Water fast of one to two days will ease the transition to the NRFD.  Follow this fast with only the meat portion for two more days; then add the veggies (for two more days) .  This will reduce the occasional side effects of diarrhea arising from too much housecleaning too quickly from this all-powerful sustainer and purifier of life.   

            An alternative to the one-day fast is to increase the raw foods in the diet by 25% every 3 days. For example, 25% raw food, 75% kibble on days 1-3, 50% raw food and 50% kibble on day 4-6, and so on until totally on the raw food diet.

               The Natural Raw Food Diet

General Guidelines

Fresh Wholesome and Varied

            This diet is designed to be easy and comfortable for you and best for your pet.  Home grown and organic is best, but not absolutely necessary. Switching to this diet from commercial food is a quantum leap.  Foodstuffs bought at nearby food stores are fine.

This Raw Food Diet for the dog consists of:

65-70%-- raw meat- raw means NOT cooked!

            It is fine to cook it if you must, but know that you are cooking it for yourself and not for your pet.  Cook the food as little as possible until you feel comfortable. Don’t forget cooked bones are the ones that produce the horror stories you are told when talking about feeding bones to pets.  We have organic chicken and turkey necks and backs, ground and frozen for your convenience.  It's fine to feed raw bones, but never cooked.  The cooking process precipitates the calcium and makes the bones very hard and easily splintered.  We have done feeding experiments using raw bones.  Within 15 minutes of feeding raw bones, they cannot be seen on an x-ray. I conducted these experiments in the early 1980’s.

Turkey, Chicken, Beef, Buffalo, Venison, and Ostrich.

                         (Lamb and Pork should be cooked)

Generally speaking, the larger breeds of dogs require the denser meat, which come from the larger animals (meat source origin).  Begin with it chopped. It's OK to serve the same kind of meat for 3 to 4 days, and then switch if possible; steady feeding of the same foodstuff can lead to unnecessary hypersensitivities.

25% raw grated or chopped veggies-fresh, above ground (carrots, turnips and parsnips are fine), dark green, leafy, cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage, zucchini… whatever is fresh and happy at the grocery store is fine! (See comment on organic above)

5%-cooked rice (white or brown) Add your favorite greens or herbs (watercress, dandelion and cilantro are excellent). Rice is a grain don’t forget. Not really necessary but a little is OK for those of you who just must use rice, a grain.

Fats/Oils: Dogs and especially cats need animal oils for their health, especially skin health.  One study suggested that vegetable oils might be deleterious to kidney health in cats. Fish oil is a good feline oil supplement.  We recommend emu oil as our preferred oil supplement for cats and dogs. It is dosed at a rate of 1-2 ml per 10 lb per day.

Milk and Milk Products: Pasteurized cow's milk can cause diarrhea, flatulence and uneasiness in the less vital animal.  Any processed (i.e. cottage cheese) or cultured dairy product is usually fine, cheese (best are white cheeses), yogurt, kefir, panir, etc… Raw goat's milk, sheep's milk and in many cases raw cow's milk will be well tolerated if introduced slowly into the diet, after the animal has been acclimated on the NRFD for awhile, but in general stay away from dairy.

Eggs:  Excellent overall food source.  One to several eggs (depending on the size of the dog) can be fed twice weekly.  Raw is fine with shells broken into small pieces.  Lightly scrambled with butter and shells is also fine or French toasting a la shells.

Water: Best is spring fed (check to see if it's contaminated), purified carbon filtered, or distilled.  Give distilled water only after placing it in a glass container in direct sunlight for at least one day; all of the vitality of distilled water is lost, but can be returned through direct sunlight.  It is good to add more minerals to the diet if only distilled water is given.  In Southern California, tap water from the Colorado River is probably contaminated with radioactive waste (40% of San Diego’s drinking water comes from the Colorado River.  Way upstream, on the banks of the Colorado River, in Moab, Utah, the US government has been dumping huge piles of plutonium waste since the 1950’s. This has been leaching into the water of the Colorado River since then.

Nutrition and Minerals.  We recommend trace minerals for all our patients.  These are minerals such as molybdenum, chromium, selenium, etc that are no longer found in our exhausted soils, and therefore not in plants, and not in the animals who eat those plants (cattle, sheep, etc).  Therefore people and animals that eat cattle, sheep, etc. are also lacking trace minerals.  These chemicals are necessary in 5 out of 6 of the 5000-6000 simultaneous chemical reactions going on the body.

            We do recommend multi-vitamins, specifically an organic vitamin supplement. (Ask us which one)  Almost all vitamin supplements are synthetic, made of petroleum.  Commercial Vitamin C for instance, and is only 1/5 of the Vitamin C molecule found in nature.

Calcium, either via cold processed bone meal (not any old bone meal off the shelf of the health food store) or calcium tablets or powder in the form of calcium gluconate, or lactate along with magnesium if possible.  Give one to two times the recommended dose to compensate for the lack of efficient absorption form the gut in many animals.  Bones, beef or chicken bones, are an excellent source of minerals; raw marrow (long) bones only are to be given marrow and all.  Ask the meat department to cut the bone into smaller "rings", freeze and give as tasty treats.  Watch to see how much of the bone is actually chewed away.

Vitamin C and vitamin E at human child to adult dosage depending on the size of your pet. Kelp, nutritional yeast, antioxidants, lecithin, wheat grass juice, sprouted beans or seed have all been used successfully for their nutritional support and can be added freely or according to label.  Start off in small amounts until the animal gets accustomed to the new tastes.

We do urine tests on all of our patients to see what levels of free radicals (aging and cancer causing chemicals) they are carrying, what their calcium and zinc levels are, and what stage of adrenal stress or exhaustion they are in.  All dogs and cats, like their owners are in some stage of adrenal exhaustion due to bad diet and environmental and psychological stress (either picked up from or caused by their owners). We always test for free radicals, thought to be the cause of aging and cancer. They are always high in pets, especially in golden retrievers. All pets tested are always low in calcium and zinc using our testing methods.

Hormone Replacement Therapy

            We are all aware of osteoporosis or bone demineralization in humans, from loss of sex hormones and poor mineral intake over a certain age.  For every 4 human females with osteoporosis, there is one male or 20% of the population at that age group.  In my practice I have never seen one dog that has been brought in for acupuncture treatment for degenerative spinal/bone disease that has not been spayed or neutered. 90% of these also have hypothyroidism (and none of them are on raw food diets). The healthiest dog I ever saw was a Six-year-old pit bull that refused to eat anything but raw bones with a little meat on them.

            For the above reasons we strongly advise that all spayed or neutered pets be given hormone replacement therapy via glandular products and also Chinese herbs if over a certain age. 

Dry Dog Food- that’s easy—don’t feed it!!!!!

How much do you feed? Generally speaking, after some time the animal will eat approximately half (or less) the amount of natural diet as it was consuming of supermarket commercial dog food.  Do not be concerned.  The most important thing to consider is how the dog looks.  The ribs should be able to be felt and the stomach area should be tucked up compared to the chest.  The tips of the vertebrae (bones of the spine) should be easily felt and should be higher than the muscles/fat to either side of the backbone.  A "doughy" appearance is replaced by a more compact, solid conformation.  If there is more "dog" than described here, reduce food intake.  If more weight is needed, increase the food ration.  There is less voracious feeding behavior on the NRFD.  The animal's eyes become bright and clear with overall greater energy and vibrancy.  The animal is more calm and responsive.  There is almost always less drinking with less urination and stool.  This is natural and to be expected.  These characteristics become more prominent as higher quality nutrition makes it’s way to the cells of the pet.  This can take weeks to months.  Most cases of arthritis improve significantly even with out any other treatment.

Chicken meat can be detoxified by soaking for 20 minutes in one half teaspoon of bleach per gallon of water followed by rinsing.  For those of you interested in more detail, we have booklets on dog and cat nutrition complete with many recipes and specific nutritional information.

            One to two cups by volume total intake per day per 35lbs of adult dog or two cups per 15lbs of puppy (5 to 24 months old depending on the breed; larger breeds mature slowly) extremely active dogs will require more food.  The quantity fed is approximately 1/2 to 1/3 of your current commercial ration.  This diet is low bulk and very concentrated, just what your pet's digestive system is designed to receive. Puppies up to eight months of age in general should be fed three times per day, as much as they want each time. After that, feed twice daily. Don’t forget, a puppy gains sixty times his birth weight by one year of age. That means that if you were 8 lbs at birth, by one year of age you would weigh 480 lbs. You’d have to eat a lot to keep up with those needs, eh? Please remember, THIS IS NOT AN ENGINEERING PROJECT Adjust these amounts to the age, weight, and activity needs of your pet. If he puts on too much weight, cut back on food volume.  If he loses weight increase the volume of food.

How often do I feed?    We prefer to feed adult dogs twice daily   Fasting once a week with fresh water available at all times will enhance your pet's wellness. The animals truly appreciate the rest day and will periodically take it even though food is made available.

Puppies, Lactating and Pregnant Dogs

These life stages requires more frequent feeding and slightly higher protein, mineral and dairy content in the diet. High quality growth formulas can be used as supplements, best to stay under 30% of total ration.  As we said before, 2 cups per 15 lbs. of body weight is the thumb rule only. Growing puppies up to eight months of age should eat three times daily as much as they want each time. After eight months, feed twice daily.