Veterinary Surgeon and Classical Homeopath Malta

One of the key elements in keeping the health of your animal at its optimum is the proper diet.
Unfortunately in our busy lifestyles we often have very little time to prepare proper meals for ourselves let alone for our animals. But if we want health for ourselves and our companions we have to be ready to sacrifice some time and interrupt our hectic daily routines.  In a long run this will save us from substantial veterinary bills.

Many people are conditioned to believe that dogs and cats can be only fed with dry and tinned food.
In reality It is very difficult to find commercial diet for animals which would come even close to all requirements for healthy natural nutrition.
Would you be happy eating porridge for every meal, every day till the rest of your life?! I am sure you wouldn’t! Perhaps the thought of eating kibbles for the rest of your own life helps make the point that pets forced to do so are being shortchanged.

Dr. Richard H. Pitcairn DVM, PhD says:

‘I have nothing personal against the makers of processed foods for pets, nor do I seek to put them out of business. They are probably doing their best to provide nutritionally balanced products at reasonable prices, making use of materials that might otherwise go to waste or just be used as fertilizer. It is just that I don’t believe any version of completely cooked, dried, canned or frozen prepared food constitutes an optimal diet for the good health of either humans or beast. I believe all of us – humans or animals should have variety of fresh, wholesome, unprocessed food included in our daily diets.’

The whole concept of instant meals for humans is repulsive. Who would want to eat the same food over and over again? It is obvious that “the variations” such as wild game kibble, poultry or rabbit kibble to mention just a  few are joke. Yet, somehow we have accepted the idea that such diet is right for our pets. In most of the cases you don’t even want to know what is the source of proteins in commercial diets.

Dr. Pitcairn observes:

‘One of primary sources is slaughterhouse wastes, or game road kill. Prevention magazine once published a letter from a reader who offered an inside glimpse of the pet food industry: “I once worked in a chicken butchering factory in Maine. Our average daily output was 100,000 chickens…Directly ahead of me were USDA inspectors and their trimmers. The trimmers cut the damaged and diseased parts off the chicken and dropped them in garbage cans. These were emptied periodically. They were sent to pet food factory Similarly the story appeared in our local newspaper revealing that dead animals found on the highway are send to rendering plants where they are used in pet (and livestock) food.’

Many reports like these surface on a regular bases, so this seems to be widely spread phenomenon.   Ann Martin offers considerable evidence in her book that pets are routinely rendered by veterinary hospitals or shelters and recycled into pet food.  It is very difficult to determine exactly what pet food makers are using as ingredients. It can change on any day, and they don’t usually volunteer information like this.

‘ There are no federal regulations against using what are called 4D sources – that is tissues from animals that are dead, dying, disabled, or diseased when they arrive at the slaughterhouse.’

Even on this side of Atlantic, within EU there is no such legislation.
This brings us to the most important question, what are the health effects of such instant meal diet?
You ask yourself; don’t animals eat all sorts of stuff of the ground, even digging up dead animals to eat at times?
This statement is generally true for canines but not wild cats that eat only freshly killed prey. Wolves and dogs seem to be able to eat meat that is not fresh, even partly decayed, without becoming ill. But here is the difference- in nature the animals that are chronically ill are not filled with drugs or hormones.

Back to Dr. Pitcairn:

Having worked with livestock medicine in my early years, I know the significant percent of animals sent to slaughter, but not suitable for human consumption, have first been extensively treated with drugs. Since veterinary treatment failed, they are then processed for whatever monetary value can be captured by turning them into food – mostly pet food. It is the similar situation for animals killed on highways. Yes, it is possible that a deer was healthy when hit by a car and killed. This meat would be considered appropriate for use. But think of many agricultural feeds sprayed with insecticides or herbicides. Animals caught in these fields or enter them after they are sprayed become sick and disoriented, wandering into a road where they are easily killed.  The pets recycled from animal hospitals or shelters have high levels of antibiotics and various other drugs.  Most of these drugs end up in the food. This is why animals that have had drug therapy are not used for human consumption.  It would make people sick.

P.F. Mc Gargle, DVM, has concluded that feeding slaughterhouse wastes to animals increases their chance of getting cancer and other degenerative diseases.  This practice has also been related to Mad Cow disease. Those wastes, he reported can include moldy, rancid, or spoiled processed meats, as well as tissues riddled with cancer.  These meat scraps also contain hormone levels comparable to amounts that have produced cancer in laboratory animals.

Therefore one of the first things I advise to my clients is complete change of lifestyle and investing time in their own preparation of meals for their animals.

To find different recipes for complete home made diet follow the links on the side bar.   Staple diet should be based on recipes for Complete Diet. As you can see on those pages I advise lots of fresh meat in dogs and cats diet. Most recent research strongly suggests this is the best possible approach to canine and feline nutrition. Nevertheless I also added some recipes from different authors on separate pages to enable you to break the routine every now and then and add some variety in your pet’s diet.

If you follow advice given on these pages in very short time you will witness marked improvement in general wellbeing of your animals.  One of the first signs of improvement will be seen in their coat which becomes luster while you will also notice their eyes to be clear and shiny with satisfied look.