Can I feed ground meat to my dog?

Yes, you can, with some qualifiers.

You must grind the entire piece of meat including the bones, tendons, skin etc. If you have a whole chicken, add in the neck, and organ meats. Think wild, think what a wolf would consume. They would eat the whole bird.

It is impossible to find ground meat in the market with all the aforementioned parts ground into it. So to accomplish your goal you must buy a meat grinders. Not all meat grinders are created equal, and many are not up to the unusual task of grinding the bones along with the meat.

In fact, some grinders are designed to break a plastic gear if they encounter a bone. This is done to save the motor from burning up if the shaft is held still by a bone. Once such grinder is the Maverick grinder.

But the Maverick is such a powerful little grinder that it eats right through chicken bones if you have whacked the chicken pieces with a cleaver to break up the knobby ends and really hard pieces. It can also munch through a rabbit with the same preparation. I ground with a Maverick for years and never had the little plastic gear break from bone grinding. This is not to say it could not happen. However, it is a good idea to purchase a spare plastic gear, just in case.

Because I now grind for more than one dog, and also sell my ground dog mince, I moved up to a faster, more powerful grinder from Cabela. Though I purchased the smaller of their commercial grade grinders, it is more than powerful enough to grind chicken parts without first pounding them a cleaver. This saves me much time and energy. The Cabela grinder is also fast, which allows me to be able to make more mince for more clients. It really streamlined my grinding process.

Of course with the extra power and speed comes extra expense. If you want a good little grinder for around a hundred bucks, the Maverick is still a good bet. I noticed Cabela's has a smaller non-commercial grade grinder. Anyone out there tried that one for bone grinding dog food?

Notes on using the Maverick, or any smaller grinder: You must cut up the chicken, then pound the knuckles so you break them open. Also bust up any larger bones. You don't have to remove the meat, just smack the bones and crack them so the grinder can handle them as they go through the right angle in the grinding neck. Make strips out of the back and breast etc so it will fit down the throat of the grinder. Be sure to include the neck and organ meats with the mix. If the chicken does not come with organ meats, buy them separately and add them. They are a vital part of a complete diet.

A closer Look at the BARF Diet Part 1

Much has been debated on the BARF Diet for Dogs. Even among those who feel this is the perfect canine diet, there are vast differences of opinion as to portion size, frequency of feeding, and ingredients.

This makes perfect sense to me because there are no two dogs alike. What works perfectly for one dog may not work for another. A close relationship to your companion helps a great deal when sorting out the options. If you know your dog, you will be able to see which foods work best and which cause problems.

Central to this diet is the concept of food rotation. This is the practice of moving various foods in and out of the diet, so that no food makes a constant appearance in the diet.

Often the Protein Source is rotated to avoid overexposure to one protein, such as chicken. Some people feel this lessens the likelihood of an allergy developing to that protein.
The additional ingredients, the plant based foods are also rotated for the same reasons of allergy avoidance. However they also rotate in order to include the widest variety of vitamins and minerals offered by a diverse diet.

As mentioned, there is no solid rule regarding how much of what and when. That said, I will offer an example of what I feel is commonly accepted as a healthy ratio of foods.

• Raw Meaty Bones (RMB) about 65-75% of diet
• Vegetables, fruit, plant matter 15-25% of diet
• Offal (organ meats) about 10%

Meat and Bones: Use whole bones with meat when possible, such as chicken legs, wings etc. NEVER COOK BONES.

Plant Edibles: All vegetables, and fruits must be ground, pulped, or otherwise finely grated or minced. If you use a juicer, return the pulp to the mix before feeding. It adds fiber. Use more vegetables and less fruits. Overripe fruit is best.

Offal: Include a variety of organ meats. Remember that hearts are actually muscle. Use livers, gizzards, kidneys etc to make up offal mix. Keep it rotating.

The diet does not have to be balanced every day. The goal is to provide a balanced diet overall. For example, some people achieve 10% offal in the diet by feeding a day of ONLY Offal every 10 days, and putting zero offal in on the other 9 days.

Chose meaty raw bones that fit the size of your canine companion. All dogs seem to do well with chicken, however small does are unable to crunch through beef bones. So for the smaller ones, stay with appropriate bone sizes.

Some people say supplements are a must. Others say they are not needed. The verdict is out for me.

Raw Bones, Cooked Bones, or No Bones for Pets?

If you do a search for information on these topics you will find a raging debate. The camps often divide up as follows:

• The Purists who feed ONLY raw bones with the meat and organs, nothing else.
  

• Dry and Canned feeders who warn against RAW feeding practices and only trust their companions diet to the dog food manufacturers who they feel have made a study and profession of creating nutritional meals.

• The Tweens are those who feel commercial dog food is nutritionally worthwhile, but also feel some raw food is a good idea, so they divide the meals between raw and processed foods.
  
• The BARF crowd feeds raw meats with the bones and organ meats, PLUS they include some combintion of any or all of the following: vegetables, fruits, herbs, nuts, legumes, and grains. (I caution against the use of any grain.)
  

COOKING bones makes them brittle and dangerous to consume. Raw bones are softer, clean the teeth, and rarely cause problems in the diet. These would all be smaller bones, such as chicken, rabbit, or game hens. The big bones are too large to chew and consume, and are mostly used as toys or treats. Feeding raw meat on a large bone where the bone cannot be consumed also interferes with the necessary balance between Calcium and Phosphorous that is provided in perfect ratio by nature. When meat is taken off the bone, this natural ratio is broken resulting in a diet that is not out of balance.

The various feeding methods will be discussed in more detail in upcoming blogs.

What is the BARF diet?

BARF stands for "Biologically Appropriate Raw Foods", or "Bones And Raw Foods". It's not a pretty word, and has been replaced by some with phrases such as:

• species appropriate diet
• raw diet
• raw feeding
• all natural diet
• ancestral diet

Even the "Species Appropriate Diet" does not lend itself to a pleasant acronym, becoming SAD. We at Sheriff Tom and Posse Pals tend to prefer the term "ancestral diet".

When people speak of the BARF diet, ancestral diet, or any of it's forms, they are almost always speaking of a RAW diet.

Grain Free Diets, Are they best?

Hi, and welcome back.

Through my observations and research I feel GRAIN FREE diets are a MUST for cats. They are the true carnivore. To be technical, cats are obligate carnivores. By definition these are animals that subsist only on meats, and lack the ability to digest plant matter. So to you cat companions I say, grain free is the only way to go. Those who have made the switch rarely go back, and often have remarkable results from going grain-free. More later on how to achieve this.

Now for dogs. In recent years much has been written for and against raw feeding. Not being a veterinarian, nor a scientist, I can only give you my opinion based on experience and study. That said, stay away from grains with dogs! It is NO doubt in my mind grain nearly killed my dog.

Do wild dogs eat grain? Not usually. They may come across a minor bit in the intestines of their prey , but they do not pick grains, eat corn, boil oats, or otherwise ingest grain. They are, of course, opportunists when scavenging for food, and if hungry enough they nibble rotted fruit and any number of other plant materials. However, the bulk of their nutrition comes from meat, bones, cartilage, and organ meats. This is what they were built to consume. It has been stated by those who are scientists that when a dog eats grain from the intestines of their prey, the digestion has been done by the rabbit, deer, etc. The digestive enzymes were provided not by the dog or wolf.

I was surprised to discover that vegetables and plant matter tends to go right through my dogs undigested. By that I mean it shows up in the poop looking remarkably like it did when it went in the other end. After some research I discovered the reason. Dogs lack the ability to break down the cell wall of plant matter. So if feeding them plants, I need to grind and pulverize the material for them, as though I were the deer or rabbit chewing it. Only then can my little canines access the nutrition.

For the most part, I feel that grains are bad for dogs. Some dogs can tolerate grains, others, like my Sheriff Tom, have no tolerance for them. At best, is it a good idea to feed your companion something they can "tolerate"? I suggest a much wiser approach is to feed only what is optimum. If plant matter is consumed, let it be a very small part of their treats. And then use caution.

At www.sherifftom.com we have some great suggestions for grain free treats and food. Stop by sometime.

Happy Trails, Posse Pals!