The Native Iowan

Ive been ruminating on the above topic recently. In the past couple weeks I have been involved in discussion(s) that explore what is best when feeding your dawg, buying dawg food, and simply keeping your dawg healthy and happy and well fed.

I am a registered QLD dog breeder. I have lived with, slept with, raised, fed, been angry at, and enjoyed Dawgs all my life. There are very few windows of time in my life where I was not sharing my existence with a noble canine. And in some instances, No Ball canines too.

I currently have 5dawgs… 3bitches and 2studs. I am consciously caring for my dogs with a very long term vision. I have an intent-filled future for my dogs and my breeding programme. I am breeding amazing canines.

I have invested a shit-load of $$ in my dawgs. I spend quite a bit maintaining them. We have daily feed costs, annual vet costs, general maintenance costs.

Of course the biggest cost involved with my dawgs is feeding them.

One of the discussions I recently was involved in was the consistent use of dry dog food. Pros and Cons… Basically the fact that it’s not uncommon for folks, dog owners to exclusively feed their dogs dry food.

Been there, done that.

I was talking about the time I spend cooking for my dawgs, I choose to cook a couple times a week for my dawgs, and one friend politely suggested I buy dry.

I admit here that I use dry dog food. Quite a bit, but not exclusively. I have used a variety of dry dog food. I believe that the more you spend the more you get. There is very good dry dog food, as there is very bad dry dog food. Kinda like potato chips… some are healthier, better for you, more expensive than others.

Another aspect of the discussion herein is the use of “fresh” (meaning frozen or freezable) dog foods such as mince. Mince of any kind. I prefer kangaroo mince because it is extremely high protein content. And kinda costly, up to $8perKG. Mixed mince is around $5perKG.

An important part of this discussion is the feeding of bones to your dawgs. Some folks adamantly say no, while others, like me, think feeding bones is essential, important, required in a healthy dawg’s diet.

Stupid Facts: In order for a canine to clear their scent glads, which are around the anus, they need to have a good, strong, push-it-out dump. Often domestic type suburban dogs stink a lot because of their diet. They eat soft, processed foods and never get to take a good healthy dump. Just like us humans… a good dump is essential to good life.

But, Im not here to talk about what people should or should not do. It’s your dog. I shall tell you about what I do and why I do it.

Food is food is food… or is it? Dogs, like people, will eat just about anything. Not just what is healthy, nutritious, good for you. And like people, dogs have allergies to certain food, get diabetes, over-eat and get indigestion, get the runs, get constipated, etc, etc.

It’s sad when a dog owner, or a parent, neglects the diet of their dog or child. Child obesity is a huge problem on our planet. As is puppy obesity. Early age diabetes with dogs and children is on the rise. And it’s mostly connected to diet. Perhaps its completely connected to diet?

Yet, considering that a few dollars buys a pretty big KFC or Macdoogles hapi meal, and kids are hungry, and food is expensive, well one can see why we are where we are.

Convenience, too is a huge factor. A busy life. Drive-thru works well. As does dry dog food, a couple scoops daily in a bowl. Kids and dogs?

I personally am not a fan of fast-food. For people or dawgs. I like to cook my meals. I very rarely eat out. I know I can have better food, cheaper at home, if I cook. So I cook. Great tasty meals filled with red beans and beast and veggies. Thick rich gravies with fantastic cuts of good beast. But to do it right it takes time. And I do got time.

I know I need to eat well, as I know it’s easy not to eat well. Easy to be lazy. I make the choice to feed myself very well.

Same with my dogs. I am looking for the best food for the best price… for my fantastic dawgs…

I know that I can buy a variety of meat and bone products for roughly $5perKG. Most stores sell offcuts and bones. I have good local butchers so am never short of great bone/meat/marrow content for my pots of dawg food. Chicken necks are very good. It is good for the dawgs. Good for their digestive. I like fatty pieces of bone. I can feed them raw or I can cook them up. The fat gives the dawgs a shiny coat.

We forget too that dogs are designed to chew. Rubber chew toys do not last long in my kennels, so I like big fatty chunks of bone that make the dogs chew and chew. I often get split-shin-bones full of marrow, or flaps from the rib racks. My dawg-yard looks like a catacomb. Bones strewn all about

Some bones may not be best to just feed your dogs. I think of any chop bone or something like a T-bone. I have watched my dogs eat rib bone like I’d eat a potato chip, they just munch it down. I have also pulled stuck bones from my dogs’ mouths. So it is a fine line of sorts to walk. Some folks think all bones should be cooked. Or not. Some folks say dogs should not be fed bones at all. I suggest that smaller dogs be watched when they have a bone. But my bigger breeds have never had a serious problem.

I can only go with my experience, and that is I feed my dogs almost everything, within reason…

Right now, in my house… I have a big bag of dry dog food and a bag of puppy food. I keep dry food around for convenience. Have a couple bags of bones and a fair bit of frozen off-cuts and minced roo. I can be in. hurry and accept the convenient route, or thaw and prepare and cook…

I just cooked for my dogs. Very little left over food goes to waste here. Table scraps, stale bread, etc, etc all get thrown into the dog pot. Had enough this morn to justify a cook-up… I cook 8kgs/ almost 20lbs of food a couple times a week.

Ingredients today: a bag of beef bones, a bucket of left over table scraps, rice, bread, pizza, and more. A couple kgs of carrots with 2 packets of pasta. All up I spent $5 for the bones, $5 for the pasta, $2 for the carrots, the left overs were “free”. I’ll be generous and say I spent $20.00 all up to cook 8kgs of good, good food.

On average I feed each dog 800grams a day, maybe a pound and a half per dog per day at a cost of about $2-3 per day per dog. If I cook. And this is the best food I can give my dawgs.

Dry dog food is different… I just bought a bag of Black Hawk (a decent grade of dry food) for $160.00 for a 20kg bag, so $8 a kilo. I feed 800grams per dog per day (when I use it) so a 20kg bag has 25 feeds. 160/25=$6 a kG.

Now one might think Im a jerk for being so pedantic about feeding my furry friends but…. but! Like my kids, I want my dawgs to develop and grow and be healthy of body and mind. And when you consider that $6p/dayX365=2190, and that I am feeding 5dawgs… it do get expensive.

So, it is clear I can feed my dawgs better food for less, if I cook it.

Just like cooking at home.

My pot of beastnbeans is simmering.

Will be excellent.

Smiles

more later