Pet Nutrition
Nutrition is paramount in the world of holistic veterinary medicine. Alone, it can cure many degenerative diseases and our goal is to provide suggestions you can easily incorporate into your pet’s diet. At best, many commercial pet foods fall short of providing adequate antioxidants as compared to whole foods. At worst, they can contribute to symptoms of disease.
A good example is epilepsy. Food allergies greatly affect Liver Wind (according to the principles of Traditional Chinese Medicine) so avoiding grains of all kinds is of paramount importance when treating this disease.
Simple suggestions to improve a commercial diet:
For dogs over 40 pounds, add 3 tablespoons of ground parsley, burdock root, zucchini or other greens to your dog’s daily diet. Try grinding nuts as an inexpensive trace mineral, vitamin E and selenium source. Grind ¼ cup each of raw Brazil nuts, sunflower seeds, cashews and almonds into a powder and refrigerate. Feed 1 teaspoon to 1 tablespoon daily depending on the dog’s size.
For cats, add 1 teaspoon of minced fresh parsley daily. Among other benefits, parsley helps the body cleanse the kidneys and provides antioxidants that can help prevent gingivitis. Also consider adding Dr. Donna's Vitamin Powder recipe including nutritional yeast.
A pet’s calorie needs can quadruple with hard exercise. It’s important to take note of your pet’s weight and use it as a guide for adjusting the diet. If your pet has a history of urinary tract infections, struvite or calcium oxalate stones, please ask your veterinarian for guidance and keep track of his or her urinary ph. Normal dog urine ph is 6.5 and cat’s is 6.0. This is directly related to the diet.
Supplements:
Cod liver oil, vitamin E and selenium are some of the best supplements to prevent cancer in small animals, but you have to follow doses carefully because of possible side effects.
Raw Diets:
The diets below contain cooked meat, but there are many benefits to feeding raw proteins to our cats and dogs. For more information on the benefits of raw feeding, including transitioning and food-handling tips, visit our Raw Diets page.
