Dr. Pitcairn's Complete Guide to Natural Health for Dogs and Cats (11 page)

Biscuits

Homemade biscuits are another great treat for pets. If you don’t have the time to make your own, look for the additive-free commercially made biscuits that are found in many health food stores. Read the labels carefully and watch out for meat meal and meat by-products, sugar (sucrose), and any artificial colors, flavorings, and preservatives.

By including some hard foods in the diet, such as biscuits, bones, or even whole carrots, you provide your pet with a good way to exercise and clean its teeth and gums.

Fruit

Many dogs have a sweet tooth, and they enjoy an occasional piece of fruit as a snack. They like dried fruits such as figs, dates, prunes, and apricots, as well as fresh fruits like apples, bananas, and berries. Like vegetables, fruits are great storehouses of vitamins, minerals, and vital energy. (There have been a few reports of grapes and raisins making some dogs sick, so avoid them.) For best digestion, feed such foods apart from the regular mealtime. Dried fruits are especially good natural sources of potassium, an important mineral that can sometimes be in short supply; other good sources are bananas, peanuts, potatoes, and tomato sauce. Dates are extremely rich in folic acid, an important B vitamin.

Nuts and Seeds

We don’t include nuts and seeds in our recipes because they are often expensive and contain more fat than protein. I have, however, heard a few reports of healthy dogs that have eaten no form of concentrated protein other than nuts for many years. One of my clients gives his dog peanut butter sandwiches as a snack when they go on picnics. If you do use peanut butter,
make sure it is organic
. Peanuts are very heavily treated with chemicals, more than other crops.

Nuts and seeds are best digested raw, either when made into a nut butter or when finely ground. Now and then, you can include some in your pet’s diet in place of fatty meats, if you like.

Veggie Burgers

Have you ever tried any of the meat-substitute burgers made especially for vegetarians? Many of them are quite delicious, and we’ve found that a lot of pets think so too. We discovered this one day when our cat was going through a period of “finicky-ness,” turning up his nose at what seemed to us like a perfectly acceptable rendition of what he usually eats. (Maybe “usual” was the problem and he just wanted a little more variety.)

In any case, when we decided to share a little of the veggie “burger” we were eating, he snarfed it up in nothing flat. We pulled another one out of the freezer, popped it in the toaster, and he demolished it as well. We knew we were on to something, and since then, we’ve found these make excellent taste-tempters, both for mixing in with his usual fare and for an occasional meal in itself.

Not all meatless burgers are created equal, however. The tastiest ones seem to be those that incorporate some dairy products and that aren’t too heavy on the soybeans or tempeh (a soybean product).

If your cat or small dog relishes them, you may even be tempted to feed meatless burgers as a major part of its diet; they are convenient and often use organic ingredients. However, we wouldn’t recommend using them for more than, say, a third of the diet. We don’t have any way to know how well their nutritional content meets the special needs of dogs and cats. Nor do we know how much calcium, vitamin A, taurine, and so on to add to make any needed adjustments. Cats especially need meat in their diet, and it is difficult to supply what they need if vegetable sources make up much of the diet. We’d advise 1⁄8-to ¼-teaspoon bone meal per burger when you do serve it. Crumble up the burger and mix in the powder.

Flavorings

Nutritional yeast and other items in our recommended nutritional supplements section (see
Supplements
) also serve to add flavor to food. In addition, you can experiment with moderate amounts of the following flavorings: tamari (naturally brewed soy sauce), miso, tomato sauce, butter, garlic, mild chili powder, natural broth powders, and herbed sea salt mixtures. Broken-up corn chips (saltless and organic, if you can get them) coated with brewer’s yeast are also a hit with many pets. Just don’t get carried away! Look to your animal for preferences. It’s interesting that dogs, given a choice, usually prefer unsalted food. It appears that they have some natural good food sense, doesn’t it?

Garlic

Not only is garlic tasty to many pets, it also helps to tone up the digestive tract and discourage worms and other parasites, including fleas. Garlic is particularly potent when it’s added fresh. Besides crushing a clove or two directly into a recipe, there’s a tasty condiment you can add to your pet’s daily fare as you serve it. Simply crush a clove of garlic into a small amount of tamari soy sauce. Let it sit about ten minutes, then remove the garlic. Use about 1⁄8 teaspoon to each cup of food.

Yeast Sprinkle

Besides the yeast that is included in the
Healthy Power supplement
, many animals love to have a little yeast sprinkled on top of their meals, much the way we enjoy a little parmesan cheese on top of pasta. Large-flake torula (nutritional) yeast is one of the best flavored, though it is increasingly difficult to find. If you cannot locate some, then use brewer’s yeast, which is almost the same. If you use yeast often, mix some up in a jar with a little powdered calcium supplement for optimal calcium/phosphorus balance. If your pet likes garlic, you can also add a little in powdered form.

Here’s the formula: one cup nutritional yeast plus 3,000 mg elemental calcium (such
as provided by Animal Essentials Calcium Supplement). Add to this one to four teaspoons unsalted garlic powder (optional). Mix well and sprinkle on top of the food to be served. It will entice many finicky animals, especially cats.

If this is too much trouble, you can use yeast alone as a flavoring agent. As long as only a small amount is used, the balance of minerals will not be significantly affected.

A note on yeast and allergies:
Some people say that yeast should not be used as food for animals because it may cause allergies. I can only report that my experience is to the contrary. I find that yeast is an excellent food without any side effects. Granted, an occasional animal may be allergic to yeast, as to any commonly used food, but it does not
cause
allergies. I find that pets are most often allergic to foods like beef, chicken, corn, and soy. These foods are not causing the allergies; rather, it is the allergic animal that becomes sensitive to what it usually eats. That is why it often helps to change a diet from beef to lamb, for example, which relieves the symptoms—at least until they become sensitive to the new ingredients!

SUPPLEMENTS

In addition to the basic natural food groups mentioned earlier, I always recommend including several nutrition-packed food supplements—such as bone meal, nutritional or brewer’s yeast, lecithin, kelp, vegetable oil, and several vitamins—in the diet. The purpose of these supplements is to fortify the diet with plenty of important vitamins and minerals. Unfortunately, these nutrients are often inadequately represented even in fresh foods today because of loss during storage and cooking, soil depletion, and forced-growing methods.

Even the complication of acid rain has been causing a decrease in the ability of plants to take up essential minerals from the soil. The problem is this: minerals are slowly released from the rocks and clays that make up soil. Then the plants take up the minerals, dependent on how acid or alkaline the soil is. If the soil is too acidic, the plants can’t “grab” it. Thus, the long-term effect of acid rain is lowered mineral content of plant foods.

Another factor is that even under the best of conditions, it takes time for the plant to absorb the minerals. Under modern conditions, in which artificial fertilizers are used to accelerate the growth of plants, the time for mineral absorption is less, which leads to low mineral levels. Of course these two factors work together, and the net result is less mineral content with time. The Earth Summit Report of 1992 revealed that North American farm and range soils had been depleted of over 85 percent of their minerals.

For animals that are not in the best of health, mineral supplements are an essential part of the diet. Another reason I recommend supplements is to balance the ingredients of the recipes given in this book so that they meet the nutritional standards for dogs and cats for such important nutrients as calcium,
iron, linoleic acid, vitamin A, and the B vitamins set by the Association of American Feed Control Officials. So don’t think of supplements as something optional. They are an integral part of each recipe (unless noted otherwise).

The basic supplements described below are usually included in each recipe. Following is a summary of the purpose of each supplement, as well as various supply sources, and instructions for preparing the supplement for inclusion in the diet.

C
ALCIUM
S
UPPLEMENT

Some supplemental source of calcium is an essential ingredient in every recipe. Also, every recipe should have a proper calcium/phosphorus ratio. Though there is a wide range of what can support health, it is optimal if the ratio of calcium/phosphorus for dogs is between 1.2 and 1.4 parts calcium to 1 part phosphorus—thus, a little more calcium than phosphorus in the diet. Cats do better with a ratio of 1 part calcium to 1 part phosphorus.

I hasten to add that there is considerable flexibility in this. Most animals will do just fine with a wide range from 1 to 2 parts calcium to 1 part phosphorus. The actual amounts in food prepared is difficult to determine exactly. Generally, the minerals from bones or pure calcium sources are readily absorbed by the body, while those from plant sources may be less digestible. For example, only about 30 percent of the phosphorus in grains is available to the body. The recipes in the next chapter are calculated to include the minerals in the foodstuffs as well as what is added from bone meal, with the assumption that most will be absorbable.

Here are some ways to add this calcium.

Bone Meal

Buy the powdered bone meal that is sold for supplementation of animals. You can use that sold in natural food stores for human use but it will be less convenient and more expensive. The quality is the same—that is, not from U.S. livestock—and the advantage of the animal products is the availability in powder form to add to the food. These products come from purer sources than the bone meal sold in garden-supply departments—which is never to be used as a food.

Bone meal is the most natural calcium source for carnivores and provides many trace minerals. It is also a convenient, easy to use, and very concentrated form of calcium. It contains phosphorus as well as calcium, but in the recommended amounts there is plenty of extra calcium to balance out the phosphorus. Bone meal is the best choice when feeding large dogs, especially those with bone problems or signs of hip dysplasia. There are several brands available, and they vary somewhat in calcium concentration. See the
Table of Calcium Supplementation Products
.

Seaweed

Animal Essentials has provided a form of calcium derived from seaweed growing off the coast of Ireland. It is a very pure form of calcium
and has the advantage of not coming from an animal source. It also provides many excellent trace minerals.

Di-calcium Phosphate

For those people who prefer not to use animal products but who want a higher combined amount of calcium and phosphorus in the diet than provided by a calcium product alone, substitute di-calcium phosphate for bone meal. This product is sometimes available in pet stores or in natural food stores. You should use about two-thirds the amount stated for bone meal in any recipe.

Calcium Tablets or Powder

Each recipe gives a suggested dose of calcium, expressed in milligrams. Unlike bone meal, this choice provides no additional phosphorus, which means less total calcium is needed to balance the total amount of phosphorus already available in the recipe.

You can supply “plain” calcium as calcium carbonate, chelated calcium, calcium gluconate, or calcium lactate. Except for the calcium carbonate, these are also considered the most assimilated forms of calcium. Avoid products that also contain phosphorus or magnesium.

Look on the label to see how much powder or how many tablets you must use to equal the milligrams of calcium called for in a recipe. If you buy tablets, use a blender, mortar and pestle, or pill crusher to grind them to a powder before mixing into the food. The easiest form to use is the pure powder from
Animal Essentials
.

Eggshell Powder

This is the cheapest route, because you can make the supplement yourself from egg shells, which are very high in calcium carbonate. Here’s how to make eggshell powder. Wash the eggshells right after cracking and let them dry until you have accumulated a dozen or so. (Each whole eggshell makes about a teaspoon of powder, which equals about 1,800 milligrams of calcium.) Then bake at 300°F for about ten minutes. This removes a mineral-oil coating sometimes added to keep eggs from drying out. It also makes the shells dry and brittle enough to grind to a fine powder with a nut and seed grinder, blender, or mortar and pestle. Grind well enough to eliminate sharp, gritty pieces.