Friday, April 13, 2007

Sensitive Stomach Boy

Yesterday the Hare-Today order arrived. Lots of lovely cuts of beef and mutton for the dogs and chicken for the cats. I left Riley and Sabrina a hearty meal to enjoy: large beef bones with beef trim. The last time I ordered, the beef bones were all cut marrow bones with extra inches of meat on each side. The beef trim was quite marbled with fat, but cut into nice squares.

This time, I guess depending on what part of the cow I got, the large beef bones are gi-normous and oddly shaped. The beef trim looks more like random pieces of trim from different parts of the cow. A bit messier than I anticipated this time around. But it only took me 10 minutes to throw the pre-packed/separated meals in the freezer and separate out a nice meal for the two of them. It probably came out to about a pound an a half each, maybe a little more. A large meal so that I can fast them all day tomorrow.

The meal was probably a bit rich (high in fat and meat) which was great for my healthy lil Sabrina girl. (raw fat=pure energy for a puppy). But for my Riley boy with the sensitive stomach. He had to ask to go out three times throughout the night. Yeah, we got the Hershey-squirts. That's just the body that he got. I suppose he will always display symptoms of chronic disease and Sabrina will always be the healthier/heartier one. Good breeding, careful vaccination protocol, and good nutrition truely play a large role in overall health.

This is pretty much how my entire journey into raw/natural feeding began. Riley was 4 months old and we had a horrible time figuring out why his digestive tract was so out of whack. We did what most everyone else does-we kept trying to change his food to find something he could tolerate. Finally, I found some knowledgeable people to steer me in the right direction. And lemme tell you- it wasn't the vet! Over the course of several months to a year, we worked on improving Riley's immune system. I learned that everything is related to your natural defense system. When that is awry, you're bound to experience other systems going awry. We stuck to one type of protein (beef) and slowly coaxed his immune system to calm down. With a mixture of chiropractice care, homeopathy, and diet elimination (eliminating everything processed, with preservatives, food coloring, grains, etc), Riley was back to eating a variety of proteins in 4 months. If I had never found the right people, we would still be thinking it was the food. I see dog food companies constantly try to come up with the next hypo-allergenic food: first it's fish and potatoes, next is quail and rice, then it's venison and quinoa. It's never ending. And that's because it isn't about the food. It's all about how the organism is responding to the food.

Well, I'm done with my lesson for the day. It's not an easy lesson to understand. It's taken me awhile to really learn about health and nutrition for my furkids. But aren't they worth it?

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