Chazzers, I need your knowledgeable input. I'm feeding my Westie (Harlow) a raw food diet. Recently I started making it myself. I shared my recipe with the breeder who I bought Harlow from. She in turn forwarded my e-mail to a woman who apparently counts herself quite the expert in dog nutrition. This woman wrote my breeder a rather alarmist e-mail stating things like, "I'm so alarmed.." and "I hope Harlow will be OK, but this woman is so misguided". My breeder shared her comments with me because now she's worried that I'm killing her dog and she wants me to stop. Here's my menu plan. It's my intention to mix it up from week to week, but here's my first effort. Please tell me what you think:
I took a fistful of dandelion greens, parsley, assorted salad greens, a few florets of broccoli, a red pepper, and couple of carrots. I ran these things thru a juicer to fully masticate the veges. I then reconstituted the pulp with the juice. I took one part of this vege pulp and added two parts of a good quality ground beef. Then I added several raw egg yolks, a couple tablespoons of ground brazil nut meat (good source of selenium) and some cottage cheese. Before I serve it I drizzle some olive oil over it. Though I didn't add any organ meats to this particular batch, I mentioned in my e-mail to my breeder that I planned to add some organ meat in my next batch.
So this woman writes, among other things, that broccoli in its raw state is toxic to dogs, as is parsely, and that she can't understand why anyone would offer any living creature something as harmful as organ meat (yes, her over-the-top language annoyed me). She urged my breeder to try to guide me to a good quality raw dog food company, such as Bark Avenue. I immediately went to my freezer and pulled out the bag of Nature's Variety food I've been buying for Harlow (a very reputable, national raw dog food company) and low and behold, there's raw parsley, broccoli and organ meats in their product. So now I want to respond, very nicely, but I need to be well-informed. So please give me your expert input. If I'm killing my dog, you can say so, I want to know, but I suspect I'm not doing that bad a job and I want to put my nice breeder lady's mind to rest.
I took a fistful of dandelion greens, parsley, assorted salad greens, a few florets of broccoli, a red pepper, and couple of carrots. I ran these things thru a juicer to fully masticate the veges. I then reconstituted the pulp with the juice. I took one part of this vege pulp and added two parts of a good quality ground beef. Then I added several raw egg yolks, a couple tablespoons of ground brazil nut meat (good source of selenium) and some cottage cheese. Before I serve it I drizzle some olive oil over it. Though I didn't add any organ meats to this particular batch, I mentioned in my e-mail to my breeder that I planned to add some organ meat in my next batch.
So this woman writes, among other things, that broccoli in its raw state is toxic to dogs, as is parsely, and that she can't understand why anyone would offer any living creature something as harmful as organ meat (yes, her over-the-top language annoyed me). She urged my breeder to try to guide me to a good quality raw dog food company, such as Bark Avenue. I immediately went to my freezer and pulled out the bag of Nature's Variety food I've been buying for Harlow (a very reputable, national raw dog food company) and low and behold, there's raw parsley, broccoli and organ meats in their product. So now I want to respond, very nicely, but I need to be well-informed. So please give me your expert input. If I'm killing my dog, you can say so, I want to know, but I suspect I'm not doing that bad a job and I want to put my nice breeder lady's mind to rest.