Dog Food for Thought

Yes, Yes. I'm still around. I've just taken a break from the net for a few days to gather my thoughts and try to get my head straight. I AM ok. Really. It's a bit better now that I quit my job on Tuesday. It just wasn't going anywhere and it's a long story and doesn't bear repeating.


Anywho, I'd wanted to do something to gross a few people out. LOL just kidding. Actually, I'd been thinking of topics and the one that keeps rolling around in my head is about Tiger. He's keeping me sane right now. I love him so much, even though it's only been 5 1/2 weeks. A lot of people make a big to-do over feeding their dogs. I know I did when living "back home" in America...Lexington, South Carolina and New Orleans, Louisiana to be exact. I had German shepherds that really had a lot of allergies and stuff, AND I wanted them to be healthy, a healthy dog from the inside out...which means good food. I started off with what's called a "natural diet"; raw meat, veggies, lots of vitamins and minerals, etc. It wasn't so expensive at the time until meat prices went way up. Then I found Nutro, which was "ok" for my dogs, but not great, as Tasha started having gum problems. THey had plenty of raw meaty beef bones to chew, and nothing but brushing her teeth with chlorhexidine ( a chemical used for gum disease treatment in humans - and dogs) worked. Then I found Natural Balance, and when I was in the States a 15 kg bag (35lbs roughly) cost $35. Great stuff! It had everything I'd been feeding in the natural diet and cheaper, too.


Here in Australia a Dr. Billinghurst came up with the BARF Diet sounds nasty huh? It stands for Biologically Appropriate Raw Foods. It comes in pre-formed patties or bulk that you can weigh on your own. I do the pre-formed, just easier that way. It comes frozen and when thawed can tend to smell a bit, ESPECIALLY if it's roo. Yes 'roo as in kangaroo! Aussies are the only country in the world that eats its national symbol LMAO! Kangaroos are seen as pests and can be ; with the drought at disastrous proportions the poor devils don't have enough to eat, so the herds are culled for human and animal consumption. When you think about it, it makes sense. There is no need to farm them like cows, there are too many for the land to support so we are actually preventing starvation of the wonderful creatures.Anyway, the patties also come in lamb, chicken, pork, beef, and combination; it includes veggies, vitamins, minerals, and so forth. 1 patty for each 12 kgs and it's recommended to feed with "kibble" or dry dog food. Now here's the shocker. Natural Balance is not so readily available here, we order it shipping is only like $7 or something like that, it's not even as good as the Natural Balance back home and it costs....wait for it.....$69.00 per 15 kg bag. uh huh. Now those of you who have dogs in America, I'm sure you've seen the Science Diet in large bags at the vet...they cost what? About 40 bucks or so? Here they are over $100. Talk about unbelievable prices!

Tiger weighs about 34kgs or 74.8 lbs. So, he gets 2 patties per day, I feed him twice a day, plus about 1/2 cup or so of kibble, depends on his activity level. He is all lean muscle, greyhounds have very little fat on their bodies and retired greys tend to weigh a bit more when they get off the track since they start to put on a bit more weight, but it's really fat. They are supposed to look skinny, ok? Believe it or not, greyhounds don't do much. They are called the 45 mph couch potato for a reason. They have their little "zoomies" around the yard lasting just a few minutes per day (Tiger only does his about 3x per week), and then they sleep. That's pretty much all they do. I think I read somewhere that the avg. grey sleeps about 22 hours per day. Not much going on when you compare that to any other dog is it?

I won't get into the muzzling issue very far, except to say this, sometimes it IS for their own safety...this is one reason why: greys have very thin skin, it tears easily, doesn't heal very fast, and they can play very rough with each other. It's not unusual for grey owners to come home to what looks like a bloodbath in their home just because some happy dog wagged his tail and kept banging it against the walls til it bleeds (imagine a wagging tail spraying blood everywhere). Not that it happens often really, bit it can and does.

Greyhounds extremely loving creatures, they can look fierce because they do something really unusual for dogs, they grin. It's really funny looking, too. I found a pick of someone else's hound just to show you.

This is a pic of Cody, ain't that just a darlin' grin? Cutest thing I ever saw.

So here’s what I was trying to get around to showing you. The BARF in the bowl mixed with kibble. Looks kinda gross, but Tiges luuuuurrves it. This is the lamb, not that you can tell the difference when it's all just mush anyway.

Oh yeah and my freezer, too. It’s the size of a bar fridge but only the top shelf has food for us in it.