FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions

I have been really gratified that so many people have heard my recommendation not to allow any vet to vaccinate your pet routinely – but it’s important hear the whole argument and understand that avoiding routine yearly vaccination does not mean doing nothing at all. I have spent weeks putting together all the ideas that make up my suggestions about how to handle immunization. You need to work with your own vet on these ideas, and I hope you have one who can meet you halfway and implement some of these less-than-usual ways to keep your pet safe from disease.

In addition to everything you’ll find here, my book THE DOG BIBLE has in-depth explanation of immunization and schedules for puppies.

NOTE TO CAT PEOPLE: Much of what follows relates to dogs and cats, but because there are so many more illnesses that target only cats- yet because over-immunization can cause even greater health worries to cats than dogs – I must insist that you buy Dr Elizabeth Hodgkins book YOUR CAT. She is the Official Vet of CAT CHAT®. She takes an entire chapter and then some to explain all the ins and outs of how to work alongside your own vet to make the best choices for your individual kitty cat.

A Little History of Immunization

Until fairly recently, veterinarians were taught – and in turn told their patients - that all dogs and cats needed to be given vaccinations every single year. This was mixed into the idea that pets needed to see their vet for a check-up yearly (which is certainly true, at a minimum) and perhaps having that yearly “shot” to bring them in seemed a way to make sure people would really make the effort. However, over time it became clear that immunity to most of the illnesses for which we vaccinate (rabies, parvo and distemper in dogs) lasts a lot longer than one year and may in fact stress the immune systems of small animals by bombarding them every year with illnesses they are already protected against As in human medicine, guidelines in the veterinary community are constantly changing. The recommendation to go to vaccinations for the CORE illnesses (parvo, distemper, adenovirus and rabies) every three years was adopted several years ago by the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA), which governs the activities of vets in America. However, many vets and owners feel even that is too frequently.

Parvo and Distemper are Getting More Rare

Vaccinating puppies and kittens has become so successful that it has nearly wiped out these diseases in many parts of the country. However, don’t throw out those hypodermics just yet: give credit to vaccinations for stomping out these killer diseases, which most people today have never seen in dogs and cats. They are ugly diseases which cost a fortune to combat once a pet is infected and many don’t survive. And there is a chilling statistic – 50% of all dogs and cats in the U.S. never see a vet or get a vaccination in their lifetimes. This might be in economically depressed areas where people don’t know any better, but it can also be amongst well-educated people who decide to take matters into their own hands and denounce vaccinations of any kind, period. This has happened with human children, many of whose parents have come to believe (despite many solid scientific studies to the contrary) that vaccines cause autism, and therefore are shunning vaccinations for their children – and some of this short-sighted paranoia may be influencing their decisions about their pets. Whichever the case, you need to assume that if your dog or cat leaves your house they may be exposed to animals with no immunity who may be disease-carriers.

All Puppies and Kittens Need Their Shots & Boosters – No Exceptions

Young animals are especially vulnerable to the illnesses which are still in our environment. Vaccinations against those illnesses are life-saving and essential to keeping our world safe for our four-legged family members. There is no exception to this rule – if you’ve heard some mumbo-jumbo about how puppies and kittens can be protected by “shed cells” from their litter mates, forget you ever heard it. The concept that “shed cells” from the deadly disease parvo somehow protect unvaccinated puppies is baseline ignorance: it means a puppy would have to come into contact (perhaps even ingest) the feces of another dogs actively sloughing off parvo cells in his excrement. Clearly it si disgusting and infective to depend on the feces of a litter mate with the disease or who has been vaccinated is – to protect your little one. Those viral parvo cells can remain active in the environment for months – which is why taking a young puppy anywhere other dogs have been is such a risky idea before their own immunizations are complete (see THE DOG BIBLE for more on this). Regardless, vaccinated dogs do NOT predictable confer immunity to non-vaccinated dogs.

Meanwhile there’s another issue not always discussed which is that until around 12-14 weeks, a puppy or kitten may still have circulating in his system the immunity he got from suckling his well-immunized mother. Oddly enough, this can mean that if a puppy or kitten’s maternal antibodies are still strong in his body, then it will nullify a vaccination given before or during this period. However, since there is no way to know for sure when these antibody levels will drop off in the youngster (short of doing a blood titer test, which hardly seems fair to the little one) that is why boosters are so important in puppy hood and kitten hood. PLEASE do not confuse the absolutely essential puppy and kitten shots and boosters with the issue of over-vaccination and taking a different route with an adult dog or cat.

Don’t Play Russian Roulette

Your animals need a baseline of immunization and then a yearly check up to see whether their immunity against those diseases is still strong. Make no assumptions – as some breeders have stupidly done, going to dog shows without immunizing their dogs and bringing parvo back to their kennel to put all their animals in jeopardy. If you aren’t going to vaccinate routinely then you have to go the extra distance to be sure your animal has sufficient protection already.

What About Vets Still Saying You Need Yearly Vaccinations?

Given that the AVMA, their own governing body, changed their official immunization recommendations years ago, if a vet is still telling patients to come in and get shots every year then it seems fair to say you need a new vet ASAP. It doesn’t really matter whether the vet’s poor advice is based on greed in wanting extra fees, or just plain lazy, sloppy disregard for learning about changes in generally accepted practice. Would you trust that vet’s judgment on anything else? It seems to me it would hard to stay with a vet so out of touch with current knowledge and guidelines.

What About Rabies?

 Rabies is different than other vaccinations in that the disease can be deadly both to the animal (wild or domesticated) and to humans who come into contact with it’s saliva, they don’t even need to get bitten. Although incidents of rabies are greatly reduced in America, it still resides in the community so there can be no tolerance for an animal not being 100% protected against contracting it. Having said that, the Federal government has mandated that rabies is needed every three years, yet there are a few states still requiring it yearly, which is definitely vaccine overkill. If you live in such a state, work through legal channels to wake up your state to modern knowledge of disease and immunity.

What About the Lyme Vaccine?

When it was first introduced it was believed there were problems with this vaccine - which is intended to protect dogs from contracting Lyme disease from ticks and in early days appeared to cause the full-blown disease it as supposed to guard against (I believe THE DOG BIBLE reflects that information). However, over time this vaccine has shown itself to be trouble-free and it has become clear that this vaccination is critically important for any dog living in a “tick hot zone” – which includes at least the whole North Eastern part of the United States. I have now started to get this yearly vaccination for my dogs, two of whom are already positive for Lyme disease on the snap test given in the vet’s office. Getting this vaccination yearly wherever there are ticks is now considered an essential component of protecting your pet in every way possible.

Why Get a Vaccination if Your Particular Pet Doesn’t Need It?

True enough – but how do you know for sure that your pet has still has immunity against the common diseases for which she was vaccinated as a youngster? While you really don’t want your dog or cat to wind up with vaccinations he didn’t need and that might do him some harm – neither do you want him at risk of getting one of those illnesses. What about older dogs and cats? At one point I had been told by a vet that checking the blood titer levels every year until reaching age 5 or 6 was sufficient - but now Dr. Phil Padrid tells me that as pets age, their titer levels actually drop and need to be watched. Dr Phil is the Official vet of DOG TALK® and his medical training is in immunology, amongst other areas of specialty. However, Dr. Elizabeth Hodgkins clearly states in her book that cats over the age of 10 can derive more harm than good from continued immunization – but still she cautions to work with your own vet to come up with a personal protocol.

No Routine Vaccinations – But Yearly Vet Visits

Having the vet listen and feel all over your pet can pick up problems before they develop into serious issues. It also gives you a chance to pay closer attention to your pet’s weight and overall well-being and get answers to questions you would benefit from asking. Getting a heartworm test is so important and undervalued since these worms that get into he lungs can be avoided with heartworm medication or treated if caught early enough. A urine test can give lots of valuable information as can doing a full blood panel, just as people do at their own medical visits.

Check Blood Titer Levels Instead of Vaccinating

If you aren’t going to get vaccinations every three years as is the common recommendation, then you need to be willing to have the doctor draw a blood sample every year. This allows the vet to check the titer in your pet’s blood to see that the level of immunity remains high enough (from the animal’s childhood shots and/or from encountering the disease out in the world) to protect against actually coming down with the illness.

Be Ready to Vaccinate if Immunity Isn’t Great

If you choose to check blood titer levels (as I do on my three dogs), then you need to realize that if any of those immunity levels is low, you need to boost against that particular disease. Note: that does NOT mean getting some “combo-shot:” it means getting an injection to protect only against the disease(s) the animal’s own immune system is not fully protected against.

Ask for Vaccines to be Given Singly

One of the reasons for bad physical reactions to immunizations seems to be the combining of several antigens in one dose. I was told this many years ago by the woman who ran the Weimeraner rescue called Friends for Pets in California – I was getting my first Weimeraner from her and she cautioned that they have sensitive immune systems and can have seriously adverse reactions to getting one big shot filled with everything. Sure enough, one of my Weims did get sick for days after such a shot and I have been remorseful and cautious ever since. NOTE: Two weeks must pass between inoculation to gain the immune-system value of separating the vaccinations.

Another Way to Solve the Problem: Give a Different Vaccine Every Year

Here’s an innovative way to avoid over-vaccination and yet keep a pet safe. Dr Phil is now out of private practice and is a regional manager (southwest U.S.) for the Veterinary Centers of America (VCA) which helps individual clinics and vets manage their practices and set care guidelines (given the constant changes in the veterinary world, it seems like a good idea to have a company that keeps on top of products and protocols as they are introduced or changed). In any case, Dr. Phil told me what I think is a pretty great way to make sure that people bring their pets into the vet every year but do not get bombarded with shots. They rotate the immunization that each pet gets, with rabies being given every 3 years, but only one immunization in the years between. If you would rather do a blood titer test that is always an option (and the one I intend to stick to with my dogs) but you can have a discussion with your own vet based on your dog or cat’s lifestyle and decide to skip other vaccinations entirely or include those that could be needed for a more public life. At the very least, it is great news that thousands of pet owners can request breaking up vaccines and staggering the immunization schedule - which is something all vets would do well to consider as we move away from cookie-cutter shots-across-the-board to giving people a part to play in making this personal decision for their pets.

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DISCLAIMER: Please be aware that the advice I give on the air or in emails – or those you see posted here – are not intended to take the place of a veterinarian's advice or expertise. I say this to protect myself from being misunderstood or from your over-reliance on my advice in situations where your pet may be seriously ill and you would mistakenly delay seeking medical intervention. While I am confident in the research-based facts and common-sense advice I can offer, it is never meant to be used at the exclusion of trained, accredited and board certified professionals. But I also have this disclaimer to protect your cat – because what you learn from me is not intended to take the place of medical care or professional evaluation – on the contrary, my desire is to equip you with information that will allow you to enjoy your pets to the fullest, and also to encourage you to seek professional medical attention whenever there are physical symptoms or an overall change in your pet's attitude.

Think “Outside the Bag”

The first and most fundamental lesson of CAT CHAT® is to get rid of any and all dry food in your house. I call it Kitty Crack because the highly processed carbohydrates in kibbled food are so addictive and harmful to cats. I urge you to spend lots of time on my website www.TracieHotchner.com which is chock full of questions and answers about the evils of kitty crack and the fabulous results people have found when they get their cats off it and onto wet food. Go to the tab on my website for THE CAT BIBLE and then read all the Q&A's about nutrition. You will understand immediately what I am talking about when I tell you that dry kibbled food does not belong in a cat’s belly. My book THE CAT BIBLE also has a ton of information about nutrition, and will help you turn your cat's health around simply and quickly.

Facts About Why Cats Should Not Eat Dry Food

Cats are obligate carnivores who need 75% protein in their diets. Carbohydrates of any kind - particularly the highly processed carbs that make up all dry food (and even more particularly those high in corn) have no place in the natural feline diet, which should be under 10% carbs - a general rule-of-thumb for acceptability. The cat has a short digestive tract – entirely different from that of a dog – which should optimally be “Mouse In… Mouse Out… Rest the empty digestive system.” So the best way for cats to eat is to have two meals a day of a small amount of quality wet food, between which the digestive tract is empty and resting It is entirely improper for an obligate carnivore to be “grazing” all day and night on a food made mostly of highly processed food like a barnyard animal (chicken, pig, cow) that we are fattening for our dinner tables). And the protein portion of that food in a bag can come from many dubious sources, including ingredients which are technically protein but which the cat’s body cannot utilize as protein. The dreaded melamine in the pet food recall is a perfect example of that.

The Illnesses Caused by Dry Food

The carbohydrates that make up Kitty Crack lead to diabetes, urinary tract problems (from crystals and stones to Urinary Tract Infections (UTI’s), obesity, constipation, and digestive problems. For example, the current epidemic of Type II diabetes in American cats can be traced directly to the time period in which we have taken them out of the barns where they ate mice – the perfect food for any cat – and put down a dish of fried brown triangles instead. The introduction of these highly processed carbohydrates causes disturbances in the cat’s blood sugar and insulin levels – it also makes them fat, which puts their livers at risk, too. In addition, eating the wrong diet can lead to negative emotional states like grumpiness or anti-social tendencies in many cats – which becomes obvious to many people when their pussycats get off the kitty crack and become more affectionate and playful. Some cats can tolerate dry food for a longer period of time since there is an individual tolerance for the unnatural ingredients - but the point is, it's the wrong fuel for the cat, which needs to eat primarily meat. Your cat needs good wet food from a can – real meat, not the dried corn in a bag she's been getting (that we ALL were told was the right thing, and have been feeding for so long - so don't feel bad!)

When and How to Feed Wet Food?

Your cat should get two meals a day. Put about half a small can on a small saucer- don’t use a bowl, it is harder for a cat to eat real food from. Leave the dish down for about 15 minutes - that is about how long it takes for a cat to satisfy his appetite. Then when he has had his fill, put any remaining food covered in the fridge (you can offer for the next meal but bring it to room temperature or give it a quick zap in the microwave so it’s odor will attract the kitty). If he cleans his plate during the 15-minute window and seems interested in more of this good stuff, you can “top up” the dish with a few spoons more. Do not be worried about quantity or calories – cats get fat on Kitty Crack because their bodies do not know how to efficiently process carbohydrates (they don’t even have the enzyme in their saliva to start breaking down the food before it gets to their digestive tract). A cat will not get fat eating quality protein because her body will efficiently metabolize this correct nutrition which is natural for a feline.

Carbohydrate Addiction on a Cellular Level

Some cats coming off of Kitty Crack have a greater carbohydrate addiction than other cats. They seem to experience intense hunger pangs and will urgently “Meow” their discontent and appear to be constantly hungry. When making the transition from dry food, some cats experience actual "carbohydrate withdrawal" from being on the Kitty Crack – this happens in some people, too, when they go on diets which eliminate the heavy carbohydrate load in their diets. Especially when you are first weaning him off dry food, you want to give your cat as much as he’ll eat in 15 minutes. It can take time to find the quantity that will satisfy him. If that happens to your cat you can offer him a third meal until his body adjusts to the right food. It is a much tougher for some cats than others to switch to wet food but please stick with the wet by being more generous during the first few weeks, and then tapering off to two meals a day. The amount he’ll require will diminish over time – but if you’re worried about the cost of giving more food, balance it against a lifetime of wellness for your cat and the savings for his health and the vet visits for problems you will not be creating with Kitty Crack..

Your Cat Will Drink Less Water

Cats do not naturally drink water – they were originally desert animals without reliable access to water. In the wild, they get their moisture from the body fluids of the birds and rodents they eat and that is how their bodies are designed. When cats are trying to process Kitty Crack they are also experiencing dehydration from the inside out, so to speak – eating a food with all the moisture removed. People often find that once they switch to an all wet food diet that their cat stops drinking at all. However, note that excessive thirst is often a symptom of illness in animals - it can be a sign of kidney problems and other possible physical ills. If you’ve got your kitty on wet food and she’s still taking in a lot of water she needs to be checked by your vet.

Now You See Why “Kitty Crack" is an Accurate Phrase

Once you realize how we have been abusing the cat’s digestive system, it takes only a moment to understand the illogic of feeding her out of a bag. I refer to these dry foods in a bag as “kitty crack” because they are sprayed with substances (often “acidifiers,” which seem to appeal to felines) to entice cats to eat this unnatural dry hard food. Before long, many cats get hooked on the stuff – which is how the phrase Kitty Crack was born. The worrisome thing is that for many cats, when you offer them real food- meat from a can – they cannot even recognize it as a food. This leads to cats who refuse to touch the nicest canned cat food - or even raw food which you can buy frozen (and many cat breeders and owners believe is the gold standard of cat feeding). The more your cat is determined to keep his face in a bowl of kibble, the greater your challenge in getting him through a whole “rehab” program to get him off the Kitty Crack.

Cats Do Not Need to Be Snacking Around the Clock

Cats are not grazing animals that need to be nibbling around the clock. They have a short digestive system that needs to take in the equivalent of a mouse and then the stomach needs to digest the food and then rest the system after processing the food. It is our mistaken concept that cats need to nibble all day that has led to feeding them not just the wrong stuff, but in the wrong way. In nature, a cat would hunt and hunt and finally catch a rodent or bird. Down the hatch, and quite some time could pass before another feeding opportunity – and the digestive systems of domestic cats are no different than their still-wild cousins.

Dry Food Doesn’t Clean Teeth

It adds insult to injury to insist that we harm our cats overall health by feeding them Kitty Crack and then insult our intelligence by bamboozling us into believing it cleans their teeth. Have we all lost our common sense and ability to reason? First of all, cats chew on the grinding surface of their teeth, as most of us do. But dental and gum disease occurs at the gum line, way up where the gums meet the tooth surface. So there is no logical way that chewing a highly processed carbohydrate sprayed with fats would scrape or abrade and clean tartar and plaque from that gum line – if anything. Kitty Crack creates those deposits. As Dr. Elizabeth Hodgkins (the Official Vet of CAT CHAT®) likes to say, the claims of Kitty Crack cleaning teeth will be true when the day comes that your own dentist hands you a bag of Fritos on the way out of a dental cleaning and tells you to rub it on your teeth!

What If Your Cat Doesn’t Want to Eat Canned Food?

It can be really frustrating if you have a cat who resists your efforts to get her on the right food for her species, but keep at it. Most cats dig right into wet food and never look back – but there are cats who can take as much as a year to get completely off dry food – but once they accept wet food they love it. For the sake of your pussycat’s longevity and long term health - don't give up! Here are some tricks to making the transition:

• Try one of the flavors in gravy - I don't like them long-term, but you could start there and gradually try other foods.
• WERUVA is my personal favorite canned cat food because it is made from free-range chicken that is hormone and antibiotic-free – but additionally there are many cats who cannot relate to the pate-style canned cat food but will try the real pieces of chicken in Weruva. Some cat rescues like Feline Outreach have used Weruva to transition their toughest kitty crack addicts off of dry food.
• Do NOT leave any dry food out. Leaving the dry food out keeps them “hooked” on it.
• Get the dry food completely out of your house – give it to a cat rescue group. Cats have an extraordinary sense of smell and can detect the strong odor of kitty crack even inside a pantry.
• Grind up two or three pieces of kibble and sprinkle on top of canned food so it has the familiar odor the cat is hooked on.
• Get a can of mackerel cat food (it’s extra smelly) and put a teaspoon on top of higher quality poultry-based cat food to entice the cat to start eating.
• Use a teaspoon of lamb baby food for humans (a real kitty pleaser) on top of the canned cat food.
• Get bonito (tuna) flakes and sprinkle them on top of the food.
• Try different varieties and brands of canned food. Some cats don't like certain brands.
• In a Worst Case scenario – a cat who just will not accept wet no matter what – you can wean him by giving dry food only twice a day at a mealtime. You can “meal-feed” the dry food with just a little canned on the bottom. Pick it up after 20 or 30 minutes and refrigerate, since dry food can start growing mold and bacteria once it gets wet. Gradually decrease the dry, until the cat is eating some dry food that has wet food stuck to it, keep decreasing until it's eating some just wet... and keep going until the dry is gone.

AN IMPORTANT WARNING WHILE GETTING YOUR CAT OFF KITTY CRACK

Your cat has got to eat – or she can get into some serious medical trouble. No cat can safely go 24 hours without food. And this is doubly true for fat cats, whose livers are already compromised because fat is packed around the organ. And most cats who have been fed Kitty Crack exclusively are overweight, at leas to some degree – it’s a result of eating foods their bodies cannot properly metabolize. If you have a fat cat who is resisting the transition to wet food you need to make sure she is eating something a couple of times a day during this change-over – it’s not a “wait her out” kind of situation. What can happen to obese cats who abruptly stop eating is that they can develop Fatty Liver Disease (also known as Hepatic Lipidosis) and can become very ill. However, what you need to understand is that feeding as much wet food as possible is the way to salvage their liver and other organs. The quality protein a cat takes in actually packages that fat from around their liver and other areas in their bodies, and eliminates it from their system. But taking in no food at all puts their system into crisis.

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Since When Do People Care So Much What They’re Feeding Their Dogs?

Increasingly, dog lovers seem to be hyper-focused on what they are feeding their dogs. You’re concerned what’s right for your dog? You worry about the dubious ingredients in many dog foods? You don’t know how to make sense of all the noise around pet food? Let me show you how to use your own common sense and make healthy decisions.
We all had such a scare from the pet food recall crisis only a little while ago - people discovered the lack of oversight over what can go into pet food and learned there is nobody really watching the store on what goes into pet foods, especially the dry kibble. We are what we eat – a truism that we have only recently started applying to our pets.

Commercial Pet Food Companies Have Their Own Agenda

What drives the mainstream commercial pet food companies is how much money they can make - it’s a business, after all. When any product is about an economic bottom line, that company will work within the law to spend as little as possible on manufacturing to make the most possible profit. The big pet food companies – which are often multi-national conglomerates of many disassociated products – have the logical mandate to attract as much of the market share as they can and derive maximum profits from the pet food. And that’s fine! This capitalist world – which means they will do whatever they can to fulfill that mission. Dry kibbled food is made from more plentiful waste ingredients and has a higher profit margin – this would seem to be the driving force behind the evolution of people being told to feed their pets dry food – with strict instructions to feed their pets dry food exclusively. THE DOG BIBLE explains all of this in more detail.

What Goes into Most Commercial Kibble

Big pet food companies spend millions on television and magazine advertising, marketing and package design. The “rules” allow them to utilize inexpensive scrap and waste product from the human food industry to make pet foods. Dry food can accommodate ingredients from startling sources (the 4 D’s – dead, diseased dying and downer farm animals and even euthanized pets and road kill and filler like “powdered cellulose,” which actually means sawdust). Run-of-the-mill dry pet food is just that – the final debris of grain (corn, rice etc) production, which gets turned into highly processed carbohydrates, much of which is indigestible plant fiber without nutritional value. Pet food manufacture actually helps in recycling this human food waste and puts the salvage of our food production to “good” use. With the necessary addition of vitamins and fats sprayed to make the kibble palatable, a dog can live on it - but the operative word here is “survive.” What we really want for ourselves and for our animals is to thrive.

We Need to Take Control of our Pets’ Diets

Caveat emptor- buyer beware As we learn more all the time about nutrition and the safety of ingredients and preparation in our own diets, and the trickle-down effect is that we’re learning to pay attention to what goes into our dogs’ mouth, too. And the great news is that in a capitalist society where there is demand, supply will grow – and there is a steady flow of fantastic new pet foods into the market, along with some really good existing ones. However, it’s a jungle out there, trying to separate the mediocre - from the merely good - to the really great foods you can find. This ain’t your grandma’s world anymore, where dog food is concerned! And there’s something more to consider: competition is also at the root of a free market society, so those highly commercial foods are now responding with really brilliant advertising, marketing and well designed new bags and names to compete with the higher quality ingredients of the premium brands.  But their corporate thinking and dealing has not changed – what you’re seeing is a concerted effort to keep their customers from defecting to smaller private companies that make pet food exclusively. Those superficial efforts are not compelling when you can choose a privately owned company for which making your pet’s food is their only business – often with their own names on the bags and cans – and which has made a commitment to clean, nutritious ingredients.

Learn What the Words on Dog Food Labels Mean

To be a discerning dog food buyer you need to understand what the words actually mean. My book THE DOG BIBLE shows you how you really need to learn to read a dog food label in order to make the best decisions for your dog and your lifestyle. Once you understand the lingo, you are going to run for the exit! And you are going to have a rude awakening when you come to understand what is really in those costly vet-prescribed foods in a bag you so lovingly buy and offer to your (seemingly appetite-less) dog.

What is the “Best Brand” of Food?

There is no one “best” anything in life – there are usually many good options. For example, when people tell you they went to the “best knee surgeon in the country” aren’t you aware how ludicrous that is? Just as with cars or medical care, we are fortunate to have a large country with many contenders for the “top 10” in most everything. THE DOG BIBLE and my website mention many high-quality foods, as I do on the air. You need to read the labels, follow whatever part of my advice appeals to you, and most importantly se how that brand works for your dog over a few weeks’ time. Each dog is an individual and her digestion and condition will let you know whether that brand is a good one for her.

Having said that, I will contradict myself and tell you that there is no other kibble that comes close to the quality of ingredients in Halo’s Spot’s Stew. Spot’s Stew is head and shoulders above all others because they are so strict about the origin of their meat in both their kibble and canned food: they use no rendered meats, no meat meal, no by-product. They have made a company decision to maintain a standard that the meat in their kibble is all “fit for human consumption” – and their liver is “butcher quality.” When I learned this there was no competition for me: for the kibble portion of their meals my dogs eat exclusively Spot’s Stew. In addition, this kibble has a 33% protein content – and from a healthy, nutritious source (see below). For the first time in my life I don’t feel guilty or queasy about using dry food.

Kibble is NOT a Full Meal for a Dog

A dog shouldn’t be fed exclusively kibble because at least half of their diet should be protein in order to maintain good muscle, have energy and avoid obesity. Dry food is made of highly processed carbohydrates, which pack on weight and don’t give the dog the quality protein her body needs to function efficiently. Kibble is convenient for people - that’s its biggest selling point. The truth is that kibble makes a great side dish like rice, potatoes or pasta - but you need to start thinking of it as only about 1/3 of their food. It has to be a really good kibble, of course, but have found that a small side portion of top quality kibble gives dogs a feeling of fullness and satisfaction. If you are home preparing some portion of their food the kibble also provides nutrients they need.

Dogs Need a Varied Menu

Dogs are omnivores and need a varied diet containing many food groups – the first of which is protein that their body recognizes as such. This is worth mentioning because many pet food companies use copious amounts of ground corn in their canned food (as they do in their kibble) on the grounds that technically speaking, corn is a protein source, too. However, if you look at your own dinner plate you cannot be fooled: corn is a high-glycemic vegetable.

How Much Does the Protein Content of Kibble Matter?

A dog’s diet should optimally be about 50% or more protein – but it has to be protein, which is “bio-available,” meaning that the dog’s body can actually use and metabolize it as protein. So when a dry food quotes its protein content, keep in mind that creating a technically high protein content is what got us into the pet food recall mess in the first place – by adding melamine to a food it increases the amount of protein that can be measured. Clearly, using a component of plastics not only has no nutritional value but also killed and sickened many pets. So while it’s great that some dry foods have high protein content, the kibble should not be the main source of a dog’s protein intake. In order to be useful to the body, food needs to be in as natural a state as possible – and even the best kibble is a highly processed product.

How Should You Provide Protein?

The easiest way to make sure you have a quality protein source is to keep a stash of good canned food like Spot’s Stew that uses only “fit for human consumption” meat – or Newman’s Own that uses Organic Chicken – or Weruva, which makes the hands-down finest canned cat food and has some pretty awesome flavors and styles of dog food, too. There are many other good brands and flavors of canned dog food and you want to learn how to read that label, too, so you can avoid any brand which packs a bunch of cheap carbohydrate fillers into their canned food. I love Spot’s Stew but also find that Evanger’s 100% Organic chicken is a great un-advertised product.

What I do to provide other protein – which I think of as the “main course” in my dogs’ food bowl - is to use any human protein source. You can buy and prepare chicken, turkey or beef – maybe finding it on sale and then freezing some of it. I also use any left -over fish, meat, or chicken or I make scrambled eggs. I also sometimes use cottage cheese or canned sardines, rotating protein sources all the time.

Since I also feed some Honest Kitchen food at every meal, they are always getting that unprocessed protein source along with the vegetables and fruits in the Honest Kitchen food (see below).

How Much Protein at Each Meal?

Every dog has different exercise and activity habits and at different ages a varying metabolism. . There is no set amount of food that you can feed and then stick with it throughout a dog’s life. The amount needed will vary based on these factors so you need to watch your dog’s weight and keep her as slim as you possibly can for joint health and longevity. This means that if you find her getting chubby you need to INCREASE protein and decrease carbohydrates (the kibble) until she takes off whatever she may have gained. As a general idea, if you have a medium sized 50 lb. dog, then ½ a cup of protein per meal is probably about right – a large or smaller dog should adjust accordingly.

What About Older Dogs?

As dogs age they metabolize food less efficiently (as we do) but that is why they need the opposite of the “senior” dry food so often recommended. Those foods have less protein (which is just what the aging dog’s body needs) and more highly processed carbs, making a more sedentary, less digestively efficient dog even fatter! Quality protein is even more important to the health of an aging dog.

How Important are Vegetables?

All dogs can benefit from some vegetables and simple carbs, for roughage and for nutritional balance. I consider a meal incomplete without the vegetable portion for vitamins and also to fill and satisfy them. For vegetables, I use either Dr. Harvey’s dry pre-mix called Veg-to-Bowl or his Canine Health” which has vegetable and some organic grains. Both are intended to be rehydrated with warm water – instructions say to wait 8 minutes, but he has assured me that 3 minutes is fine so all you have to do when preparing the meal is first thing to put some warm water on the Dr. Harvey’s) and follow with the other two parts of the meal. I alternate Dr. Harvey’s, which is all vegetables, with The Honest Kitchen’s raw dehydrated food, which can be a complete meal since it contains the protein along with the vegetables and fruits known to be good for dogs’ digestive requirements. There is a link on my website for The Honest Kitchen in San Diego where they make their amazing dehydrated raw food (many different formulas) in facilities where human food is made. You add a scoop of Honest Kitchen (in my case ½ cup because I count it as part of the protein content of the meal, too) and rehydrate with warm water before feeding. It has everything in it a dog’s body needs but I use it as only part of each meal.

Make Your Own Dog Minestrone

I also sometimes boil up a big soup pot of Dog Vegetable Soup and use that for the vegetable portion, giving about a ½ cup at each meal. Put in vegetables of any kind (broccoli is gassy for some dogs and onion is actually dangerous) but the standard ones are carrots, green beans, zucchini, butternut or other squash, spinach, peas, broccoli, any vegetable at all, really. I find that large bags of frozen string beans and peas are often better quality than the fresh ones and frozen butternut squash is a whole lot less work than the fresh, Even though you don’t think of sweet potato as a vegetable, it is so healthy for dogs that I base the dog soup on carrot and sweet potato and build it from there. You can grate or cube the vegetables and then add a couple of cups of rice or oatmeal to thicken it up for freezing, You can freeze this in big Baggies (pressed flat with all the air out and frozen on cookie sheets to use les freezer space) so one big pot will last for weeks or months. Otherwise, cook extra when you cook vegetables for yourself, and use that. Leftover salad with dressing is a huge crowd pleaser!

How Much Volume Should a Dog eat Twice a Day?

One thing is for sure – we are all overfeeding our dogs. We’re usually feeding way too much carbohydrate (an all kibble diet is a disaster in this area) and most people are giving way too much quantity, too. It sets my hair on fire to see the amount the dog food companies say on the bag you should give your dog – you’d need a feeding trough to serve the tons of cups of food they recommend for a large dog. Their recommendations are based at least in part on the fact that the available nutrition in most commercial kibble is so minimal that only by feeding crazy amounts can the dog take in enough nutrition to meet basic levels. And then there is the conflict of interest: the more the kibble company tells you to feed, the sooner you’ll be back for another bag!  

Portion Control is Important

The best way to manage portion control is to get a smaller dog bowl: this simple advice will take pounds off your dog. It’s funny how our eyes can deceive us – but if you have a large dog you think you’re supposed to have a large bowl. A large bowl just cries out to be filled. Even half filled, a large food bowl is a recipe for obesity and can hold way more food than the average household dog needs. For my 100 lb dogs I use ½ to 1 cup of each of the three building blocks of the meal (protein, vegetable and kibble) at each of two daily meals.

Do Dogs Need Supplements?

There are a couple of supplements that are scientifically proven to enhance and prolong the health and length of your pet’s life. And both these companies make similar products for people, which I hope you’ll consider since your health is pretty important, too!

Platinum Performance is a joint supplement, which is also an immune system booster. I have been putting it in all my dogs’ meals from the moment they join my family (tests have shown that Platinum’s formulation of glucosamine and chondroitin can help prevent joint issues, which is why I have given it daily to the abandoned large Weimeraner males I’ve adopted, who are usually abandoned at around 6 months. Platinum is also used by the Official Oncologist of both radio shows, Dr. Alice Villalobos, on all her animal cancer patients because of its anti-0oxidant and anti-inflammatory qualities. I now take it myself since seeing the great benefit to my dogs in preventing and treating arthritis but also helps with overall health.

Platinum is also a total dietary supplement so you can home feed or feed raw food and by adding Platinum Performance you’ve created a balanced meal.

Nordic Naturals Omega 3 Pet Oil is a supplement you must add to your dog’s food bowl because all their diets – all our diets! - are deficient in these essential fatty acids. The heart, brain, the joints and the skin and coat all need omega-30 fatty acids – and Nordic Naturals guarantees a freshness and purity equal to that of the Norwegian government. There is always the risk with any other fish oil that is rancid or impure. Nordic Naturals is the one I use for myself and the dogs because it is 100% fish oil that is pure and fresh and made from wild artic cod in an ecologically correct way. I consider any other brand a potential waste of money and time since many products labeled as Norwegian fish oil are only partially fish oil and freshness and origins are not verified. Impure or unstable fish oil will not give your pet the benefits you are seeking for fur, skin, anti-inflammatory properties and overall good health.

What About Dogs with Cancer?

Of course you want to check with your primary vet and your dog’s cancer specialist before changing her diet.

Human research into the connection of nutrition and cancer has shown that cancer cells thrive on carbohydrates. Therefore, for people and pets with cancer (or even those breeds like Golden retrievers and Rottweilers which are at such a high risk for cancer) a low-carbohydrate, high protein diet is advisable.

Certainly any dog with cancer or at high genetic risk of developing it should avoid commercial kibble and use food as closest to its natural state as possible. Lots of vegetables (if the dog’s digestive system will tolerate them) along with the protein gives added food value. And those two supplements are more important now than at any other time in the dog’s life.

What About Fat Dogs?

Once your vet has checked your dog’s blood levels to make sure there is no thyroid or other systemic disorder, you can be sure that your dog has gained weight from eating too much carbohydrate (kibble) in too large a quantity. A dog will slim down if you put her on the same basic diet as recommended for dogs with cancer. Feeding quality protein helps the body metabolize the fat and reducing carbohydrates down to a very low level prevents the body from producing more fat. Always count any treats you give as part of her intake and switch to raw carrots, slices of apple, small bits of meat or cheese or nuts as alternate snacks.

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