Aggravation ?

[ChristineL]

Always please recall that a carnivore, even a little one - think weasels or shrews - eats, by choice, critters! Meat is their preferred food. Wolves, foxes, hyenas, and any dog relatives, are set up to eat meat; enzymes, structure, dentition, gut length, etc. are all designed to be happy on meat
It's also quite common for carnivores to nibble at grasses; it helps them process bones and other large chunks they do not - CAN not - chew thoroughly. My big meathound eats the longest and toughest grass he can find, and then poops it out in due time, wrapped around any offending chunks or slivers. Also, it takes 4-6 hours for raw food to transit the gut, but hours longer for cooked, or more for vegetable matter. So take that into account and don't worry about not seeing poop. You'll know if there's a real issue, in plenty of time. Let her rest her gut, if she likes.

What Dr. Jeff is saying, I believe, is to simplify things, and give her what she is most suited for. We ask an awful lot of these guys when we throw everything in the book at them, especially when they are already not functioning at top digestive form. Perhaps she is telling you she needs a rest

Thanks Ginny - I was giving her some veggies for cancer prevention. I understand the needs of her body for eating grass for digesting but she was not able to chew off the grass due to no teeth. In this case, since her body needs it, do I add some green veggies to help her? I was giving her just about 1 tsp to 1 tbsp of green juju (grind mixture of Ingredients: Organic celery, organic zucchini, organic kale, organic dandelion greens, organic parsley bison bone broth, organic coconut oil, organic lemon, organic turmeric, organic ginger.) per day before I followed Dr. Jeff's suggestion of feeding without any veggies. I also grew some wheat grass for her at home but she's not interested.

If the digestion rate is quicker for raw food, does it mean it's best to feed raw?

Do these dietary needs change over the decades since dogs are domesticated?

 

[GinnyW]

Cancer is a complex systemic issue with many possible contributing causes. I don't feel that adding a few vegetables would matter in its development OR its resolution. I don't believe we have much evidence of cancer in wild carnivores, in any case. Perhaps the "natural causes" that kill them are designed to do so, more or less, and ones who are given the opportunity to live longer, such as our pets or the zoo animals, are bumping up against cancer because they have lived long enough to do so. And/or, cancer is the result of abysmally poor husbandry, with inappropriate food, drugs, environments, toxins, vaccines, etc. which have been espoused over generations of caring for domestic animals. We here have some wonderful tools with which to help terrribly insulted animals, but I still honestly cannot see where feeding inappropriate foods, while perhaps not harmful, is a significant contribution.

Not a big deal if she chooses not to eat grasses,or any other veg. She knows what she needs, or does not need. Feeding is an expensive metabolic effort, and many times animals who are ill just won't bother - not always a bad thing.

Yes, on gut transit - it's best to keep things moving through, easily and rapidly. A bellyful of anything can be a liability, especially if it's decaying carbohydrates.

And no, on adaptation. Ten of thousands of years to develop effective species cannot be offset by - what? - a couple of hundred, maybe a thousand years of eating whatever leftovers humans provided. This cannot, in my opinion, change the fundamental design of teeth, gut, enzymes - and attraction - to deal with prey. Opportunism and a desire to please humans play a part in post Paleolithic dog diet, but it is not evolution, nor is it advantageous. We've ruined our own diets, and that of our companions, and the least we can do is to see clearly how to help them, even if we don't help ourselves.