The Crunchy Dog
 

We have a new love. He's a 4 year old Golden. We've had him for a month.

I started him on 2 TBSP of DE...he's a big boy. I need to take him to the vet to find out how many pounds need to come off him. He was with a family where the 3 year old was feeding him all his unwanted food.

He's the best.dog.ever. I think he was a gift from God. I won't go into that story, but I do want to know what I should do to keep him healthy.

I'm going to look into making him lypospheric Vitamin C (for our use too).

Will DE prevent heart worms? I've found sites that say yes. I'm okay giving it to him every day.

Should I switch him to organic, grain-free food? He's eating Costco's adult food now.

Is there something natural for flea and tick prevention? (other than brushing him with DE)

Would you get pet insurance?

Re: The Crunchy Dog
 

I do think grain free is better for dogs. They are hunters who will also scavenge when in the wild. We have been pleased with Taste of the Wild dog food. My ideal would be raw meat plus some additions but it's not doable right now. I have read that Costco regular dog food is pretty good. I didn't like Costco grain free because it had a lot of garbanzo beans in it as protein-- difficult to digest.

I'm not convinced that de prevents heart worm. The vector is a mosquito so it enters right into the blood, bypassing the digestive tract. I don't see how de would help with that. (I do think de is very good for dogs, though.) Heart worm is much more rare in the US than the vet pharma companies would like us to believe. IIRC my state has had 1 case in the last ten years. The overnight low has to be above 45° for at least 90 days for transmission to even be possible. For us, that's a short window of opportunity. You can use sheep drench as prevention. Not natural but much cheaper than the meds from the vet.

---------- Post added at 10:06 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:04 PM ----------

We don't have pet insurance.

There's a vet on YouTube that has a great series on the over-vaccination of dogs. (They don't need shots every year.) I'll try to find a link.

Re: The Crunchy Dog
 

We love Taste of the Wild too for our lab. :yes Grain free only makes sense for dogs, IMO...how would a wild dog ever get grains? :giggle :shrug We do grain free treats as well. :yes

Planning on garlic supplements for flea prevention per a friend who did that with her dog his whole life who got zero fleas.

Re: The Crunchy Dog
 

Some things say that garlic is poisonous for dogs yet it is in some supplements :shrug3. Is there an affordable grain free food?

Re: The Crunchy Dog
 

We get Wellness Core food, it has a probiotic in it and is grain free. My dogs have both done well on it. I would prefer to raw feed and read up on it at once time but it's logistically just too difficult for me.

My oldest dog is a rescue that had heartworm when he was rescued and had to go through treatments even after all the treatments it took a long time to go away, so anyway I do treat for heartworm, and for fleas and tics because we have had them both in the house at one time or another and it's not something I would care to repeat.

I bathe them with Castile soap.

So anyway we aren't totally crunchy just on a few things.

Re: The Crunchy Dog
 

We have been experimenting with Pau D'Arco for fleas and ticks https://books.google.com/books?id=Qk...cks%3F&f=false after reading this I think will try and give orally too.I think it may work because only place have found a tick is near face where didnt apply it yesterday.Have to scroll way down link for the part about pets.

Re: The Crunchy Dog
 

Wild dogs eat organ meat ;) Which for ruminants would include a large amount of undigested or partially-digested grasses and grains. Still, it's really not a significant enough portion of their diet for them to require it regularly :shrug3

---------- Post added at 08:19 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:16 AM ----------

It is considered to be toxic: http://veterinarymedicine.dvm360.com...-dogs-and-cats

Re: The Crunchy Dog
 

Another Taste of the Wild user here. :) I buy the two formulae that are rated 5 stars on dogfoodadvisor.com.
We don't do anything for flea prevention because it doesn't seem to be a problem for us. Would probably be different if we had cats.
As Lisa said, a lot of vets will still recommend more frequent vaccinations than is necessary. Studies have shown them to have much longer effectiveness.
We do currently use a heartworm prevention med. We currently do it every 45 days when the temperature has been above a certain level, uh can't now remember exactly but where we are it ends up being most months. I reevaluate every year. It's hard to be crunchy because most of the information out there is non-crunchy.

We don't have pet insurance. However, we did spend $12k on saving our dog after an accident earlier this year. So you kind of have to figure out in advance what you would do in the case of an accident or extreme illness, and then decide if you want insurance. In our case this year, it was a day-by-day thing. It wasn't like we were deciding "$12k or dog" but more that once we'd spent a certain amount it would've seemed a waste not to see it through. So that's something to remember, that you might end up with a situation where you can't know the final cost when you are making the initial decision. I'm still not interested in insurance that covers preventive care etc, but catastrophic insurance makes sense if you'd want to use it. I think Trupanion was the one I saw advertised at the animal emergency hospital.

Re: The Crunchy Dog
 

That Diamond Natural food does look healthier than what we are using now and is less $

Re: The Crunchy Dog
 

Yeah, I've read that some consider garli to be toxic.... Honestly, the lists of "toxic" foods for dogs are so here and there. So many different opinions. It's so hard to know what is true or not. One source told me to get immediate vet care when my puppy ate ONE grape....which are considered toxic. It's really is hit and miss on what YOUR dog will react to. Some dogs eat entire chocolate bars and are totally fine. My dads lab ate a whole plate of turkey breast and had to be rushed to the vet, yet many dog foods are "turkey."

As far as a dog consuming an animal that consumed grain, yes, of coarse. But the grain in most modern dry dog foods is no where near raw grain.

Re: The Crunchy Dog
 

My dog eats grain people drop. Lol.

Re: The Crunchy Dog
 

My lab will eat almost anything that's not a fruit or a vegetable. My German Shepherd will only eat meat, cheese, eggs, yogurt, and dog food high in meat content. Growing up we had schnauzers who loved bananas and green beans.

Re: The Crunchy Dog
 

I made a vet appointment for Thursday. They charge $37 for the heart worm medicine. That's 6 pills. That's cheap, huh? (Not as cheap as the sheep stuff.)

Ear cleaning...what to use?

Teeth cleaning......what to use?

Re: The Crunchy Dog
 

$37 for a 6-month supply? Yeah, that sounds pretty cheap. I think the sheep drench is a $30 bottle and it's a lifetime supply for about 5 dogs. :lol But, you have to dose it on weight and it might be more bother than you want. I don't clean my dogs teeth but, if I did, I would just use a washcloth. I use a warm, barely damp washcloth for their ears when they seem to need it.

Re: The Crunchy Dog
 

Who KNOWS what scraps my dog gets. With three kids, I'll never be able to keep track so I'm not even gonna try. I just dont allow anyone to feed her table scraps on purpose.