Holistic Dog Food.

Boy do we have a lot to report.

First of all, today we bought Harris Ranch ground beef and made the same stew we made the other night, only this time with Barley instead of Quinoa, and meat instead of chicken. We didn't have to puree it or debone or anything, and Bailey loved it! He ran into the kitchen as soon as it started cooking and begged all night for little sips and tastes. It also only took 30 mins instead of 2 hours. So I think I highly recommend using meat over chicken, and adding in bone meal as a calcium source.

On that note, Dr Pitcairn's book is wild! I much prefer the Whole Pet Diet, which has us on an 8-week staged plan, and doesn't overwhelm with all these necessary minerals you have to buy. On the Whole Pet Diet, all I had to buy was the oil mixture (wheat germ oil, cod liver oil, flax oil, olive oil, garlic and rosemary) -- and then of course the ingredients for our stews. In Pitcairn's book, he makes you buy all kinds of stuff you've never heard of. You can tell on Amazon how other pet lovers have bought the mixture, because as soon as you buy kelp powder, it recommends lecithin granules, brewers yeast, and all the other crap you'll need. I bought it all, but then aborted my order when I found out about these three MUCH more convenient alternatives:

(1) Halo Pet Foods - owned by the author of the Whole Pet Diet, and apparently now affiliated with Ellen Degeneres. It appears they sell the Spot's Stew recipe we've been making in canned form at PetCo and Whole Foods, so we may move to this.

(2) Honest Kitchen - I saw these about a year ago in a natural pet food store but was scared away because they seemed difficult. I now see that you just add warm water and meat (raw or cooked, and I guess I prefer cooked). This is easier than what I'm doing now, which is adding everything from scratch ... and I'm probably not getting all the minerals/vitamins right yet.

(3) Sojo's - similar to Honest Kitchen above. I'll have to look into both of them to decide which I like better.

I'm sure there are others as well. I just bought a subscription to Whole Dog Journal in hopes of seeing their food ratings. I've got the meat and veggies and whole grains part down. I just want to make sure Bailey's getting the right amounts of Calcium and Vitamin C. By the way, Vitamin C is apparently the most important thing you can give a Golden for hip displaysia and arthritis (more than glucosamine). And I want to find a solution that is more convenient than what we're doing now (cooking from scratch).

In other news, the Pets for the Environment peeps got in touch, and it turns out, it's National Pet Week! I'd like to help their cause (sending kibble to a lab for analysis), so here's a link to their site. Also, we heard from the breeder with the new pups! This pet blogging thing could certainly become a full-time job; too bad I have several projects ramping up and another work trip to Seattle this week. We found a neighbor who watches a lot of the local goldens to keep Bailey during the days while Temple is at work. This is HUGE, because we really don't want Bailey alone when I'm out of town.

Final link of the day: Buppy the Puppy, who has his own blog, sent us this link to a front page article from the Arizona Republic about the booming field of Veterinary Oncology.