Gracie at 10

Gracie Playing Catch

Below is a video (silent) of Gracie playing catch this past week.

Even at 10 years old, she's energetic and always ready to play.

I'm sure it's because she eats real food every day!

Chicken Organ Meats

Whenever I cook a whole chicken I save and cook the organ meats for Gracie (heart, liver, gizzard), along with the neck. I remove the meat from the neck bone after cooking and discard the bone. Most of the time Gracie eats the kind of meat I usually eat: poultry thigh, breast or drumstick meat; beef muscle meat, ground beef; canned or fresh fish, etc....

Yet organ meat contains healthful vitamins and nutrients too, so I cook it for Gracie when I have it. I don't go out of my way to buy it regularly for Gracie's meals because I find it unpleasant to handle and prepare.

Some dog care enthusiasts are in favor of feeding organ meats regularly because, "in the wild," dogs devoured the organ meats of the prey they brought down. I suppose that's true but I'm guessing Gracie is many generations from living, "in the wild." I don't feel like she's missing out by not eating organ meats all the time.

Can Dogs Smile?

Can dogs smile? Google that question and you'll see an ongoing debate. Some say the "smiles" we see on our dogs' faces are just expressions that form when our dogs pant and stick out their tongues. If a dog's owner sees it, the dog usually gets a lot of positive attention so the behavior is repeated again in the future.

I don't believe it. I think Gracie smiles whenever she's very happy, like when we're playing fetch in the yard (see photo above).

Keep Your Eye On The Ball!

I like taking photos of Gracie in action, playing ball. The camera reveals expressions and postures I can never see, because she's so quick.

Sardine Breakfast 7-21-09

Canned sardines

Oatmeal, cooked in milk

Whole wheat bread

Black beans

Fresh spinach

Sunflower oil

"Better Food for Dogs"

Better Food for Dogs

by David Bastin, Jennifer Ashton and Dr. Grant Nixon, D.V.M.

Copyright 2002

Doggie Chef Rating:

2 out of 5 bones

This book aims to provide nutritionally balanced recipes and food guides for dogs. The recipes are for healthy, adult dogs weighing from five pounds to 150 pounds.

While the book's intent is good, the meal recipes, charts, substitutions and variations  are complicated to follow. I'm also a little wary of the recipes' salt content.

The authors include iodized salt and/or potassium chloride in just about every meal recipe, along with a bone meal and vitamin-mineral supplement. The amounts of iodized salt and potassium chloride recommended for most of the meals seem alarmingly high to me. I try not to add too much salt to Gracie's meals. I do sprinkle iodized table salt on meats I cook for her. I think she gets enough additional salt from the other foods I include in her diet such as breads, canned fish and cheeses. Plus she gets additional salt from any snacks we might share with her.

One of the book's authors (Nixon) is a veterinarian. The other two (Bastin and Ashton) own Licks and Wags, Ltd., a dog cookie company. At the end of the book the authors share some of their Licks and Wags cookie recipes. However the majority of recipes provided are for daily meals.

The recipes in this book suggest using potatoes and/or pasta as often as cooked whole grains or whole grains breads, to fulfill dietary carbohydrate requirements. The authors just say, "potatoes," so I assume they mean white potatoes. I don't think white potatoes should be a regular carbohydrate source for dogs when nutritionally better ones exist.

Every meal recipe in this book includes either a fruit-vegetable mix or a few different fruits or vegetables. Yet the amount of fruits and vegetables called for in each meal seems too high. For a 60 pound dog one recipe calls for a little more than 3/4 of a cup of a pureed fruit-vegetable mix for one meal. And I question some of the suggested fruit and vegetable offerings. Maybe some dogs like and benefit from tomatoes but I wouldn't feed them to Gracie and she wouldn't eat them. I also don't feed her cooked corn. The kernels simply pass, undigested, through her body. Of course, every dog is different.

Although I don't recommend "Better Food for Dogs" as the cookbook it's intended to be, I think the first three chapters make a good case for feeding dogs whole foods and provide some valuable background information on canine nutrition.