Pet Health
Pet health starts with natural, species-appropriate, food
Around 4 years ago my Boston Terrier, Junior, was diagnosed with cancer. Our Veterinarian was able to remove it successfully with clean margins but she said to me, “Unfortunately these things come back within 6 months so please be vigilant.” Her statement shocked me to the core and thats when I started researching about Cancer: causes and prevention. When I started this journey, my objective was only one thing: To make Junior live as long as possible and as comfortable as possible. Part of the reason we founded Dogma was so that we could share our journey of better pet health.
The purpose of food is to heal — this was the most powerful statement that I have learnt in my years of research so let me state it again… the purpose of food is to heal. If your dog is eating food that heavily processed then it won’t have the capacity to heal and may, in fact, probably make them sick. Healing food is specie-appropriate. Food that is good for Rabbits wont be the same healing food thats good for Dogs as they are different species.
Species-Appropriate is Healing Food
TL;DR
- The majority of ingredients in commercial pet food is made from corn, soy, wheat, rice or potatoes
- Starches are a food groups that dogs and cats are unable to digest or break down, they simply do not have the enzymes
- Dogs and cats are able to withstand nutritional abuse without dying but they suffer from chronic diseases instead
- The moment heat touches food, it starts losing vitamins, nutrients and enzymes
- Most commercial pet food that have high protein values achieve those values using inexpensive plant-based proteins. Plants are food that our pets are unable to digest because they lack the enzymes
- Less processed food means more nutrients are retained thats why raw diets come highly recommended as species-appropriate
- Dehydrated or freeze-dried food retain more that kibble, dry food or canned food
- Canned food are better than kibble, dry food but supplementing will be necessary for your pets
- If you choose to feed kibble, buy the best your budget can afford and and store it properly and make sure its sealed
- Transitioning your dog or cat from dry food to raw will take atleast 2 weeks. Feed them a small amount at at time until you have gradually increased it completely to raw
Here are the best resources to read more about the healing diet of species-appropriate food:
- Dr. Karen Becker’s The Feeding Mistake linked to the cause of most diseases in pets from Mercola
- Dr. Sara Chapman’s Holistic Feeding of Species-Appropriate Raw Meat from Dog’s Naturally Magazine
- Dr. Karen Becker’s The Best and the Worst type of Dog food from Dog Food Advisor (Video)
- Dr. Jeannie Thomason’s Species Appropriate Nutrition from Whole Dog Journal