I used to feed my doggy poison. :D

[IAmLink]

Yea I was actually reading something online about dog food. Basically they described Benful and Ol' Roy as feeding your dog twinkies everyday for it's entire life. Can you imagine that??

[Bad Habit]

What are people's thoughts on feeding dogs organ meat? I've done some research and come up with mixed reviews, some saying they're too high in cholesterol to be healthy, others saying it is an essential part of a dog's diet.

[IAmLink]

What do you feed? Kibble or is your dog on a raw diet?

If you feed a raw diet, organ meat is essential to have a healthy diet. Liver should make up 50% of the organs that you feed and the rest should be other organs; kidney, spleen, lung, etc... Organs should also make up 10% of a raw diet.

Some people also do a half raw half kibble diet. The same rules apply. You can add just organs to an all kibble diet, but if you're going to do that it's probably best to add other kinds of raw meat...

[Darkest.Nation]

No prob. (:

[.yuanfen]

Wait, but I read somewhere once that too much liver for your dog can cause it to have issues with too much vitamin A...

[IAmLink]

Wait, but I read somewhere once that too much liver for your dog can cause it to have issues with too much vitamin A...

Liver is essential, but they don't need much of it. Sorry if my other post was confusing, but basically liver should make up 5% of the WHOLE diet in a raw diet and it should also be 50% of all ORGANS. So really, it's not that much at all. But it still is very important in nutrition.

[.yuanfen]

Thanks, Atwood!

Alright, thank you for clearing that up ^^ Then it's ok...That's good

[Bad Habit]

He's on TOTW supplimented with what we call "dog soup". Basically it's a home made wet food deal. Bones boiled for marrow/stock, various meats, some rice, potato and carrot puree to thicken it and give it a rich consistency. There's some other stuff in there, but mainly that's the bulk of it. Everything is whole food, prepared by me, so I can control exactly what my dog is eating. He has issues keeping his body weight up, even on free choice kibbles, so this mixture gets him to eat. I make the soup in bulk, and freeze it. I'm about to make another batch, and have beef kidney and beef heart set aside, as well as some other meat. I was told that organ meat is high in cholesterol and that I should avoid giving it to my dog, and can't find definitively online if that's true or not. I suppose I could call my vet, but I hate to bother her with something so mundane.

[IAmLink]

Like you, that's why I love to feed raw; I can completely control what my dog eats.

Anyway, adding organs should be fine. Just keep the amount low...too much can be harmful, as with anything.

Oh and, by the way, when it comes to feeding dogs, heart is considered meat not organ. The rule for organs when feeding to a dog is that it should secrete. Heart does not do that so, even if you decide not to add organs, you can still add heart.

[Bad Habit]

Yeah, I guess that makes sense, the heart is a muscle. Guess that means he's just getting some kidney in this batch, unless I pick up some liver. Most of his weight issues are related to him having issues chewing due to his underbite. I used to feed him commercial wet food, but that had a tendency to make him fat, so we've switched to whole foods. I don't want to call it raw feeding, because nothing he gets is actually raw, I cook it all. Raw meats give him an upset tummy.

I add blueberries for the antioxidant properties, garlic for the flea prevention, carrots as a natural dewormer, and rabbit food to provide easy to break down vegetation.