What, No Pictures?

While flipping through the thousands (millions?) of pictures on my computer, I realized that there were almost none that were related to raw diets.  A major oversight and one that needs to be rectified!

There are homemade raw diets, homemade cooked diets, and there all the ones in between.  Ours fits near the "raw end".  Most of what we feed is raw, and all meaty bones are fed raw, but some of the food is actually cooked, at least to some degree.  Our veggies mix is a mixture of raw veggies and a few fruits that have been run through a food processor, juicer or grinder, but when using individual vegetables we often steam or microwave them to save time, add variety, and to make them digestible by canines.  As much as Spotty may enjoy those raw baby carrots, they pass through him in little hard chunks rather than being digested.  Grinding or cooking those veggies make them more digestible.   Argie's "birthday dinner" steak was cooked enough to leave grill marks, but he would have been just as happy to eat it raw.  The sweet potato and cabbage were nuked.  He would have eaten the cabbage raw, but gotten very little out of it, and the sweet potato would have been ignored, or just chewed up on the rug.  If I were to give the dogs grain in any form I'd cook it thoroughly, although there are some who soak oatmeal in yogurt and feed it that way.

We feed canned salmon, mackerel and sardines from time to time and they are of course cooked, and the canned duck meat I purchase at the pet food store is heat processed.  There are a number of canned meats that add variety to the dogs's diets.  If I were a purist, I would feed none of the canned or cooked items, but I'm not.  Using them occasionally adds nutrients and interest - the dogs may not care, but I do.  Our motto is A Variety Of Fresh Healthy Foods.  We also want this diet to be easy, and using canned foods occasionally is handy.

One of the nice things about feeding this way is that we can give leftovers to the dogs.  Not everything of course, but most leftover veggies, some meat scraps, and even occasional pasta with sauce.  Because the dogs are used to a variety of foods, they are able to digest odd things.    As long as the leftovers are made of healthy foods, are not loaded with cooked fats or highly seasoned, they make good additions to the dog's bowl.  Mine really enjoyed the Eggplant Parmesan this week!  I'd make a big pan of it and after 3 meals, we decided the dogs could have the rest.  Eggplant, eggs, tomato sauce, Ricotta & Parmesan cheeses, basil & mushrooms, nothing there a dog can't eat.  I don't give them cheese as part of their regular diet, don't actually use dairy at all for adult dogs, but as an occasional treat it is relished!  They each got a small chunk with both their daily meals.