Update on my dogs diets

Rita's (and therefore Lucky's too) diet has changed: I took her off carbohydrates.

Rita, who is now a ten year old beagle, has lipomas - fat nodules or tumors. She had one on her tummy somewhere between half a ducks egg and a goose egg - it hangs down perhaps a inch - one on her flank about he size of half a hens egg, and half a dozen smaller lipomas, some hard and some soft. She has had many of these for many years, five perhaps.

Last summer when I went to the vet for flea-killer I had him look at rita's lumps. He thought that some of them should be surgically removed. Giving it some thought I thought: she's had these for four years. Her life expectancy is maybe four or five years. The lumps are not syptomatic, so why medicalise the poor dog. But what to do.

I cut back, a little, on the quantity of her dinner. Then my friend Dee suggested carbohydrate is the main source of stored fat and that I cut the carbohydrate out of Rita's diet. So, since last winter I have taken the rice out of the dogs' diet and have added bran (wheat bran, mostly). Sometimes a lot, but if their stool is soft then only a little - one to three tablespoons.

So, it is about six months now and most of Rita's lumps are getting a little or a lot smaller.

Mornings:

• bran
• raw meat, i.e. ground beef (from the Menonites),
• hot/warm water, but it's more complicated than that.
• I add some ground beef parts that the Menonites market as dog food
• and nowadays, grated yam or carrot, since I've started medicating with grated burdock root, bone meal, and (as a supplement) glucosamine.

Evenings:

• bran
• raw meat, i.e. ground beef (Menonites or organic),
• vegetable and poultry-parts stew (I stew enough for 5 to 7 days, mixed vegetable, diced carrots, beets, celery, yams, broccoli, parsnips, zuccini, whatevery, and chicken livers or hearts or stomachs/ gizzards [Menonite or organic],

Norman Allan

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