chows and meat protein

Topics, guidelines and tips for feeding Chow Chows.

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sara
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chows and meat protein

Post by sara »

Hi
I've read countless times that the chow should not have a high meat diet.
I find it hard to get my head around this, dogs need meat is what I've always known,
I am feeding my chow home cooked food one day and a good commercial wet food the next, the commercial food is 65% meat and 5% offal, she loves it and seems to be doing well on it, her coat has changed loads for the better in the past three months. Her weight is good for her build
I am increasing the meat content of her home cooked food gradually, i give her meet and 5% offal, again she is doing well on it so it seems, she certainly loves it.
she has missing link and salmon oil.
Its just at the back of mind mind, all the time, should i or should i not feed my chow more meat.

what have you fed, especially people who have owned chows for a while.

I would welcome peoples opinions as the more i read the more confusing it gets, especially re. the chow.
Even if you don't have a chow, anyones opinions welcomed.
Thanks
I
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Merlin
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Re: chows and meat protein

Post by Merlin »

I think you might be confusing "high meat" with "high protein". This is only a factor for people who feed commercial dry foods to their dogs. People who feed their dogs a natural diet, don't need to worry about this.

In the past, most commercial dry dog foods were comprised of poor protein sources like corn, or soy , or wheat gluten to compliement whatever little meat they tossed into their formulations, and when those types of foods use those types of ingredients to enhance the protein, then yes, the dog does or can react poorly. ( ie: hotspots, skin issues, liver/pancreas & kidney issues), and generally poor nutrition.

At least nowadays one can get commercial dog foods made out of actual meat as the prime ingredient without most of the unwanted chemicals. Premium canned dog foods are also 100% meat with a bit of filler, so you need to understand the difference.

Real meat is 100% meat, and dogs need meat in their diets. If you are home cooking, it's 80% - 90% meat with 10-20% offal and other ingredients is quite fine - if you are doing a Raw Regine, then you know that all they need is meat, meat and more meat.

If you actually are cooking your meat you do need to supplement with a vitamin mix though because cooking robs meat of vital nutrients. Humans can obtain far more nutrients from cooked foods because we have very long intestines. Dogs don't. A dog's digestive system is meant to process foods in 4 hours or less so this does not allow t hem the same opportunities to absorb nutrients. Hope this answers your question.

What you really need to make sure of is that you include valuable amounts of omega 3 = 6 and that comes from fatty fish, or fatty fish oil ( NOT COD liver oil, but fish oil) ( mackerel, herring, sardines, albacore, salmon, etc)

Never worry about overfeeding your dog real meat, there is no such thing! and don't forget fat!. Unlike humans, dogs metabolize their energy from animal fats and not from carbs like humans do, so please keep fats on the "wanted" list. As much as possible and don't confuse commercial food issues with what you are doing. You far ahead of the food game by feeding them homemade foods! Bravo!
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sara
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Re: chows and meat protein

Post by sara »

Excellent informative reply thank you Merlin,

I have increased her meat and offal even more this week in her home cooked, as I do cook the meat (usually lightly simmer for a short while as I lightly steam the veg on top of the pan, ) I add missing link and grizzly salmon oil to this.
I add protein foods like eggs, cottage cheese and she has kefir daily.
I feel we must be somewhere near getting things fairly right as when we got her she had terrible breath and not a great looking coat, we bathed her once because she needed it and now she doesn't smell, her breath doesn't smell at all! not one bit, her coat is glistening and her teeth have gone white, she doesn't itch either and I only gave her one month of flea treatment at the beginning of August.
I have weighed her monthly and her weight is stable.
I know three months is not long, but so far so good. She looks a different dog (for the better) than the one we bought home

Sorry my title and post was probably miss leading, I was referring to all I've read that historically the chow was fed very little meat and mainly rice/veg. I feel this would be because they were to be kept alive, often eaten, but no one wanted them to thrive, so why would they waste precious meat sources or high protein foods like eggs on them.
It seems some people think because of this the chow should not get much meat.

This led me to wonder, have people actually fed a good quantity of meat to a chow and found it to be detrimental,
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Merlin
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Re: chows and meat protein

Post by Merlin »

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 I was referring to all I've read that historically the chow was fed very little meat and mainly rice/veg. 
I think it depends what Era in China you are reading with regards to available foods. At many points in Chinese history, people in China, including farmers, were starving themselves, had little to eat, let alone be able to feed a dog. Meat was taken from them by the ruling war lords of the time period, to feed their armies, and civilians were left with little food. Dog ownership was purely a luxury - or - dogs lived side by side with farming families, but did have natural 'foodstuffs" available to them. While it's true they may have given rice and vegetables to their dogs, { because that's pretty much what the general population had to eat}, dogs had ample opportunity to catch mice, rats , rabbits, any roadkill, and other smaller animals and would have supplemented their diets with fresh raw meat by those means. In fact if you visit farming communities to this day, dogs are still often fed from the table and t heir diets are supplemented by any felled livestock or by any rodents/ animals they catch on their own. Not much has changed in that respect. The dogs are much healthier than city dogs, even though rarely if ever go to see a vet, and easily live to 18-19 years old.

Another thing to consider is that chows originated from Upper Manchuria, lower Russia as part of the Spitz group - essentially from the North, and not from Southern China. These areas have very short growing seasons, and do not product rice as a commodity, so they would have absolutely been fed meat more than anything because in the North meat is/was very plentiful. In many areas of Russia, certainly in Northern Canada dogs are STILL fed with raw meat, raw fish and raw seals.

Chows have an extremely strong prey drive and have no trouble bringing down large game on their own. {{ Not much has changed in that respect }} - so they would have had whatever fresh meat they could catch.


PS - just to touch on commercial foods.. even the "better foods".. with meat as the first one or two ingredients, foods boasting very high protein values are still processed foods, so the meats they use to produce this food STILL suffers a substantial nutritional loss during the processing. To enhance the level of protein, the manufacturers add "brewers yeast", ( which is a protein). and THAT is why many people who have dogs on high protein foods have problems even with quality foods. It is not because of the meat, but because of the added brewers yeast - which again, is very incompatible with dogs.

It's great that there are people out there pulling away from commercially processed foods.
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Contact Your local Chow Chow Association to find your Breeder of Merit!
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Kai / Hanna
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Re: chows and meat protein

Post by Kai / Hanna »

Hi

My chow & Lhasa Apso, cat l eat Raw food(home made)- chicken w/bone, chiken liver, egg w/shell, salmon oil, garic - keep freezer

Here are some books- Raw Dog Food(Carina Beth MacDonald)
Natural nutrition for dogs and cat(Kymythy r. Schultze)

I'm happy about raw diet.
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