Tuesday 27 September 2011

The Beginning, Fred's story

The Beginning

At the age of seven, Fred, my big red boxer, developed a cancerous skin tumour (Mast Cell) which was surgically removed. The following year a needle aspiration on another lump confirmed that he had another Mast Cell Tumour which had infiltrated a large fatty lump on the inside of his hind leg. The surgery required to remove this one proved much more difficult. We were very lucky to have two excellent veterinary surgeons who worked together and successfully removed the tumour but they were unfortunately not able to leave a safe margin on one side. He faced a long recovery .The wound could not be stitched closed due to the vast area of skin that had been lost. It would have to granulate over.

Prior to the second tumour I had become increasingly aware of the bad effects some refined carbohydrates and sugars could have in a dogs' diet, possibly causing cancers and supporting their growth. A couple of leading dog food manufacturers had produced cancer patient support diets which were low carbohydrate and high protein. For the period of his recovery I put Fred on one of them.

Nearly three months later and Fred had completed his difficult convalescence but he had become an old man. My tigger had lost his bounce. He needed help getting into the car. He didn't run - he plodded. He didn't want to play, thank you.

I was unable to find a viable alternative so kept Fred on the same diet. I had become terrified of the possible consequences of carbohydrates.

My other dogs showed no signs of Fred's problem so they were still having a good quality kibble. I did not know what else to do.

I worked as a receptionist and assistant at a veterinary practice during this time. (for a total of nine years)

The following year we had another locum vet join us but he proved to be a bit out of the ordinary.

He was into complementary "stuff"!

One of the things that he recommended to a number of his patients, almost ( it seemed) regardless of their problem was a raw food diet.

In my ignorance I found this faintly amusing, ( I had never heard of this before) but as time went on and his patients made good recoveries, I became more interested and eventually asked him to explain his 'raw diet' to me.

Basically



1/3rd meat



1/3rd vegetable



1/3rd oat


But most important of all as far as I was concerned - carbohydrates were not essential, I could leave the oats out if I wanted too.

One month later, I introduced raw food to my dogs and Nurturing by Nature was born!

Monday 26 September 2011

Why?

Raw feeding is not a new fad diet! It is an attempt to return to the type of food a dog would naturally eat. Obviously a dog can not be allowed to kill its own prey as his wild cousins do, so we have to give him the constituents to make up the varied meals that hunting and scavenging would provide.
During Great Grandma’s time “dog food” came into being, It was a processed mixture made up largely from the waste products of the bakery trade. Thankfully commercial foods have improved greatly since then but they are still very different from the raw food that dogs evolved to eat. Evolutionary change occurred over thousands of years. Great Grandma lived only a hundred years ago. Yet, commercial dog food has become the norm and is what most dogs are fed on today.