“Sit. Spin to the left. Spin to the right. Take steps in reverse. Put your head on my knee.”
8-pound Coby responds to each command, each trick reinforced with a training treat. A lot of practice goes into the training of the Yorkie-- lots of treats are awarded.
And dog mom Mary Wu makes sure none of those bites are the canine equivalent of gummy bears or potato chips. She wants her good little boy to be a healthy boy, too.
That is why she’s in the kitchen on the day we meet. “This piece of cod is for Coby,” she says, as she cuts it into cubes before sautéing it with vegetables, topping it with some turmeric, and mixing it with freeze dried rabbit.
“He’s a big piece of my heart,” she says.
More hearts are filled with love for dogs. More people are like Mary, making sure our pups’ hearts are healthy. According to a survey published by the American Veterinary Medical Association, the number of dog owners who make their dog’s meals has increased 400 percent over a period of 15 years.
The Association of American Feed Control Officials is a nonprofit organization that established nutrient profiles for commercial pet foods. They found a stunning problem among those pet owners surveyed by the AVMA: only 6% of home-cooked dog meals were nutritionally complete.
“Somehow, people think that you can just feed hamburger and rice, or chicken, and you’re fine,” says veterinarian Dr. Donna Kelleher, “but you can’t feed those diets long term.”
Dr. Kelleher is a holistic veterinarian in Seattle. She does not see eye to eye with the Association of American Feed Control Officials, believing their guidelines are too high in carbohydrates and falsely favor kibble diets.
She also says dietary needs are largely individual, depending on things like the dog’s activity level, weight, age, and other health factors.
But, she agrees that well-intentioned pup parents are not learning enough about nutrition before cooking their pups’ meals.
The consensus is that most dog owners don’t account for the nutrients that come from food sources that many humans don’t eat themselves. For example, many home-cooked recipes use muscle meat (ground beef, chicken, etc.) but not organ meat, like liver or heart, which provide essential vitamins, minerals, and other compounds.
Dr. Kelleher says she sees dire consequences from deficiencies in home-cooked diets. Dogs can “break bones, they have fractures, they can die acutely from seizures and heart failure because they have no calcium, they have no magnesium.”
She recommends that dog parents find a veterinarian who emphasizes a healthy diet and then work with them to identify specific dietary needs their dogs have.
Dr. Kelleher also recommends getting blood and urine analysis. The pH levels can show whether the diet is appropriate. Generally, she says you should be able to recognize signs of a good and healthy diet: a shiny coat, no ear infections, healthy teeth, no heart disease or murmurs.
There is no way around it. Finding the right diet for your dog takes time, work, and patience.
But Dr. Kelleher says there is a possible payoff that she sees in dogs: “All the patients that I’ve ever had in their 20s are all on homemade food.”
Mary Wu would love to see Coby live that long. Not only is he a big part of her heart – he has a role in her business.
She opened Seattle’s first dog café on Nickerson Street last year. There, you can grab a coffee and lunch and mix with other people obsessed with their pups-- people just like Mary who have done research on canine nutrition and share their information and love.
Dr. Kelleher recommends this recipe as a starting point for pup parents. She also recommends getting blood work done after two months and a urine analysis after six months to see how your dog is doing.
For an 8-10lb active dog or 20lb couch potato:
- 2/3 ground meat (cooked in crock pot)
- 1/3 cup ground vegetables raw (greens/pumpkin/green bean/sweet potato)
- 500 mg calcium citrate
- 1 tsp raw organic heart
- 1tsp liver
- 500 mg EPA/DHA fish oil
- Rotate every day: one cooked egg, 2 tbsp tofu, 1 sardine (canned in water or olive oil)
- Vitamin/mineral mix – which can be homemade or bought from a pet food supplier
Dr. Kelleher also recommends this feeding guideline chart.
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