How to Educate Yourself About Raw Diets For Cats And Dogs

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By Dana Miller
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Cancer and other serious illness among domestic dogs and cats is rampant, despite our best efforts to provide good care and a safe environment. Why is this? Because diet is the key to health--yet very little is ever mentioned about what domestic animals were BORN to eat. If we can acknowledge their need to eat what their bodies were designed for, then what to feed them becomes simple: provide them with a RAW NATURAL diet, as close to what they would eat if they were still required to hunt to survive. These step-by-step instructions can teach you how to familiarize yourself with the benefits of eliminating commercially-processed pet food and why their bodies were designed to eat what nature intended. The short-and long-term benefits of a raw diet will confer exemplary health, less vet bills, and a long, healthy life for your animal family member.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

A desire to reduce or eliminate chronic health problems and restore excellent health to your animal companion.
A book entitled Reigning Cats and Dogs, by Pat McKay. This can be purchased by contacting Flying Basset Organics, Valencia, CA. (www.theflyingbasset.com).
A source for (preferably) hormone-free, antibiotic-free meats (try Harmony Farms in La Crescenta, CA or Halshan Premium Raw Food Products (www.halshan.com).
A source for supplements, preferably plant-cell grown organics (again, try Flying Basset in Valencia, CA).

Step 1

Be convinced that there must be a better way to feed your cat or dog besides commercially-processed canned/dry food. This is frequently brought about by your companion animal's chronic health problems with no end in sight and accompanied by expensive vet bills that yield no relief to your cat or dog's condition. Or, you just intuitively know there must be diet for them that is closer to what Mother Nature intended.
Step 2

Purchase a copy of Pat McKay's book entitled Reigning Cats & Dogs. This simply written book explains, in laymen's terms, why commercially-processed foods are linked to a multitude of health problems and, alternatively, why their bodies were designed by nature to get maximum health benefits from a raw diet. The book also reveals the true contents of canned meats and dry food and the fact that the commercial pet food industry uses meat by-products as a vehicle to recoup profits from meat and other ingredients that are not legally allowable in food sold for human consumption. You will also learn how their bodies are specifically designed to benefit from a diet that comes as close to what they would eat if they were still required to hunt to survive.
Step 3

Once you have been briefly educated about the importance of feeding a raw diet and how to safely handle raw meat, you can begin to consider transitioning your animals away from commercial pet food and into a raw (or even just partially raw) diet that can either diminish or completely eliminate ongoing, chronic health issues that your pet suffers from.
Step 4

Educating yourself about healthy foods for your animals through reading and researching about raw diets will also provide you with long lists of everyday foods that humans eat and that can be shared with your pet to provide equally healthy results in them too. You will find that you never have to resort to purchasing store-bought pet food again and that you can shop for your pet's nutritional needs along with your own.
Step 5

Locate a raw meat source in your local area that sells (preferably) hormone and antibiotic-free meat. This is by far the purest and most natural way to provide your pet with fresh raw meat. If this is not available, then the next best source will be your grocery store, where you can purchase fresh raw meat just as you would for your family.
Step 6

You can begin to transition your pet's meals over to a raw diet over a period of approximately one week to 10 days, or take more time if it is necessary to do so. The ideal and most complete diet is a 75% meat, 25% raw vegetable combination, along with a WHOLE FOOD supplement that can be included with the food. Even if you can provide some raw meat to your animals only once a week or so, this will hugely improve their overall health.

Comments

mintorray said

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on 4/2/2009 Excellent, well written, very informative. This person knows what she is talking about. I Cannot wait to see other articles about natural diets for animals from her.