Carnivory II

Parte the seconde.
    


Dexter is 9-1/2 weeks, and I started him on his raw diet. I was a little hesitant... but he wasn't! OMG can that boy eat meat!

I hear you saying, "RAW?! He'll get sick from bacteria!" I've seen dogs casually snarf up mummified mice from the roadside, with no noticeable aftereffects. Just last Wed my boy celebrated his 9wo birthday by scooping up a dead mouse on a walk; he was so stealthy that the tail was disappearing as I noticed he wasn't chewing on a stick. And the poop was just fine. Whole mouse, dead for ?? long, preserved by... not being discovered by any other carnivore first.

They're scavenging carnivores (1), a subspecies of grey wolf (2), sharing at least 99.8% of their DNA (2). Wolves in the wild eat over 98% of their calories in meat (4), even accounting for the small bit of vegetation they get from eating prey intestines & stomach (which they empty first, despite what you may have heard). IOW, carnivores, not omnivores, as I had previously believed. And well-adapted to eating carrion.

(1) Perhaps redundant. Is there such a thing as a carnivore that doesn't scavenge? Even sharks attack carcasses. But my point is: they're evolved for eating not-fresh dead meat.

(2) Canis lupus familiaris. So, the next time someone says, "Dogs aren't wolves!", you might politely correct them. They are.

(3) Interestingly, dogs appear to have branched away from wolves (were domesticated? domesticated themselves? Strunk & White advise the active voice...). 100,000ya - quite a bit longer than the time that we have been wearing clothes!

(4) "But my dog eats grass!" Yeah, and my cousin drank a fifth a day. And I eat too much at meals. Want != need.

But what about their ability to eat non-meat human scraps? Well, you can eat indigestible junk, too (the parts of beans that give you gas, for instance). But more importantly, they, like us (5), are attracted to both sweet and fatty tastes - both of which human food abounds in! However, unlike us, their saliva does not contain amylase, an enzyme that is used by seeds to break down starches (storing energy in a hard-to-digest fashion, to protect the seeds from predators) into sugars (which is the first step in malting grain, which is the first step in fermenting beer, which is YAY BEER!). Where was I? Oh, yeah...

(5) But unlike cats, which cannot taste sweet. No receptors for sugar on their tongues. 


Humans have amylase in their saliva. Perhaps the oldest method of making beer is to chew grain, and spit the "cud" into a jar. Leave to ferment, et voila! Chicha! The mere act of chewing your sandwich begins the digestion process right in your mouth. But, although that WonderIfIt'sReally Bread is sweet (like an unsupervised child, it's fucking close to candy), doggie can't really digest (most of) the grain part of the bread.

But wait a minute! Almost every single dog food on the market, from Wallyworld's Choice to expensive canned stuff, contains grain fillers of some sort. And they've invested (collectively) million$ in research to make sure their product is top-notch. All true. But what's lacking from that evidence is independent, blind testing of dog nutrition needs. I don't doubt that Bayer wants me to eat an aspirin a day... it's when an impartial body finds evidence in their tests that corroborate this, that I become a believer (retaining the privilege of a healthy level of doubt, of course). And I don't see that sort of unbiased research out there saying, "A dog's diet should contain grains."

 So I'm going with the field experts on this one. So to speak.

  
The guidelines I've read say to start on only one meat, to watch for protein allergies (possibly less of a concern for a mutt, which is de facto less inbred, but that may just be wishful thinking). However, the store didn't have chicken livers, so he gets chicken quarters and beef liver.

The general rule of thumb is 80% meat with meaty bones,  10% organ meat (for vitamins, so heart & tripe are considered meat), and 10% fish and/or eggs. Naturally, growing puppies (4-legged or 2-) require lots of fat, so the meat shouldn't be the well-trimmed, health-conscious variety.

Again, guidelines: 2% of adult bodyweight in food daily (regardless of puppy age & size!), or else 10% of current puppy weight. That's a guideline, unadjusted for activity level, of course. 2% of 40# is 12 oz. I packaged 10# of chicken quarters into 11-oz allotments, and added 1/16th of my pound of beef livers to each. I fit these parcels 3 to a quart baggie (the livers made nice visual breaks between the allotments), and froze them.

He ate his 12 oz of meat for breakfast, and was hungry again by mid-afternoon At this stage, if he's hungry, and not putting fat on his ribs, I'm feeding him... so he's now getting 2 of those 12-oz packages a day, with an egg added to the breakfast serving. (I blended 6 whole eggs, and dole it out from a tupperware container in the fridge, since the shells have lots of calcium.)

  
Now, to the really interesting part, since you've stuck with me this far (thank you!).

I believe in TINFL when raising dogs: There Is No Free Lunch, or, essentially, I want them to believe that everything they want or need is a gift from me. Dexter eats when (& where!) I choose. He goes where I say he goes (crate & leash; almost no free run).  I cut him slack on potty duty, because after all: he's just a pup. But although he lets me know when, and I jump-to, even if we "just went!!!eleventy!", ... I pick where. To the left of the door, in the 10'x15' gravel area, not over to the right in front of the patio, nor straight out from the door in the grass.

So, when he grabbed his chicken and moved away from me, a perfectly natural and appropriate thing for a puppy in a litter to do to protect his meal, I took it away. Then, I gave it back to him. He growled; I "put him down" (pressed him gently but firmly until his head & neck were on the ground). Then I let him eat again, but with me holding on to the joint. He tried to turn so he was facing away from me; I turned him back. Food comes from me; it is not taken from me.

I've been using "DROP IT" as his command to stop biting (5). I used it intermittently a few times during his feeding. After a few trials, within one or two repeats of DEXTER DROP IT, he stopped eating, and let go of what was in his mouth. Amazing. GOOD DEXTER, OK, and I move the meat back to his mouth. The carnage resumed.... What a gooood boy!

(5) He now knows his name, GOOD, DROP IT, and is getting used to OK and WAIT. I'm not saying he's trained on those words, but he recognizes them, and responds in some manner, even when the tone isn't the message.

And that's when the most amazing thing happened. Not in him: in me. Or maybe, in us. This voracious little predator, with pin-sharp teeth (don't I know!!!), ripping savagely at the meat & skin, crunching through entire chicken femurs and pelvic bones, ate gingerly around my hand. Not once did his little teeth touch my skin. I braced the leg; he pulled & twisted & crunched & gnawed, earning each little well-chewed morsel of meat, fat, skin, bone, marrow. I felt like a mama dog. I really felt like I was bringing him food.

I can't quite put it into words, except: it's like the difference between taking your new love interest out to dinner (impress her with the white tablecloth "I treat you right!" stuff), and making your new love interest dinner.

Also, watching a predator (even junior-grade) consume prey... educational, in a very anatomical, hidden-power sort of way.

  

BTW, on the subject of indigestible dog food components... His next two bowel movements were irregular (first diarrhea, then constipation). He's returned to normal since then: a diet adjustment. I collected his last fewmets: 1.5 oz. About 90% of his meal was absorbed. I never weighed his droppings while he was on Puppy Chow, but I can tell you they were larger (maybe 2x?).