1 post tagged “mineral”

This is a great site for drilling down to information about ingredients in commercial dog foods - what to look for, what to avoid, how to identify better products.

But what is most useful for me is this "short list" of beneficial food items that include important vitamins, minerals and trace elements for a healthy dog. We are pretty much on top of everything with our home cooked, I find - though after perusing this I've decided to add the occasional egg to Sky's diet... and ongoing is my search for nutritional yeast, which I want for both her and us. (Not too many retail health food options in Athens, that I've been able to ferret out so far, anyway.)
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The only thing we seem to be mostly missing is this:

Chloride: kelp, tomatoes, celery

and to a lesser degree:

Sulfur: eggs, garlic, lettuce, cabbage

I do include garlic in her cooked meals (just a bit of raw, minced garlic - not a lot), but adding some egg here and there will help with the latter... and I suspect that the chloride is a non-issue, since chloride is found in table salt, which is how we humans get most of ours, and though I don't add salt to her food, I'm pretty sure it's probably included in a lot of the dog treats she gets. However, I'd like to mostly stop using commercial treats for reward training, and try healthier items if possible, so I'll add a bit of tomato to her diet. This is something we always have around, in season, anyway.

So, at this point our usual home cooked meals consist of either turkey/chicken/liver/fish (I'd love to include beef - but we hardly spend the big bucks for beef ourselves - it's become very expensive!) and veg mix (carrot, zucchini and/or green beans, spinach - and soon to include some tomato) and brown rice (roughly 1/3 each, but a bit more veg than meat and rice), plus some grated apple or pear usually, a bit of minced garlic, and a small splash each of olive oil and apple cider vinegar. In addition, she gets a couple of large tablespoons of yogurt separately most days, plus the occasional peanut butter treat or bit of cheese.

If we ate only what we feed her, we'd be in super great shape, I think. :)

At the moment, we're out of kibble (and the only place we've found so far that has minimally acceptable dry food is quite a walk away - and it's hot out!) so she's eating the home cooked for both meals, and I'd actually prefer to feed her only this all the time, but I worry that she will refuse the dry food eventually, which would make things difficult while travelling, say, or if someone else takes care of her.