Natural Diet for Cats and Dogs

Natural Diet for Cats and Dogs
- the economical, easy way to a healthier pet.
Over the last twenty or so years, I have witnessed a significant improvement in the health of many animals coming
to my veterinary clinic with chronic health problems with a simple change from processed (dried, tinned or ‘dog
roll’) pet food, to fresh, raw food.
However, due to the lack of supply of whole, fresh carcasses in a suburban environment, it is up to us pet owners to
supply as close an approximation as we can to the whole carcass diet cats and dogs would naturally eat.
This is a much easier process than most people may initially imagine, and the results can be surprisingly beneficial.
Dogs with itchy skin conditions can improve within a month or so of changing from a diet of processed pet food to
a diet consisting of fresh meat, bones, vegetables and fruit with a correct balance of fish oil, and kelp.
Natural diet is a mainstay of holistic veterinary (and human) treatment for many degenerative conditions such as
autoimmunity and cancer, combined with herbs, homoeopathics and other therapies. There are now many clinical
trials which have shown this to be the case.

What is Wrong with Commercial Pet Food?
Tinned foods contain cooked meat, and cooking destroys much of the useful nutrients in meat for carnivorous
animals.
Most commercial dried foods (even premium brands) may contain 25% to 60% carbohydrate. The carbohydrate
component is usually present as rice or corn meal. The carbohydrate in dried food makes the food less expensive to
manufacture, and gives it a long shelf life. Veterinary physiology text books tell us that dogs and cats should have
no more than 3% to 5% carbohydrate in their diet, because any more than this reduces the liver glycogen
metabolism, thus reducing the detoxification of chemicals and toxins from the liver and fat stores.
Full liver metabolism, which can only happen with a very low, or no, carbohydrate diet, will therefore reduce the
likelihood of degenerative conditions such as autoimmune or infectious disease, liver and kidney disease, arthritis
and cancer.
It has been shown scientifically that cats are much more likely to suffer diabetes, inflammatory bowel disease,
bladder stones and hepatitis if their diet contains dried commercial food. It has been shown scientifically that
puppies are more likely to develop hip dysplasia on a diet containing carbohydrate.

Just Feed What Nature Intends the Animal to Eat!
Dogs are omnivores and cats are carnivores. They obtain their essential nutrients from the raw meat, bone, sinew,
offal and fermented vegetable gut contents of the carcasses they eat, plus dogs also eat a lot of dropped, rotting
fruit, berries, dung and leaf litter from the jungle floor.
We can easily add the ‘jungle floor litter’ and ‘carcass gut contents’ in the form of kelp, alfalfa powder or spirulina
(to add trace elements), a quarter to a heaped teaspoon depending on size of cat/dog.
Fresh, real food will provide essential nutrients in a more useable form for the animal than as separate additives
artificially incorporated into heated and pressurised processed food.

Meat, Fish and Eggs
The easiest and most economical raw meaty bones for dogs are chicken wings, lamb necks, ox tails or roo tails.
For cats, raw chicken necks and lamb cutlets are the most popular.
Fish oil, 1 to 6 g depending on animal size, is needed for the essential omega 3 fatty acids. Alternatively, feed
tinned or fresh fish, such as raw white bait, two or three times a week.
Eggs are fine (complete with crushed shell for dogs) to give whole, raw or cooked, 2-3 times a week.

Vegetables and fruit
Basically, any you eat are fine for animals, except onions and spring onions. Ideally raw, pulped or grated veges
and herbs are ideal – carrot, broccoli, cauliflower, celery, zucchini, peas, beetroot, squash, parsley, cress, sprouts,
coriander, basil, dill.
Vegetables can be pulped raw, or cooked. The pulp left over from your juicer is great animal food.

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Cats may eat mashed pumpkin or sweet potato with cheese or sour cream, roast potatoes or pumpkin, stir fried
vegetables, mashed banana, yoghurt or soup.
Remember cats can tolerate 10% fat diets, so feel free to add cheese, eggs, fatty meat off cuts and other fatty foods
to taste for cats.

Make it Cheap and Easy
Many of us lead busy lives, so make it all fit with the household routine. Keep a dog bowl on the counter and put in
all left-over fruit, vegetable and salad scraps – apple cores, tomato and carrot tops or left over salad, yoghurt or
cracked eggs from the fridge. Go around the garden and gather herbs, nasturtiums, dandelions, or over ripe fruit
from the fruit bowl – strawberries, melon, bananas, apples, pears.
Then add kelp and fish or fish oil and some raw meat and raw bones.
You will find this natural diet will be cheaper than commercial food, even paying for the fish, kelp and oil.
Your pet will feel more included in the family having “human food” and will be happier and healthier.
It is a joy seeing your pet’s healthy, nurturing diet manifest easily from the household kitchen routine!

If you require more information, I have written an 80 page, inexpensive, easy to read and follow book to give you
all the information you need to feed your pet to great health.
See flyer below which you can print out to order the book from me, or see sales outlets in WA in the “Clare’s
Book” section of this website.
If you require very detailed information on feeding dogs, especially if you are a dog breeder who raises puppies,
you may like to download this excellent 350 page ebook by Mogens Eliasans called “Raw Food for Dogs”,
available through this link –
http://k9joy.com/RawFoodForDogs/index.php?camp=5234_campaign (there is an underscore after ‘5234)

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