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| Please Note: This website is not the official website of the Flint River Ranch Company. This site is owned and operated by FRR Independent Distributors ID#DZQ4 and 101013603. Any pricing and policies, including discounts, claims and contributions to American Brittany Rescue, may not necessarily be those of the Flint River Ranch Company and are supported by the distributor who owns and operates this site. If you are already a customer of Flint River Ranch and this is not your original distributor or their website, you should contact your original distributor or Flint River Ranch company at (800) 354-6858 to place your order. |
Do you know what you are feeding your pet?
| Poor quality pet foods are common in grocery stores and even in specialty
pet supply stores. They may be tempting to purchase because of the
inexpensive price tag for what claims to be a "premium" pet food on the label,
but what is really contained in your pet's food may surprise you.
The use of by-products in pet food is common practice, even among prescription diets such as Hill's Science Diet foods and perceived premium brands such as Iams and Purina "Beneful". By-products may include connective tissue, beaks and bones, all of which have lower nutritional value and more "filler". If the ingredient list says "meat by-product meal", that can mean that it contains meat, bones, and other assorted parts of ANY animal (excluding fur and teeth, except as may "reasonably" be expected during manufacturing). In the worst case, this can mean DOGS and CATS that were euthanized and then sold as a source of "protein" are included in your pet's food. In February 1990, San Francisco Chronicle writer John Eckhouse published an exposé titled "How Dogs and Cats Get Recycled into Pet Food" that disturbed many people with its detailed accounts of this practice. While this may not be a universal problem, it is worth avoiding foods that contain by-products and don't specify the type fo meat used. Another problem with the meat and grain used in most pet food is that they are not approved for human consumption. That means that the ingredients in pet food are what was rejected from the human food stream for various reasons. Meat is often rejected because the animals were already dead/dying/diseased/disabled (the 4 D's). Grains can have mold or other contamination. So your brand of dog food may contain chicken meal or lamb meal as the main ingredient, but if the animals from which the meat was taken were deemed unfit for human consumption, do you really want to feed it to your pet? Finally, many brands of pet food still use BHA, BHT, or ethoxyquin as preservatives to give the food a long shelf life. Ethoxyquin is actually classified as a pesticide by the EPA, so why would we feed it to our pets? Although there have not been any conclusive studies done, many breeders and vets believe that the accumulation of these chemicals over a dog's lifetime contributes to cancer and other illnesses that are so prevalent in pets today. You can avoid all of these detrimental ingredients by feeding a premium pet food that contains only human-quality ingredients and lists specific sources of protein and no by-products. The food should be naturally preserved with Vitamin E (often listed as "Mixed Tocopherols") and/or Vitamin C. Flint River Ranch manufactures a line of premium pet foods that meet and exceed these standards. Their formulas contain no corn or soy, which are poorly digested by dogs. The food is oven-baked to improve digestability so more nutrients are available from less quantity of food. Some formulas contain additional digestive enzymes and probiotics which promote digestive health. The quality of Flint River Ranch Pet Food can be seen in the improvement of your pet's coat, skin, energy level, and overall health. -Katharine Knappenberger, Independent Distributor# DZQ4 Note: This article may be reprinted and distributed only with my permission. Please contact me if you wish to share this article with others. I can provide a printer-friendly Word document for this purpose. |
BONES AND RAW FOOD
An alternative to commercially available dog foods is home-prepared meals of either cooked or raw foods or some combination of the two. DO NOT FEED YOUR DOG COOKED BONES AS THEY CAN SPLINTER AND CAUSE INJURY TO YOUR DOG. You can supplement your dog's diet with RAW chicken wings, RAW beef marrow bones, RAW chicken/turkey necks, livers, gizzards, hearts, etc. Most dogs can handle much more bacteria in their food than people can since their digestive tracts are much shorter. Sometimes I mix RAW ground Turkey with cooked or raw vegetables and rice. If you decide to feed an entirely natural/raw diet, though be sure to do your homework to get the balance right and don't forget to give a multivitamin and flax oil or other oil supplement since many dogs won't get enough from their food unless you include fish in their diet. There are several schools of thought when it comes to raw diets and I have done some reading on several of them and have also discussed them with other dog people, including breeders and trainers.
There are also some arguments against feeding a raw diet, so be sure to check out both sides of the story before you decide what's best for your dog. See the links below.
The following books and links provide information about raw diets:
 |
 The Holistic Guide
for a Healthy Dog, Wendy Volhard and Kerry Brown (new edition
June 2000).
I have found Wendy Volhard's regimen of supplementing my dog's diet very useful. She clearly presents the scientific background for each of the components necessary for a complete nutrition including dietary supplements of vitamins, minerals, and enzymes, plus lots of information on homeopathic remedies. I have a tough time believing the chapter on Kinesiology, but otherwise this book provides a thorough, well-researched introduction to natural nutrition. |
|
Dr. Pitcairn's
Complete Guide to Natural Health for Dogs and Cats, Dr. Richard
Pitcairn and Susan Pitcairn. |
 |
Natural Nutrition
for Dogs and Cats - The Ultimate Pet Diet, Kymythe
Schultz.
This book provides some basic information about feeding a raw diet without the sweeping allegations made by Dr. Billinghurst (see below). The dietary recommendations are very similar to Billinghurst's at a fraction of the cost of the book. However, she does not provide the extensive background as Wendy Volhard does in her book. This is a good place to start, though. |
 |
Give Your Dog A
Bone, Dr. Ian Billinghurst. (Available from the
Dogwise
pet books catalog).
I have read portions of this book and had difficulty staying with it, particularly because the author makes broad generalizations about the faults of commercial dog foods without providing scientific evidence to prove his points. The diet he proposes also seems much less thoroughly researched than Volhard's, although his theory that dogs in the wild ate mostly raw, meaty bones does seem attractive as the reason that dogs should not eat exclusively commercially prepared dog food. |
 |
Canine Nutrition:
Choosing the Best Food for Your Breed of Dog, William D.
Cusick.
This book presents information on which sources of nutrients are best for different breeds of dogs, and for a fee Bill will prepare a custom recipe for your dog. He focuses mainly on cooked foods, as opposed to the other books listed here which all recommend feeding raw diets. Visit Bill Cusick's Website at: http://home.att.net/~wdcusick/ |
| B-Naturals herbal supplements | An Argument against Raw Food for Dogs |
| Information about alternative Veterinary Medicine | Information on Kibble Ingredients |
| Preservative-Free Dog Foods (at Earl Wolfe's Site) | Articles about Natural Nutrition and Holistic Vets |
| US Animal Nutritionals Supplements
|
Information about Canine Epilepsy |
| PHD Products sells the dietary supplements recommended by Wendy Volhard in her book (above). Plus they have lots of valuable information on dog nutrition. |
Katharine Knappenberger - FRR Independent Distributor #DZQ4
Greg Knappenberger - FRR Independent Distributor #101013603
kathy@healthydogfood.com *
greg@healthydogfood.com
Phone: 302-235-7012 * Wilmington, DE
Pawprint Graphics Provided
By:Fuzzy Faces Free Doggy
Graphics
Copyright 1999-2006 Katharine Knappenberger.
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