A Natural Diet, courtesy Gretchen Miller

A Natural Diet
Courtesy Gretchen Miller

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We feed cereal in AM with safflower oil, vit C, honey and milk.

Every other day we add eggs, shell and all.

At night they get meat with natural aditives.

Amounts go by weight of dog and activity.
You start with the suggested amount and increase or decrease as necessary.

The feeding routine is pretty easy. In the AM, I put the oatmeal, rice or corn meal in the microwave with water and cook, same as I do for myself. In fact I often put in extra for myself. I cool it and add the honey or mollasses, vit. C, Safflower oil, milk and every other day raw eggs (shell included, just smash it up). At night they get the meat mix. For snacks raw veg. and fruit, everyone likes carrots. There is a lot of information on natural diets available. If you want to try a natural diet I would suggest that you check with your vet.

All recipes predicated on a 100 lb dog
A 50 lb dog would get 1/2 amount
A 75 lb dog 3/4

7 oz. of dry oatmeal (or rice, corn meal) add water & cook & cool
4 teaspoons of mollasses or honey
2 Tablespoons of Safflower oil
400 mg. vit. C (I double this to 800)
2 raw eggs every other day shell included
milk to make a good mush

I mix up the ingredients (below) and add to 10 pound batches of meat which I freeze. I only use inspected beef which I get from a local slaughter house (they supply a lot of sled dog people). This is meat scraps which I grind. They only charge .25 cents a pound ground or unground. They will grind it for me, but I like to do it myself (gives me more control of the fat content). I have a large commercial grinder. When this is mixed up it can pass for meatloaf mix.

For every 10 pounds of meat, I add:

3000 units vit E
(liquid from health food store or break capsules)
6000 mg. vit C (any vit. C (ascorbic acid), I use crystals)
1/2 cup cod liver oil (in winter and if dogs don't go out in sun)
1 1/4 cups cider vinegar (supermarket)
1/4 cup kelp (health food store unless you live where it grows)
1 cup brewers yeast (health food store, some feed mills)
3/4 cup +2 tablespoons bone meal (steamed not garden type)
1 cup wheat germ (fresh from health food store)
3 cups wheat bran (bulk food at supermarket)
1 or 2 garlic grated buds (not sure what you call the pieces you peel off)
5 cups herbs or greens fresh (dandelion greens, alfalfa, Kale, broccoli, ect)
or
1 cup dry herbs or greens (a bail of alfalfa goes a long way)
in the winter I add 3/4 cup of cod liver oil

This is adjusted as you see how the dog does on it.

I mix all this up and freeze in 5 or 10 pound containers. I usually mix up from 100 to 300 lbs. at a time. The theory is that raw meat increases he stomach acid and the dog is able to better digest his food. We have chickens, so we get some of our own eggs, the rest I get from a local farmer. Could get them from the health food store. If I get them from the store I wash the shells. Had some dogs refuse raw meat, so I had to cook it and gradually switch them to raw meat. When I did this years ago I had blood scans run on several dogs to be sure that I wasn't unbalanceing anything. My dogs were in great shape. Had Dachshunds and Setters & no health problems. They were very long lived.

It seems that when you feed a more natural diet you don't get much tarter build up on the teeth. Have heard a number of explanations for this, saliva more acid, no milled flour, little sugar, rearly don't know for sure. I do get some bones for the dogs, only very large beef bones. Some visitors rearly take a second look when they see a bouvier with a whole cow femor bone, good burglar deterrent.

When I start a new dog on this, or any different diet I do it slowly, adding small amounts to their regular diet.

I also add vegetables to their evening meal and some of my guys also like fruit.