Quote:
Originally Posted by Michael Romanos
We have had this subject before, played out by the same members and I must go back to the comparative analogy that you don't feed babies and young children and older children (human) with an all-adult diet and you don't feed puppies with an all adult diet for the same reasons unless there exists a special reason.
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Well actually there are some people that do feed their young children the same diet as the adults eat. And if one thinks about what you pick up off the shelf from Gerber's or Beechnut - the food selections are the same; meat, vegetables, fruit, cereal. The difference is in the texture and maybe seasoning. A food processor can puree, pulverize and chop anything from roast beef and carrots to chicken and noodles into a slurry comparable to anything coming out of a Gerber's jar. I've yet to see a difference between vienna sausages my Grandfather loved and some of the chicken sticks Gerber & Beechnut have out for toddlers' "finger foods," a relatively new niche in the baby food market. There are many health conscientious parents around that don't like all the chemicals, dyes and preservatives found in many of the baby food lines going into their children and so they prepare baby foods themselves. Which might have the most nutritional value, fresh carrots from a garden, steamed and pureed and fed to a baby or a jar of processed carrots, where vitamins and nutrients are put back in and dyes are added for color?
You've raised what, a half dozen, maybe, puppies from eight weeks on? Those first eight weeks you have no knowledge, background or experience in seeing Mother Nature in a raw form ensuring survival of the fittest. You have no idea that a litter's first solid meal might be where the dam has eaten, partially digested her meal and then regurgitated it for the puppies. Puppies don't know at three weeks they aren't supposed to be diving into their dam's bowl of food and eating it because it isn't "puppy formula."
Their is a lot of money being made in the pet food industry and with each niche created and clever marketing ploys, consumers are in a sense duped into believing they are doing better and better for their pets if they buy "Yorkshire Terrier" specialty food for their Yorkie as an example. When I first joined GoCorgi Taylor's diet was what might loosely be called a modified raw diet - very healthy and nutritious and that isn't saying his diet today is not healthy and nutritious, just that you've changed it a lot. More and more of late it is as if you've almost become a spokesman for the pet food industry and many of your absolutes are almost 180 degrees from some of your original positions. Given the choice of taking advice from someone who has raised a limited amount of puppies from eight weeks on and taking advice and mentoring from people who have raised generations upon generations of puppies from the whelping box to the grave, I'm going to have to choose the latter. What works for one, might not work for another.
Again, there is NO one right way to feed, nor absolutes. What is right is what works for an owner and their dog. Take opinions, suggestions and advice and tailor them to meet the needs of your dog.
Debbie