The best diet for your dog

Every few days I make my dog a bone broth. Okay, secretly, I also give a good amount of that bone broth to our pigs. I slow cook beef, lamb and chicken bones for 24-48 hours. All of the meat falls off the bone and into the gelatinous, mineral-rich broth.

This is what my dog eats. Most days.

Every morning and every night she gets a heaping pile of this tender, juicy meat along with bone broth, occasionally some raw liver and always a raw egg from our hens cracked on top.

When people see our dog they think she’s 4 years old. She’s a spit fire, full of piss and vinegar, half pit bull, half street, but 100% a bad dog. She’ll attack any animal she sees. She’ll attack any human she sees.

I’ve definitely had to pull her off of many UPS and FedEx workers - grabbing her by the collar and dislodging her teeth from their shin bone. Always praying they don’t sue.

It’s because of Alice that we have such good renters insurance.

Yesterday my wife Jen and I were on our morning walk. We always walk Alice in the morning. Just to be clear, we walk Alice in the wild. Away from domesticated animals and other humans. If you’re pointing your finger at me saying, You should have gotten a dog trainer, believe me, we’ve tried all the things. To no avail. And, yes, she was a rescue who grew up in the ghetto. Enough said.

Our farm is currently situated on 5 acres in the hills of Northern New Mexico. And, we purposefully bought a property that is peaceful and private with literally thousands and thousands of untamed, unadulterated, wild acres of land surrounding us.

This is where we walk Alice.

On this crisp, fall morning, we tied Alice to a tree stump, as we always do, while we watched the sunrise before starting our morning walk.

It's peaceful. Serene. All is well in the world.

And then, Alice sees a coyote. The leash, once tethered to the tree stump is quickly dismantled. Alice has run off with her leash trailing behind her and is chasing the coyote.

If you think Jen and I are panicking. We are. Well, her more than I. Alice has done this before. And, so far, she always wins, even when it comes to wild animals.

Jen and I always comment on how Alice has 9 lives. She’s eaten rat poison twice, one of those times she needed a blood transfusion ($2K in vet bills later), she’s bitten several dogs, killed a few cats, attacked a horse, killed a chicken, ran after many coyote packs and once ate over 10 of my homemade chocolate bars that I left on the counter.

She ate the bars because she was mad that I didn’t take her for a walk along the city streets, teeming with other dogs and humans. How inconsiderate of me.

Alice proceeded to throw up every single chocolate bar after I gave her several capful's of hydrogen peroxide. This saved me hundreds of dollars in vet bills, saved her life and is a really simple home remedy to get your dog or animal to throw up any poisonous substance they ate.

You just have to administer it within the appropriate amount of time after they’ve ingested the toxin. Luckily, it had only been about 5-10 minutes from the time that Alice ate the chocolate bars to when I shoved hydrogen peroxide down her throat.

Not long after Alice chased down the coyote I heard her whimpering. Maybe she lost this time? I ran into the forest looking for her. Listening for the sound of her voice to lead me to where she was. At that point, I was a bit nervous, I thought the coyote may have finally won. When I got to Alice, she had managed to wrap her leash around multiple trees and was unable to move.

She was whimpering because the coyote got away.

I unraveled Alice and we continued on our morning walk. That was the start to our day.

When we made it back to the house, I fed Alice her usual breakfast, meat and bone broth with a farm fresh egg cracked on top.

Now that you know a little about Alice...Let’s talk about why I feed her this type of raw food, raw meat, high animal protein meal twice per day.

We have to understand that dogs are a domesticated descendant of the wolf. Dogs in the wild, such as wolves and coyotes, are biologically hardwired to eat a carnivore diet.

Dogs are carnivores.

Your vet will tell you that your dog has to eat some version of chow. AKA dried dog food. They claim that that's the only way for them to get all the nutrients they need. Hogwash.

While there’s a full spectrum of dried dog food you can choose from - you can get anything from the downright wrong, GMO Purina or Kibble chow (or some version of this) to a Paleo Chow, Grain Free Chow and so forth.

The bottom line is…

All packaged and canned chow is no bueno for dogs.

Dogs need real, live animal flesh.

They are descendants of wolves and are genetically bred to eat like wolves.

They don't need grains, potatoes, quinoa, millet, wheat, corn syrup or synthetic vitamins. They don't need fish oil, but, real fish, why not. Especially if you have a breed from the north country like a Husky.

Let's have a brief chat about synthetic vitamins...

Humans shouldn’t take these nor should your dog. They're very hard to absorb and often come from GMO “foods” or are made in a lab which is likely also sourced from GMO products. They're also hard on the kidneys, liver and endocrine system. Any food that lists added vitamins, make sure to give it a hard pass.

When it comes to how much food to feed your dog, Google will tell you that your dog should eat 1/2 to several cups per day depending on their breed and activity level. This recommendation however is based on processed canned and packaged food. And, this is the exact food that will make your dog obese, lethargic, dehydrated, inflamed and will make their poo weird.

When it comes to feeding Alice...She weighs about 60lbs - I feed her roughly (I never measure things) 1/4-1/3lb of raw beef or other animal protein (it varies depending on the day) along with other nutrient dense foods - organ meats, bone broth, raw egg, rendered animal fat...if I were to weigh her bowl before feeding her, I would guess it clocks in around 3/4-1lb of food.

Just like it's not a healthy practice to weigh and measure our foods, we shouldn't be weighing and measuring what we feed our dog. Eyeball it and know the obvious...the larger your dog and the more active your dog, the more food they will need.

The bulk of Alice’s food comes from animal protein, typically raw ground beef. But, it can also be left over chicken, left over steak, left over salmon or other fish or the meat left over from making a bone broth (really great for dog’s with digestive or stomach issues).

The point is, the majority of her food is animal protein.

Then, I add complimentary foods to each meal to help fulfill her nutritional needs.

Your vet will tell you a raw animal food diet is lacking in nutrients. It’s utter nonsense.

The key to meeting your dog’s nutritional needs is combining animal protein with some complimentary mineral-rich foods. This combination is far more nutritions and much more bioavailable, than any and all commercial dog food.

Some examples of complimentary mineral-rich foods include, raw liver, raw organ meats, bone broth, raw eggs and/or left over animal fat ie bacon fat.

When you feed your dog a diet like this, a diet they are bred to eat and thrive on, your dog will very likely live longer, have more energy, be less prone to chronic disease, will have less gas and bloating and will, fortunately or unfortunately, start asking for more walks because they’ll have more energy.

You’re welcome.