Biologically Appropriate
Raw Foods (BARF)
Dr. Billinghurst's BARF Diet™
Raw Foods (BARF)
Dr. Billinghurst's BARF Diet™
BARF
is about feeding dogs and cats properly. The aim of BARF is to maximize
the health, longevity and reproductive capacity of pets and by so
doing, minimize the need for veterinary intervention. How do you feed a
dog properly? You feed it the diet that it evolved to eat. It’s
evolutionary diet. A Biologically Appropriate Raw Food diet. A BARF
diet. The BARF diet is simple in philosophy and construction. It looks
at the diet of a wild or feral animal and mimics that type of feeding
regime using available whole raw foodstuffs. The diet may be enhanced
with various supplements. Once the principles are understood, anybody
can do this. No great education is required.
In the case of the cat, which is an obligate carnivore and a hunter, the biologically appropriate diet is based largely upon animal derived foods. Basically, whatever nutrition can be derived from a whole fresh raw carcass – in its entirety – constitutes a biologically appropriate diet. In the case of the dog which is an omnivore, a hunter and a scavenger, the diet can be based on a wider range of whole raw foods of both animal and plant origin. Both species rely on bones as a major part of their diet for a variety of reasons including teeth cleaning and the myriad of benefits which flow from that together with the nutritional attributes of bones and their their psychological benefits.
Sheer Joy ...
"Eating bones for a dog is a joyous experience.
It is so enjoyed by dogs that it actually of itself boosts
their immune system"
The philosophy behind using BARF is that the diet a dog or cat evolved to eat - over many millions of years of evolution - is the best way to feed it. This is the hypothesis accepted by most modern zoos or any zoologist concerned with preserving a species of an endangered animal. It is not the theory endorsed by most pet food companies or the people they train - and that includes unfortunately - many vets. If you want to feed your dog BARF, it means not feeding your dog cooked and or processed food. That is, not feeding your dog a diet based on cooked grains, no matter how persuasive the advertising. Artificial grain based dog foods cause innumerable health problems. They are not what your dog was programed to eat during its long process of evolution.
A biologically appropriate diet for a dog is one that consists of raw whole foods similar to those eaten by the dogs' wild ancestors. The food fed must contain the same balance and type of ingredients as consumed by those wild ancestors. This food will include such things as muscle meat, bone, fat, organ meat and vegetable materials and any other "foods" that will mimic what those wild ancestors ate. Please note that modern dogs of any breed are not only capable of eating the food of their wild ancestors, but actually require it for maximum health. This is because their basic physiology has changed very little with domestication despite obvious and dramatic changes in their current physical appearance and mindset.
BARF Mimics the evolutionary diet of Dogs
The BARF diet must, from a practical point of view, use food that is readily available. BARF feeders do not have to go hunting or send their dogs out to hunt. That is why I said BARF must mimic, not duplicate the evolutionary diet of dogs. This is an important distinction. The BARF feeder will MIMIC as closely as possible rather than duplicate the NATURAL diet of the dog. We are not trying to return our dogs to nature. It is impossible to feed any domestic animal its natural diet, let alone allow it to live under natural conditions. The natural diet and natural conditions under which the ancestors or wild cousins of our dogs live include grave dangers such as lack of shelter, starvation, attack by potential food, attack by other predators and the non use of medical intervention. In other words, natural diets and natural conditions can be deadly! They are not what we want for our pets. What we want for our dogs is a diet and an environment that maximizes health. That means a Biologically Appropriate Diet rather than a natural diet.
This is my favorite use of the term BARF - Biologically Appropriate Raw Food.
Next to your love and attention, proper nutrition is the most important thing
you can give your puppy!
Most new puppy owners seem to know this by instinct. That is why they ask their vet questions like "What is the best food to feed my puppy? How often should my puppy be fed? Should I feed bones to my puppy? If so what sort? What about calcium? What about food scraps?" People with new puppies do not only ask vets of course. They seek and are given advice from breeders, pet shop owners, advertisements on television and from books and magazines. With so many sources of information, it's not surprising that so many people are unsure about feeding dogs, particularly puppies.
Who Should You Believe?
The answer to this is very simple. To get the answers you need, you have to ask the pup itself! By understanding what puppies eat in the wild, you will learn valuable clues as to what you should be feeding your domestic pup. You will find out exactly what the digestive system of a puppy is programed to eat by centuries of evolution.
By looking at young wolves growing up we are actually observing our young pup's ancestors. If we couple that with modern scientific discoveries about diet, health and aging, we are able to produce a realistic, health promoting, evolutionary puppy diet. From studying the eating habits of wolf cubs which are seen to be perpetually hungry, subsisting on raw food consisting mostly of bones and being forced to scavenge a wide variety of foods, we get vital clues about successful puppy raising.
• The bulk of a puppy's diet should consist of raw meaty bones
• All or most of the rest of their food should also be raw
• Puppies should always be kept a little hungry
• They should never grow at their maximum growth rate
• They should be kept slim, lean and hard. Not roly poly, fat, young puppies
• Puppies should learn to eat everything
When we consider how wolves/dogs were raised in the 'pre-pet-food' era and compare that to our modern methods of husbandry, we can only conclude that the changes we have made to feeding and exercising have indeed been dramatic, and that their effects on puppy growth have been traumatic. The degree to which modern dogs experience ill health reflects the degree to which they are subjected to biologically inappropriate methods of feeding and exercising. Let's look at those biologically inappropriate forms of puppy management so rife today.
All the food a modern pup eats is cooked...
For the first time in its evolutionary history we are asking our dogs to eat nothing but cooked food. This is biologically unacceptable and a very dramatic change. It is most often processed food, usually either canned or dry food. The cooking process destroys many of the life enhancing factors found only in raw food. These include enzymes, many natural antioxidants and other anti-degeneration factors.
All the food a modern pup eats is based on cooked grain ...
The vast majority of the food eaten by the modern dog is composed of cooked grain as the most fundamental and major component of the diet. Another dramatic and biologically unacceptable change. Dogs have never in their evolutionary history eaten cooked grain. The results on health are devastating.
Meat meal and rendered fat come next...
The cooked grain is teamed up with meat meal (with its damaged protein) and rendered fat. It is not uncommon to use rendered fat from domestic animals in pet food - and there are reports that this is happening - together with flea collars and other dangerous chemicals such as the euthanasia solution in some of these deceased and rendered pets.
Aside from the dangerous chemicals it contains, that rendered fat contrasts strongly with the healthy fat so full of essential fatty acids that our dog's ancestors ate. These heat destroyed components are biologically unacceptable. They do not support healthy growth. They do not support a healthy life or contribute to a healthy old age. The meat meal bears very little relationship to the healthy raw meat eaten by a wild dog.
Now add the chemicals...
Add loads of refined sugar, loads of salt, chemical colorings - dyes, to make the product look like something it is not. Add artificial chemical flavorings to make it taste like something it is not. Add flavor enhancers to make sure the animal eats something it ought not to. Add chemical antioxidants (known carcinogens) to ensure the product does not become obviously rancid.
Now add the legally required nutrients...
These are the currently known to be essential vitamins and minerals. The legal constraints on commercial pet foods do not require them to include vitally important biologically essential antioxidants and anti-degeneration factors present only in whole raw food. As a result, these products do not contain many of the essential factors we do know about such as enzymes, nor do they contain many of the essential factors we don't yet know about, the ones yet to be discovered and only present in whole raw natural foods.
The modern puppy diet omits bones...
The omission of raw meaty bones from the diet of the modern dog is central to the formation of bone disease in pups. Because the modern pup does not eat bones it misses out on all the essential nutrients bones supply including its calcium in perfect balance and form, together with all the other minerals required for healthy bone formation in perfect balance and form.
The result is that the modern pup obtains it minerals in a totally inappropriate form. The modern pup also misses out on its eating exercise. This eating exercise is a vital component of the exercise regime designed to grow healthy disease free bones and joints.
The modern pup does not eat vegetables or fruit...
Instead it eats dry or tinned processed grains. Another complete disaster. The lack of crushed vegetables makes a monumental contribution to the production of degenerative disease in dogs, including problems such as Hip and Elbow Dysplasia. The modern pup does not eat the gut contents of a herbivore or anything like it. As a result it fails to receive a mass of essential nutrients so essential for its bowel and over-all health.
In today's world, special foods, 'designed for growth', have become part of the processed pet food industry. They say that the foods designed for growing animals must have more nutrients that support growth compared to diets designed to maintain a grown animal in good health. This contrasts with the BARF DIET where top quality whole food ingredients are used in all the diets. Common sense tells us that our dog's ancestors have grown and reproduced using the BARF diet without the benefit of special foods for several hundred thousand years. In other words, our dogs' ancestors have grown properly, survived and reproduced on the same basic foods, no matter what stage of life they were at. Think carefully. Which environment of diet do you want your dog in? The modern environment of biologically inappropriate dog food, excessive protein, excessive calories, fast growth rates, calcium supplements, excessive exercise and bone disease, or the time honored way which produces healthy longevity, abundant reproduction and brilliant health.
Feeding the Lactating pregnant dog
Feeding pups is the hardest job a mum can do. That is why a lactating pregnant dog, at peak lactation, with a large litter of pups...can eat as much as she wants! It is imperative that top quality food should be continually available. By top quality food, we are referring to a diet designed for the special requirements of a lactating pregnant dog.
The food for the lactating pregnant dog must have all the nutrients necessary for the repair and functioning of her body, plus all the necessary ingredients for producing high quality milk - in vast quantities. The food must also be very concentrated. Being a 'growth-type' of diet it must have high levels of energy, first class protein, first class fat, first class minerals, an abundant supply of vitamins, and be low in carbohydrates and unnecessary components. This is the lactation version of the BARF diet.
The whole aim is to provide as much milk forming food as possible so that she can easily care for her litter and not loose any condition herself. This means not a lot of change to the basic BARF diet, but will take into account...
• an adequate intake of liquids to make milk
• high levels of good quality protein
• a calcium rich balanced source of minerals
• a source of concentrated energy
• the B vitamins to help her use that energy
• essential fatty acids plus vitamin E to stabilize those essential fatty acids
• vitamin C to boost the immune system and help cope with the stress
• vitamin A for the health of her immune system and the internal lining of her mammary glands
The three basic foods for your lactating pregnant dog will be...
• raw meaty bones or BARF World's BARFMates — Meat and Bone Minces
• Dr. Billinghurst's BARF DIET™ Patties
• fortified milk mix
Raw meaty bones or BARF World's BARFMates — Meat and Bone Mince must form the basis of the lactation diet...
because they supply the minerals needed, including calcium and phosphorus. This is for her greatest health, best milk production and therefore for the pup's greatest health. High levels of protein are also essential for the production of milk. This means that other protein supplements are an excellent idea. Tripe, offal, eggs and cottage cheese are great sources of protein and can become part of the diet.
Feed the raw meaty bones either whole or minced along with Dr. Billinghurst's BARF DIET™ Patties as alternate meals. Give the fortified milk mix as the main source of fluid - if she will take her fluid this way.
The fortified milk mix
This formula consists of one cup or 250 ml of milk [preferably raw], one teasthingy of honey, one or two teasthingys of flax seed oil, one raw egg [or two egg yolks] - about 60 gm, and one or two junket [rennet] tablets plus multi-B and C vitamins - so long as this did not put her off drinking it. This is blended, brought to body temperature, and kept at body temperature for ten minutes to allow the junket tablet to work. Preferably, you will have tried this mix on her prior to whelping so you will know that she will drink it and that it does not cause digestive upset.
How much food and how often?
These two questions are really the same question. This is the one time in the life of your pregnant dog that she must be permitted to eat as much of this high quality food as she likes. There will be no harm done by letting her eat ad lib - as much as she likes, particularly if she has a big litter to support. A goal you have for your pregnant dog after the pups are born, is that she should have the same weight or perhaps a bit more than she had about the time she was mated. Your next aim for her is that she should maintain this weight by the time the pups are weaned. What this means is that she should not deplete her own body reserves during the period of lactation.
Newly made mothers can be difficult. There are no guarantees on what they will or will not want to eat and/or drink. You will need to be patient and be prepared to offer alternatives if one type of food is refused. After the first few days, it is usual for her appetite to return. Her demand for milk will peak at about week three and continue for one or two more weeks, by which time you will have begun to wean the puppies.
It is now generally agreed that the ancestor of the modern dog is the wolf. What is not clear is how long that domestication process has been going on. It may have been as short as 10,000 years or as long as 50,000 years, or possibly more. No matter how long it has been, that process of domestication where our ancestors removed the 'wildness' from the wolf, involved thousands of years of selective breeding. They took an animal that could well have seen them as food, and through selective breeding, produced an animal that became their best friend.
In this process, our ancestors produced hundreds of 'different looking wolves.' These various "breeds" - as we now know them - were and are developed for a particular task or tasks. Whether it was hunting for large prey, exterminating vermin, guarding, herding, being a companion or a foot warmer, each breed fulfilled a set of needs in the society in which it was developed.
The result is that each breed is not only different to look at, but also has a unique mind set which relates very much to the task(s) it was bred to perform. However, our dogs also retain many of their wolf-like characters, including their pack mentality. This includes the need to either lead or be led. Today, as we train our dogs, we need to be aware of both the unique mind set of our particular breed and the basic pack mentality, the wolf-like traits, which still dominate our dogs' thinking.
The point I am making in regard to this discussion is that to produce the dog,
our ancestors made only two basic changes to the wolf.
They changed the wolf's appearance and they changed its mind. What they did not change, was the basic internal workings or or physiology of the wolf. There was no need to. As a result, the basic workings or physiology of modern dogs is no different or very little different to their ancestor the wolf. Modern dogs grow and function (and malfunction) in very much the same way as the wolf.
To produce a fully functioning adult dog, our modern pup needs to grow in exactly the same way as the wolf pup. If we vary the food and the exercise too drastically, we will alter the finished product. We will produce damaged goods.
To be more specific...
The basic environment which the modern dog requires in terms of food and exercise is exactly the same as it was (and still is) for the wolf. So although we have carried out selective breeding to alter our dog's outward appearance and mind, we have not asked it to cope with, nor have we selectively bred it to deal with any dramatic change in feeding or exercising. Until now.
Think about how wolves have survived
They have had no vets to radiograph their hips and select sound breeding stock. There have been no progesterone tests prior to breeding, no ultrasound to detect pregnancy, no blood tests to ensure that health is perfect, no caesarians, no injections after giving birth, no worming, no extra calcium, no vaccinations or puppy checking, or treatment of problems.
There are no dog food companies out there supplying them with super premium foods. There is no one to make sure that their every meal is complete and balanced. There is no one to make sure they never eat egg whites. No one to protect them from eating bones. No one to cook their food and to make sure they do not contact dangerous bacteria such as E. Coli or Salmonella, and most especially no one to ensure they receive the correct ratio of calcium to phosphorus so that puppies will have perfect bone growth. All the wolves have is themselves.
In the case of the cat, which is an obligate carnivore and a hunter, the biologically appropriate diet is based largely upon animal derived foods. Basically, whatever nutrition can be derived from a whole fresh raw carcass – in its entirety – constitutes a biologically appropriate diet. In the case of the dog which is an omnivore, a hunter and a scavenger, the diet can be based on a wider range of whole raw foods of both animal and plant origin. Both species rely on bones as a major part of their diet for a variety of reasons including teeth cleaning and the myriad of benefits which flow from that together with the nutritional attributes of bones and their their psychological benefits.
Sheer Joy ...
"Eating bones for a dog is a joyous experience.
It is so enjoyed by dogs that it actually of itself boosts
their immune system"
The philosophy behind using BARF is that the diet a dog or cat evolved to eat - over many millions of years of evolution - is the best way to feed it. This is the hypothesis accepted by most modern zoos or any zoologist concerned with preserving a species of an endangered animal. It is not the theory endorsed by most pet food companies or the people they train - and that includes unfortunately - many vets. If you want to feed your dog BARF, it means not feeding your dog cooked and or processed food. That is, not feeding your dog a diet based on cooked grains, no matter how persuasive the advertising. Artificial grain based dog foods cause innumerable health problems. They are not what your dog was programed to eat during its long process of evolution.
A biologically appropriate diet for a dog is one that consists of raw whole foods similar to those eaten by the dogs' wild ancestors. The food fed must contain the same balance and type of ingredients as consumed by those wild ancestors. This food will include such things as muscle meat, bone, fat, organ meat and vegetable materials and any other "foods" that will mimic what those wild ancestors ate. Please note that modern dogs of any breed are not only capable of eating the food of their wild ancestors, but actually require it for maximum health. This is because their basic physiology has changed very little with domestication despite obvious and dramatic changes in their current physical appearance and mindset.
BARF Mimics the evolutionary diet of Dogs
The BARF diet must, from a practical point of view, use food that is readily available. BARF feeders do not have to go hunting or send their dogs out to hunt. That is why I said BARF must mimic, not duplicate the evolutionary diet of dogs. This is an important distinction. The BARF feeder will MIMIC as closely as possible rather than duplicate the NATURAL diet of the dog. We are not trying to return our dogs to nature. It is impossible to feed any domestic animal its natural diet, let alone allow it to live under natural conditions. The natural diet and natural conditions under which the ancestors or wild cousins of our dogs live include grave dangers such as lack of shelter, starvation, attack by potential food, attack by other predators and the non use of medical intervention. In other words, natural diets and natural conditions can be deadly! They are not what we want for our pets. What we want for our dogs is a diet and an environment that maximizes health. That means a Biologically Appropriate Diet rather than a natural diet.
This is my favorite use of the term BARF - Biologically Appropriate Raw Food.
Next to your love and attention, proper nutrition is the most important thing
you can give your puppy!
Most new puppy owners seem to know this by instinct. That is why they ask their vet questions like "What is the best food to feed my puppy? How often should my puppy be fed? Should I feed bones to my puppy? If so what sort? What about calcium? What about food scraps?" People with new puppies do not only ask vets of course. They seek and are given advice from breeders, pet shop owners, advertisements on television and from books and magazines. With so many sources of information, it's not surprising that so many people are unsure about feeding dogs, particularly puppies.
Who Should You Believe?
The answer to this is very simple. To get the answers you need, you have to ask the pup itself! By understanding what puppies eat in the wild, you will learn valuable clues as to what you should be feeding your domestic pup. You will find out exactly what the digestive system of a puppy is programed to eat by centuries of evolution.
By looking at young wolves growing up we are actually observing our young pup's ancestors. If we couple that with modern scientific discoveries about diet, health and aging, we are able to produce a realistic, health promoting, evolutionary puppy diet. From studying the eating habits of wolf cubs which are seen to be perpetually hungry, subsisting on raw food consisting mostly of bones and being forced to scavenge a wide variety of foods, we get vital clues about successful puppy raising.
• The bulk of a puppy's diet should consist of raw meaty bones
• All or most of the rest of their food should also be raw
• Puppies should always be kept a little hungry
• They should never grow at their maximum growth rate
• They should be kept slim, lean and hard. Not roly poly, fat, young puppies
• Puppies should learn to eat everything
When we consider how wolves/dogs were raised in the 'pre-pet-food' era and compare that to our modern methods of husbandry, we can only conclude that the changes we have made to feeding and exercising have indeed been dramatic, and that their effects on puppy growth have been traumatic. The degree to which modern dogs experience ill health reflects the degree to which they are subjected to biologically inappropriate methods of feeding and exercising. Let's look at those biologically inappropriate forms of puppy management so rife today.
All the food a modern pup eats is cooked...
For the first time in its evolutionary history we are asking our dogs to eat nothing but cooked food. This is biologically unacceptable and a very dramatic change. It is most often processed food, usually either canned or dry food. The cooking process destroys many of the life enhancing factors found only in raw food. These include enzymes, many natural antioxidants and other anti-degeneration factors.
All the food a modern pup eats is based on cooked grain ...
The vast majority of the food eaten by the modern dog is composed of cooked grain as the most fundamental and major component of the diet. Another dramatic and biologically unacceptable change. Dogs have never in their evolutionary history eaten cooked grain. The results on health are devastating.
Meat meal and rendered fat come next...
The cooked grain is teamed up with meat meal (with its damaged protein) and rendered fat. It is not uncommon to use rendered fat from domestic animals in pet food - and there are reports that this is happening - together with flea collars and other dangerous chemicals such as the euthanasia solution in some of these deceased and rendered pets.
Aside from the dangerous chemicals it contains, that rendered fat contrasts strongly with the healthy fat so full of essential fatty acids that our dog's ancestors ate. These heat destroyed components are biologically unacceptable. They do not support healthy growth. They do not support a healthy life or contribute to a healthy old age. The meat meal bears very little relationship to the healthy raw meat eaten by a wild dog.
Now add the chemicals...
Add loads of refined sugar, loads of salt, chemical colorings - dyes, to make the product look like something it is not. Add artificial chemical flavorings to make it taste like something it is not. Add flavor enhancers to make sure the animal eats something it ought not to. Add chemical antioxidants (known carcinogens) to ensure the product does not become obviously rancid.
Now add the legally required nutrients...
These are the currently known to be essential vitamins and minerals. The legal constraints on commercial pet foods do not require them to include vitally important biologically essential antioxidants and anti-degeneration factors present only in whole raw food. As a result, these products do not contain many of the essential factors we do know about such as enzymes, nor do they contain many of the essential factors we don't yet know about, the ones yet to be discovered and only present in whole raw natural foods.
The modern puppy diet omits bones...
The omission of raw meaty bones from the diet of the modern dog is central to the formation of bone disease in pups. Because the modern pup does not eat bones it misses out on all the essential nutrients bones supply including its calcium in perfect balance and form, together with all the other minerals required for healthy bone formation in perfect balance and form.
The result is that the modern pup obtains it minerals in a totally inappropriate form. The modern pup also misses out on its eating exercise. This eating exercise is a vital component of the exercise regime designed to grow healthy disease free bones and joints.
The modern pup does not eat vegetables or fruit...
Instead it eats dry or tinned processed grains. Another complete disaster. The lack of crushed vegetables makes a monumental contribution to the production of degenerative disease in dogs, including problems such as Hip and Elbow Dysplasia. The modern pup does not eat the gut contents of a herbivore or anything like it. As a result it fails to receive a mass of essential nutrients so essential for its bowel and over-all health.
In today's world, special foods, 'designed for growth', have become part of the processed pet food industry. They say that the foods designed for growing animals must have more nutrients that support growth compared to diets designed to maintain a grown animal in good health. This contrasts with the BARF DIET where top quality whole food ingredients are used in all the diets. Common sense tells us that our dog's ancestors have grown and reproduced using the BARF diet without the benefit of special foods for several hundred thousand years. In other words, our dogs' ancestors have grown properly, survived and reproduced on the same basic foods, no matter what stage of life they were at. Think carefully. Which environment of diet do you want your dog in? The modern environment of biologically inappropriate dog food, excessive protein, excessive calories, fast growth rates, calcium supplements, excessive exercise and bone disease, or the time honored way which produces healthy longevity, abundant reproduction and brilliant health.
Feeding the Lactating pregnant dog
Feeding pups is the hardest job a mum can do. That is why a lactating pregnant dog, at peak lactation, with a large litter of pups...can eat as much as she wants! It is imperative that top quality food should be continually available. By top quality food, we are referring to a diet designed for the special requirements of a lactating pregnant dog.
The food for the lactating pregnant dog must have all the nutrients necessary for the repair and functioning of her body, plus all the necessary ingredients for producing high quality milk - in vast quantities. The food must also be very concentrated. Being a 'growth-type' of diet it must have high levels of energy, first class protein, first class fat, first class minerals, an abundant supply of vitamins, and be low in carbohydrates and unnecessary components. This is the lactation version of the BARF diet.
The whole aim is to provide as much milk forming food as possible so that she can easily care for her litter and not loose any condition herself. This means not a lot of change to the basic BARF diet, but will take into account...
• an adequate intake of liquids to make milk
• high levels of good quality protein
• a calcium rich balanced source of minerals
• a source of concentrated energy
• the B vitamins to help her use that energy
• essential fatty acids plus vitamin E to stabilize those essential fatty acids
• vitamin C to boost the immune system and help cope with the stress
• vitamin A for the health of her immune system and the internal lining of her mammary glands
The three basic foods for your lactating pregnant dog will be...
• raw meaty bones or BARF World's BARFMates — Meat and Bone Minces
• Dr. Billinghurst's BARF DIET™ Patties
• fortified milk mix
Raw meaty bones or BARF World's BARFMates — Meat and Bone Mince must form the basis of the lactation diet...
because they supply the minerals needed, including calcium and phosphorus. This is for her greatest health, best milk production and therefore for the pup's greatest health. High levels of protein are also essential for the production of milk. This means that other protein supplements are an excellent idea. Tripe, offal, eggs and cottage cheese are great sources of protein and can become part of the diet.
Feed the raw meaty bones either whole or minced along with Dr. Billinghurst's BARF DIET™ Patties as alternate meals. Give the fortified milk mix as the main source of fluid - if she will take her fluid this way.
The fortified milk mix
This formula consists of one cup or 250 ml of milk [preferably raw], one teasthingy of honey, one or two teasthingys of flax seed oil, one raw egg [or two egg yolks] - about 60 gm, and one or two junket [rennet] tablets plus multi-B and C vitamins - so long as this did not put her off drinking it. This is blended, brought to body temperature, and kept at body temperature for ten minutes to allow the junket tablet to work. Preferably, you will have tried this mix on her prior to whelping so you will know that she will drink it and that it does not cause digestive upset.
How much food and how often?
These two questions are really the same question. This is the one time in the life of your pregnant dog that she must be permitted to eat as much of this high quality food as she likes. There will be no harm done by letting her eat ad lib - as much as she likes, particularly if she has a big litter to support. A goal you have for your pregnant dog after the pups are born, is that she should have the same weight or perhaps a bit more than she had about the time she was mated. Your next aim for her is that she should maintain this weight by the time the pups are weaned. What this means is that she should not deplete her own body reserves during the period of lactation.
Newly made mothers can be difficult. There are no guarantees on what they will or will not want to eat and/or drink. You will need to be patient and be prepared to offer alternatives if one type of food is refused. After the first few days, it is usual for her appetite to return. Her demand for milk will peak at about week three and continue for one or two more weeks, by which time you will have begun to wean the puppies.
It is now generally agreed that the ancestor of the modern dog is the wolf. What is not clear is how long that domestication process has been going on. It may have been as short as 10,000 years or as long as 50,000 years, or possibly more. No matter how long it has been, that process of domestication where our ancestors removed the 'wildness' from the wolf, involved thousands of years of selective breeding. They took an animal that could well have seen them as food, and through selective breeding, produced an animal that became their best friend.
In this process, our ancestors produced hundreds of 'different looking wolves.' These various "breeds" - as we now know them - were and are developed for a particular task or tasks. Whether it was hunting for large prey, exterminating vermin, guarding, herding, being a companion or a foot warmer, each breed fulfilled a set of needs in the society in which it was developed.
The result is that each breed is not only different to look at, but also has a unique mind set which relates very much to the task(s) it was bred to perform. However, our dogs also retain many of their wolf-like characters, including their pack mentality. This includes the need to either lead or be led. Today, as we train our dogs, we need to be aware of both the unique mind set of our particular breed and the basic pack mentality, the wolf-like traits, which still dominate our dogs' thinking.
The point I am making in regard to this discussion is that to produce the dog,
our ancestors made only two basic changes to the wolf.
They changed the wolf's appearance and they changed its mind. What they did not change, was the basic internal workings or or physiology of the wolf. There was no need to. As a result, the basic workings or physiology of modern dogs is no different or very little different to their ancestor the wolf. Modern dogs grow and function (and malfunction) in very much the same way as the wolf.
To produce a fully functioning adult dog, our modern pup needs to grow in exactly the same way as the wolf pup. If we vary the food and the exercise too drastically, we will alter the finished product. We will produce damaged goods.
To be more specific...
The basic environment which the modern dog requires in terms of food and exercise is exactly the same as it was (and still is) for the wolf. So although we have carried out selective breeding to alter our dog's outward appearance and mind, we have not asked it to cope with, nor have we selectively bred it to deal with any dramatic change in feeding or exercising. Until now.
Think about how wolves have survived
They have had no vets to radiograph their hips and select sound breeding stock. There have been no progesterone tests prior to breeding, no ultrasound to detect pregnancy, no blood tests to ensure that health is perfect, no caesarians, no injections after giving birth, no worming, no extra calcium, no vaccinations or puppy checking, or treatment of problems.
There are no dog food companies out there supplying them with super premium foods. There is no one to make sure that their every meal is complete and balanced. There is no one to make sure they never eat egg whites. No one to protect them from eating bones. No one to cook their food and to make sure they do not contact dangerous bacteria such as E. Coli or Salmonella, and most especially no one to ensure they receive the correct ratio of calcium to phosphorus so that puppies will have perfect bone growth. All the wolves have is themselves.
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