Comments on Best Dog Food? Best Cat Food? Who's That Inside That Cute Body?

I'm looking for healthy food for my dog and my cat's,HELP me help them

great article Dr Will! thank you for the reference links too for recipes, game sources, and products. now if only i had my mom's meat grinder! hoping to find a wild game butcher who carries rabbit and can process as recommended on that ladies website.

I have to chuckle at at the food grinder. I just can't imagine a fox, coyote, or wolf grinding its food before it starts tearing into its prey.

Hi Dr Falconer. I am in the middle of a deep dive on on cat food, so your post is in purrfect timing for me. i have alot to ask. I hope it is not too much:
I have heard one concern with raw for cats is possible issues with calcium imbalances- particularly some recipes with ground bone or bone pieces. Are you familiar with this concern? Do you find it to be the case? If so, do you have a recommendation to rebalance the minerals?
Are the raw kale, collards and beets in some frozen raw foods OK for cats? Raw cruciferous is very difficult for humans to digest. I cant imagine cats benefiting from it. Any thoughts? Is it OK for them over long periods? Are the oxylates a possible issue?
Also any thought about the fact that raw foods are cold? is it OK to feed all cats cold food as their diet? I do feed my cats raw - primal, small batch, green gugu, quest also ground meat with a completer- we rotate brands to keep variety. etc- but have these questions.
My questions have mostly been prompted by my one kitty having low energy, tartar, some skin issues - fur loss on her heels, and mosquitoes feast on her ears until they are bloody and raw if we let her outside (our local vet couldnt help with getting to the bottom of this other than one said it was normal and another recommended steroids, which we declined). I have been putting the pieces together- tartar is a calcium issue- then just recently heard that some raw cat food can have too much calcium.
Also it doesnt seem quite natural for them to eat very cold food ie raw. TCM pays alot of attention to hot and cold food.
Our other kitties are fine, minus occassional flea bites. Wondering if raw is good for everyone.
I am considering adding to their food choices a high quality low-heat (baked) kibble as a side dish. Is low-heat kibble OK? pros/cons?
Thank for any insights, and if there is a better place to post this please let me know.

Bobi and the 2 Aussie Shepherds are the ones who are on 'record' as having lived past 25, I think Bobi ws 31 and the others 29 and 30. There are more that are not 'on record' am sure.

We were surprised to see that Raw Wild has synthetic vitamins. These do not exist in the wild. Copper storage disease is an example of the risk of synthetic vitamins. The wolf / lion did not evolve with synthetic vitamins and so we would not give them. The brand looks good otherwise.
We also will give the digestion a break, have a light day of little to no consumption, for both humans and canines. Having access to sustenance 24/7 is also not how it always is in the wild. I try to look at Bobi and the 2 Aussie shepherds who all lived past 25, some to 29/30 or 31. Healthy sustenance, active - having a 'job' - doing what they are meant to do - run / herd, love, being part of the pack, nature, fresh air. .

Couldn't agree more with what you wrote! I always have said to animal owners (of whatever species) to feed them as their wild cousins would eat, whether it's their cow, horse, dog, cat, chicken or pig. The biggest return after true vitality is their dental health. The whole veterinary dental sector is based upon pets being fed dry kibble (generally) and all the non-health that brings. A possible secondary benefit is better resistance to heart worm. Our small herd of Great Pyrenees (14 at one time) and 6 house dogs are always tested by the local vet for heart worm if a procedure needs to be done. We feed 2nd quality fresh, wet beef, chicken, or lamb once daily to all our canids and felids (1st quality we eat). We feed organs twice a week. Raw chicken backs help getting bone into them as do raw beef bones. If I do a post-mortem on an animal, I chop up the heart for out 9 house cats as a special treat. Not once yet have we had a positive heart worm test and we are in a known heart worm area (NC). As a cow vet and dairy farmer, we feed only grass-fed forages. Granted some of the forages have seed heads (grain) but their wild cousins (deer) would eat that as well.
Thank you for writing about raw meat so well.

Wolves are are lot larger than many dogs. My homeopathic vet recommends flat bones for my Sheltie. At 22 lbs, he's quite a bit smaller than a wolf but probably in the same weight range as a fox. Foxes, of course, eat smaller prey. For me, it makes sense to feed bones commensurate with the size of the dog, comparing them to wild canids.

You mentioned challenging but not gulpable bones....I always heard not to give the weight-bearing bones bc they are too dense and can break teeth. What do you suggest, then, for "recreational" bones not meant to be eaten but rather good teeth cleaners? Obviously, all bones should be given w meat still on them as well.

I've been feeding raw and whole prey to kitties for over 20 years, and thought I'd share my favorite resources: Rodent Pro for whole prey:
https://www.rodentpro.com/?msclkid=cc5688041aa316a7692bedb27c271dfd

Even the tiniest baby mice are a thrill for indoor cats. Pro tip is start small, rolling the piece of prey in bonito or fish flakes to get them started. I try to catch the sales at Rodent pro for affordability.

For ground food on the US east coast, Hare-today provides great quality offering a variety of proteins, ground and chunked; and enough information via recipes for making your own complete with ratio calculators: https://hare-today.com/

Hare-Today is a multi-generation family business, conscious about treating their animals raised for food for other animals humanely during their lives, and in how they kill them painlessly.

I've been having great success with the meatless feeding guidelines from Pitcairn's 4th edition. Dog are about as much wolves as humans are apes. We've both evolved since then, and co-evolved for the past couple hundred thousand years. As such, it would be most accurate to say the most appropriate diet for a dog would be our leftovers and refuse. I also think there is no escaping the contamination of the planet and therefore the foodchain. Therefore the benefits of eating low on the foodchain outweigh the risks of bioacculated toxins associated with eating high on it. I think a bit more nuance in your discussion of this topic is needed.

I have had 3 dogs in the time I have been married. I fed the first one on a kibble diet until the last year of his life when he suffered from liver failure (probably from vaccines and the kibble) at which point I started to research more and finally switched him to raw - he enjoyed it most of the time, although, like any human, preferred the kibble if given a choice.
The second one switched to raw the moment we got him (a rescue, between 8-10 months old) although by then the damage from vaccines had been done (mostly rabies vaccinosis). But he loved it, and gave us another 12 years before dying of splenic cancer (again, I think ultimately caused from the vaccines early on - he was adopted, given up to a shelter, then a few months later we got him - again, OD on vaccines I believe). With this dog I also discovered homeopathy, which I know kept him doing better for many years.
Both of these were German Shorthairs. Now we have an Irish Wolfhound, and (again, dealing with a husband who believes vaccines are good) I submitted until he was 4 months old, at which time (vacation schedule upset, got a good diarrhea) we switched him to raw and he is now a happy camper, although sometimes he doesn't like getting the actual bones and prefers the ground mixes I get from My Pet Carnivore - although those ground blends are a lovely "prey" mix of bone (you can see the pieces) organs and meat. And treats are 99% dehydrated meat.
They do make my life easy, although my question is - if I am feeding him 3.5 pounds of food a day, can I really do that in one sitting or do I need to split it up like the suggestion is for kibble? The concern is always "too much food in one sitting" if he gets all of it.

Hi Dr Will,

I have two dogs who aren't picky about what I feed them.

I would like to try home prepared meals. But there prices are all over the charts
Is there a simple basic recipe you can share for someone on a budget?

Thanks

I've been feeding my dog Dr. Marty natures blend freeze-dried raw dog food. Do you have an opinion on this dog food? My dog has so many health issues. Could they be food related?

Dr Falconer: What about 'fasting' or rather, a day or times when we let their digestive systems rest or a day where they 'have not found' prey.
This happens in the wild; more so more than one day. I know for me, this is a positive thing to do... we are voraciously overfed; though some suffer massive malnutrition on nutrient redacted things falsely called 'food'

We make à fond blanc, (every 2 weeks), which takes 24 hrs., and then we make dog cookies with all the bones, as they are very soft by then. They grind up nicely. Can these same bones be used in making the raw food as well or do you think the nutritional value has been diminished from the 24 hrs of simmering?

Thank you,
Alison

From the Amazon information on the Grinder shown above: "This MEAT Grinder "WILL NOT" GRIND BONES! Although you may see customer comments/reviews indicating otherwise, results are not consistent, and you will most likely be dissatisfied with your purchase of this product."