Well, Tender at the Bone is admittedly the title of a book about food (if you love food and good writing as much as I do, this is a fantastic book by food critic Ruth Reichl), but I borrowed the phrase to continue our discussion about dental health and chewing on bones. If you haven't followed it yet, read the comments from my A Fully Functional Tooth? post, they add lots of meat to the conversation (sorry). A few readers asked for more photos from Africa, so I thought I'd combine topics and send some more pictures of our time with the pack of African Wild Dogs. Relevant to dental health, here's a photo of the mouth of "Jones," the 4 year old breeding male who was darted and radio collared when we were there watching. What I think is interesting is how good some teeth look (keeping in Read More
Eat Your Veggies (Tell That to Your Dogs!)
Here's support for those of us who feed veggies to our dogs from a study in JAVMA (Vol 227, No. 1, July 1, 2006). My great Chinese medicine DVM vet, Dr. Jody Bearman, looked it up for me after we talked about diet and health the last time she came out to treat Will and Lassie. In brief, the study looked at the prevalence of a certain type of cancer in, admittedly, just one breed of dog--Scottish Terriers, and found that the consumption of green leafy, and yellow-orange vegetables at least 3 times a week correlated with lower rates of urinary bladder carcinomas. Now... this is just a correlation, not proof of causation. Additionally, it's one type of cancer, in one breed of dog. However, given the overwhelming evidence in human health and nutrition that colorful vegetables are rich in Read More
The Menu at Redstart Farm; Feeding Dogs
So many of you have asked what I feed my dogs that I feel compelled to answer. I sympathize, truly, nutrition is such a complicated and sometimes contentious issue. I'll honor your requests if you'll honor mine: Read the following carefully before getting to the menu! 1. I am not an expert on canine nutrition, not by a long shot. I know lots of people, professional and committed dog lovers, who know much more about the topic than I do. 2. I don't believe that my dogs get the perfect diet. I do the best I can, and I know that my dogs do better than most, but there's no question that the way I feed them isn't perfect. 3.What I feed my dogs changes, depending on the dog, the week, how busy I am and what article I read the night before. 4. I think diet is important, but so are genetics. Read More
Dogs Love Bones; New Lambs
Ahhh spring. Finally the weather is mild enough to let the dogs lie outside and chew on bones. I just love watching my dogs chew on real, fresh bones. Of course, I would never give my dogs cooked bones (I know most of you know already that cooked bones are brittle and tend to splinter. Don't ever give them to your dog.), but I love giving them the kind of fresh, raw bones that are safe--the large joint bones or large long bones from beef are my preference. The first time I watched dogs chew on real bones I was astounded. Okay, that sounds pretty strong, but I had not anticipated how much exercise and skill it takes to chew on a bone. All of the parts of a dog's mouth, including the jaw muscles and different types of teeth are engaged in tearing, pulling, grinding and chewing. It was an Read More
Playing with Dogs in Fall
Oh, what a joy to be home in fall on the farm. It may have rained much of the weekend, but that's okay, we needed the moisture. In spite of the rain I got to spend much of Sunday out in the country with Willie, Lassie and weekend visitor Brody (the Cavalier) out in the hills collecting wild apples. Five huge buckets full. Yum yum. Yum for us... I made applesauce much of Sunday afternoon (thanks to friend Harriet who leant me her Foley Food Mill; now that's a handy item) while the dogs slept. Yum for the sheep: the ewe flock got to crunch away on juicy apples that I tossed into their feeders. The lamb flock is separate (I don't castrate the ram lambs, so the boys are now old enough to breed their mommas. Not a great idea!) and has access to lots of wild apples on their own, so everyone Read More
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