Question:
I've read your advice on home-prepared dog foods and am attempting to keep my "grand-dog" on such a diet. She's an 8-year-old Dalmatian/Labrador mix, weighing 50 or 60 pounds or so. She is much more energetic on this diet and has shed her excess weight. However, I how have some questions so I can be sure I'm doing things right.1) I cook the chicken then refrigerate the remaining broth overnight and skim off the fat so I can cook the rice in the broth. However, the broth is semi-congealed after refrigeration, which makes me wonder if it still contains too much fat. Should I be using this broth to cook the rice? 2) I feed the dog about the same volume of this food as I used to feed her the commercial dog food. Should she be getting more, or maybe fed twice a day? I don't want her to continue losing weight. 3) Would it be more beneficial to use brown rice instead of white?.
E.L.M., Chesapeake, Va Oct 03, 2004
Answer:
The congealed chicken broth probably contains some gelatin from the bird's bones that makes it coagulate when refrigerated.If you are not feeding your dog organic, free-range chicken (which is likely to be higher in omega 3 fatty acids, vitamin E and beta-carotene than conventionally raised "factory" chicken), be sure to give her a teaspoon of flaxseed oil (a source of omega 3). Factory-farmed meat and poultry products are abnormally high in omega 6 fatty acid and deficient in omega 3 -- a condition that some human nutritionists believe is a major public health issue affecting brain development and neurological and other functions.Don't let your dog lose too much weight. Feed her twice a day. Remember there is more moisture (water) in what you feed her compared to nutrient-dense dry food.Brown rice is better than white rice, which is one of the "white evils" of the modern diet, along with refined/bleached flour, salt, sugar and hydrogenated fats -- and the bleached-paper products that some dogs will eat!
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