September-October201.. - Dogs Naturally Magazine

generations of raw feeding and no vaccines before you canhope to have an optimally healthy dog. We need more naturalrearing breeders!There are a number of factors which determine good health.These are, of course, the dog’s genes – what they come inwith. To me, the second most important factor is whether ornot the dog is vaccinated. We’re lucky in the UK because thereis no rabies, and no mandatory rabies vaccine. Right from thestart, we don’t have to destroy their little immune systems andset them up for ill health.vegetables from the garden; some will help themselves to berriesoff bushes; some will eat windblown apples. Nearly alldogs will eat ruminated vegetation if they get the chance(otherwise known as sheep, horse, rabbit and other vegetablebasedpoo). I remember one dog eating the bark off a specifictree. When diagnosed by a homoeopathic vet with vaccinedamage and given Thuja, his owner was stunned to realise thatthe specific bark he had been eating was from a Thuja tree. Allanimals self medicate when in nature, so being able to muscletest and ascertain the right diet for each individual dog is ajolly useful thing to be able to do.The third factor is, of course, diet. The breeder sent us awaywith a bag of allegedly ‘complete and balanced’ dry puppyfood, asking us not to change to raw too quickly lest we upsettheir puppy tummies. Our aim was to switch them over asquickly as possible.Life, according to a John Lennon lyric, is something that happenswhile you’re busy making other plans, and these littlepuppies didn’t go to plan. If we gave Freddie anything otherthan the puppy kibble, diarrhoea ensued. If we gave Rubyanything other than raw, diarrhoea ensued. At this time, westill had our old and beautiful Edward with us, and Georgie the‘special needs’ Papillon also needed to eat.Seven-week-old puppies need four meals a day. Aged GoldenRetrievers and tiny Papillons need two. So Rob was serving uptwelve meals a day, all different in six different settings – andworking out a way to stop the puppy trots. It’s not a greatidea to fast puppies, which is the traditional thing to do whenan adult dog gets the trots. So we gave them scrambled eggand mashed potato to help ‘soak it all up’, and cooked chickenor fish until they stabilised.Now that they’re teething, and Freddie was getting a bit fractious,we are giving them homoeopathic Chamomilla 6c threetimes a day. It has certainly helped Freddie, who is happiernow.And then, one day, it all came together. To be honest, wefeared that Freddie might be one of those rare dogs whowould never be able to tolerate the raw diet – but today bothhe and Ruby had chicken wings for breakfast and raw meatand vegetables for tea, and (if you’ll forgive me for saying so)their poos are impeccable.It must be said that, initially, we did spot bone shards in theirpoo, so we backed off on the chicken wings for a day or twoand then reintroduced them one at a time until we were satisfiedthat their stomach acids were breaking the bones down.Now, I appreciate that some raw feeders are opposed to vegetablesas a suitable foodstuff for dogs, but muscle testingdoesn’t bear this out. Some dogs don’t need any vegetables atall; some dogs do. Some dogs will self medicate by stealingBearing in mind that we don’t vaccinate, we put the puppiesonto the homoeopathic canine combination nosode as soon asthey came home with us. I appreciate that this is another controversialissue, because some natural rearers believe thatnosodes should only be given in the face of a disease risk. All Ican say is that this is the way we do it in the UK. ChristopherDay, probably our most senior homoeopathic vet, believesthat it’s irresponsible to leave puppies totally unprotected.We also give our puppies a Transfer Factor each day. This isconcentrated colostrum (mother’s milk), and studies haveshown it to be effective against hundreds of viruses and bacterins.The result of getting them on nosodes and Transfer Factorfrom seven weeks old has been that, from ten weeks of age,www.dogsnaturallymagazine.com September/October 2010 | 13