Feeding meat to a dog changes its body composition compared to, say, dry food. It’s a reasonable fact, though not 100 percent. Whether it matters, again, depends on the dog and what it does.
I published an article on the forum about how our dogs were on a meat-only diet for a while, and what came of it.
- why we now eat dry food
- the state of our freezer
- that a little roundness is not dangerous, but toned dogs are pretty (at least in dogs)
- how Lehtonen fails in his fitness and how it explains why meat suited the dogs
- how baby corn didn’t work
- a few other things on top
You can comment on the blog itself on the forum, but you can also read it here. You’re welcome.
It’s no secret that in our family, dogs have been eating only dry food for a long time. I haven’t actively advertised it, but I have mentioned it, often without being asked.
Paying is a poor man’s problem
The reason is quite mundane. We live in the middle of the backwoods of Vihti. Nummela is the nearest place where you can buy meat, and it’s about 30 kilometers away. Not an impossible trip, as we go shopping there every week, several times.
There are a couple of companies selling meat in Nummela, but both have the same obstacle: the price is too high for me. Of course, our dog population has decreased, and currently, we have two Russells and one Greyhound, so in that respect, the total meat consumption would be entirely different than when we had over a dozen dogs.
But I just don’t want to pay for something that I think is too much. The same thing as with horses — the increase in the price per kilo of horse meat wasn’t related to cost structure, but because slaughterhouses and stores realized its sales potential. Consumers believe that horse meat is somehow good. It’s not. As food, it’s quite poor, and its advantage was once a low price per kilo.
Now that advantage is gone.
We used to make racing dogs. They weren’t just a hobby; we tried to be better than anyone else (in our family, it wasn’t just an attempt; it was achieved with, so to speak, a big hammer). Now we have pure house dogs. Things are done differently because the goals are different.
This sounds as bad as it looks, but it’s realism: with house dogs, things don’t have to be done as strictly and precisely as with competition dogs.
The problem with pickup points
Kennelrehu is a Finnish company using delivery trucks, and they would have offered meat at a more reasonable price. No one can really compete with their prices, making others’ advantage easier availability and other store services.
This is where Kennelrehu failed for us.
In our area, Kennelrehu has two stops. Both are about that magical 30 kilometers away. Still, the distance isn’t the problem, but the time. We are a one-car household, and one of the adults works in Real Jobs™.
You can reach one stop after a morning shift if you leave a little early and drive against the speed limits. You could easily reach the other one after a morning shift. But you can’t get to either from an evening shift.
If someone suggests buying meat in such quantities that you can manage even with an evening shift, I have a counter-question: which employer knows the shifts 3 – 4 weeks in advance? Not in the industry, at least.
So, buy 3 weeks’ worth of meat. Then comes an evening week, requiring you to buy 6 weeks’ worth of food. What do you do when another evening week coincides? Should you have anticipated that and bought 3 months’ worth of meat in advance?
Yes. I could buy a year’s worth of meat at once. We currently don’t have such freezer space, and even if we did, the purchase price would have to drop significantly before I would tie up that amount of money (plus electricity) in dog food. Especially when there’s no greater necessity for the purchase than meat for meat’s sake.
A rather lengthy explanation for why our dogs now eat dry food.
The most important principles of feeding
The basic reason for the explanation is probably that I’m often asked why Jagster, perhaps Finland’s most famous advocate of 50/50 feeding and a well-known raw feeding expert, doesn’t practice either on his own.
Practical reasons have already been mentioned. The attitude and thought-level reasons are the two other aspects I’ve also tried to model with a steel wire for years:
- feeding must be purposeful, not ideological
- feeding must be easy
The dry food we use (Royal Canin Medium Puppy, because someone will ask next) keeps the dogs at their weight, and there are no problems. I can buy it online and have it delivered to the village. The price is also cheaper than buying from a brick-and-mortar store.
There’s no more drama to it than that.
Yes, I would immediately switch the dogs back to 50/50 feeding — if it were a practical solution for the owners.
Freezer, an archaeological site
Our chest freezer is probably a nightmare for the home economics advisors and many food hygienists. Not because it’s dirty, but because it’s starting to meet the museum’s requirements for archaeological excavations. Layers are beginning to reveal even ancient history.
I know our household isn’t the first to struggle with that. Nor the last.
Every time the freezer is defrosted and cleaned, the well-expired items are taken out separately. At the same time, there’s a solemn promise to feed them to the dogs.
In exactly the same way, every single time, that sacred decision is forgotten. It’s easier to scoop kibble from a bag into a bowl than to dig meat from the depths of the freezer.
Now I pulled myself together. The effort was slightly aided by the fact that I had forgotten to order dry food — more accurately, I had misjudged the consumption (yes, yes, I forgot).
The consumer also makes economic choices
There were three options.
We could drive nearest city to buy dry food at store prices — that’s no longer an option unless forced, as the change Musti ja Mirri (the biggest dog stuff retailer here) and Royal Canin made to club and breeder prices means that Musti ja Mirri no longer gets our euros in that regard. And since visits decreased, all those other, higher-margin products went unpurchased as well.
Sorry, there’s nothing personal or company-specific about this. As you noted to us, the change was a business decision, and it was the same for us.
We could have bought a small amount of so-called market food. Well… not unless necessary. Although the sales location doesn’t inherently determine the quality of the food, and there’s plenty of complete junk in specialty stores at exorbitant prices, two major human retailer’s profit margin requirement means they only stock options where the producer AND wholesaler survive at the lowest possible price. That then reflects on the quality.
The third option would be to humble ourselves, take the spoon in hand, overcome laziness, and start emptying the freezer.
So we choose option C and let the freezer go wide open.
Meat for the dog to its heart’s content
From the depths of the freezer, we found mainly so-called human meats. Bought on sale, with a red price tag, or just so that we wouldn’t always have to go to the store.
They were never eaten, though. Depressing. Both financial foresight was somewhat off. However, the dogs were grateful.
There were also a few rolls of dog feed meats. I didn’t even try to guess their age. But they looked good, smelled normal, and the dogs liked them. Finnish feed meat production knows its job in that respect.
Since the purchases were originally for the human kitchen, most were chicken. Fillet, breast, and strips. There was also a bit of red meat, minced. Not optimal for dogs, since there’s too little fat. However, you can make up for that with fatty acids using some cooking oil and energy with butter.
However, I didn’t bother with such concoctions because the animals have become a bit plump. Or slack. A direct consequence of two factors: a lazy lifestyle and the carbohydrates in dry food.
Carbohydrates are not categorically bad, but they do retain water in the body. Sometimes it’s desired, sometimes not, and most of the time it’s completely insignificant.
Over the years, the eye has become accustomed to tighter dogs. And if anyone now feels the need to remind me that I often explain that a little overweight is only a positive thing, there’s no contradiction.
If the dogs’ certain slackness had bothered me, I would have done something about it. Especially if it had affected the four-legged ones’ well-being. It’s just about what pleases the eye. And since I myself don’t belong to the beautiful flowers of the meadow but fall more on the axis of ragweed and burdock, it’s best to keep my mouth shut about others’ appearances.
Still, it’s nice to look at something pretty.
There’s also a somewhat guru-like aspect to this. When you know things, both fundamentally and in execution, you also know when you can change or even break the rules.
Yes, that’s of course on the axis of do as I say, not as I do. But let’s not dramatize this too much. It was about a week, and for a healthy dog, you can feed it whatever you like for a week.
Short time, big change
Because the dogs switched to only meat, and because calories were also cut, the effect was clear and surprisingly quick:
- the dogs tightened up,
- muscles became more visible
- the dogs started to look like dogs
Most interestingly, one also became more enthusiastic and active — which isn’t necessarily desired with Russells…
The change happened in three days. And that’s fast.
The speed isn’t explained by the quality of proteins, cutting energy (though it may have an effect), increased water, or even the idea of better food, better mood. It’s as if the body was waiting for some familiar signal, which was immediately responded to.
In the group Fittiness 1 I’ve been whining, moaning, and complaining that my fitness project isn’t producing results and there’s no development. Blaming age, food, unfavorable stars, but the real reason is my history.
I’ve lived for decades lazily, not demanding more from my body than everyday life requires. This has caused a situation where muscle cells and the nervous system no longer know how to respond to new demands — learning new things takes time (and I don’t have time, but that’s another story).
However, if one has once moved, exercised, and worked out properly, the body knows how to react. After that, you can be lazy for twenty years, and when you pull yourself together, the body knows and understands the response. And even with little work, results start to be achieved.
The assumption is that with food, it’s a similar reaction. Our dogs have lived and grown on a meat-based diet. Even though they haven’t eaten meat for a while, it’s not a new thing. The entire metabolism remembers and knows how to use meat and the nutrients it contains.
It’s not a new thing, but a return to the old.
The same mechanism would also explain why so many dogs that have eaten dry food all their lives actually have initial difficulties if they are thrown directly onto a raw diet. And why 50/50 feeding is so incredibly effective: it includes a bit of old, a bit of new, a bit borrowed, and the blue can be left out — but if you want it, blueberries could be the choice.
The dogs have since returned to dry food. They thought it was wonderful, like a candy day. They reacted the same way to meat.
This means that
- changing food just because the owner would be bored of eating the same food all the time
- not changing food because the dog is a creature of routine
are both extremes and fundamentally wrong. A dog’s food should, and must, be changed from time to time. But it is done partly to pamper the dog (which is not wrong) and partly because dogs’ taste world is even more strongly based on smell than ours, and when the smell world in food is changed to be pleasant and varied for the dog, it… is pampered.
Or if you want to use a technical expression: the dog’s interest in food is maintained by manipulating its senses.
Am I now saying that the mistake I’ve always claimed, where a picky dog is corrected by changing food, wouldn’t be a mistake? You can think about that, but at the same time, keep in mind the three main rules:
- purposefulness
- ease
- knowing the rules so you can apply them
—
The image doesn’t seem to relate to the topic. It doesn’t directly. It just reminds you that when feeding leftover food and food scraps to a dog, which is only a good thing, not everything is suitable.
I gave the dogs some leftover frozen wok. It included sliced baby corn. Since it had gone through frying, it was cooked, and since those are not at all the same as real corn cobs, I naturally gave them. However, I was wise and gave it to only one.
Two days passed before those originally yellow slices were cleaned off the floor of the dog room. So no, don’t give any kind of corn cob to dogs.
