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Keep the Tail Wagging Reader Survey

Thank you for taking the time to fill out the reader survey!  I went from less than 35 responses last week to over 250 responses this week and it’s only Tuesday!  I’ll be closing the survey on Friday 1/11 and working on the graphic to share the results.

To show my gratitude, I’ll be giving away a $100 Amazon gift card.  The winner will be announced when I publish the graphic. If you haven’t completed the survey, no worries, you can add your thoughts HERE.

Tracking Nutrients in Raw Dog Food
 

One question I receive regularly from readers is “how do we know that our dogs are getting the nutrients they need?”  A few years ago, I would have told you that our dogs get everything from their meal and, in fact, if you dig deep enough in my blog you might find a blog post that states this – yikes!  Today, I have a different thought on this topic.  To make sure that your dog is getting the nutrients he or she needs in their raw diet, we have a few options:
 

1) Feed a premade raw dog food.  I started my dogs off with Darwin’s Pet.  I still feed some premade raw, alternating it with DIY.  The reason I do this is that there are proteins that I’m unable to source on my own, for example, lamb and lamb tripe, which is what I order from Darwin’s Pet.
 

2) Add a base mix to your dog’s raw meals.  I fed raw using a base mix for more than a year before I transitioned to DIY and began making my own vegetable mix and, eventually, this led me to ferment my vegetables to add a natural source of probiotics to my dogs’ diet.  I stopped using base mixes because many have grains and/or potatoes, neither of which I think my dogs need.  I was introduced to a new base mix last fall create by Dr. Harvey’s and occasionally use their Raw Vibrance when doing meal prep.  It saves me a ton of time and allows me to feed a balanced meal to my dogs without worry.
 

3) Track nutrients in your dogs’ diet.  And, finally, you can always track nutrients in your dog’s diet.  This can be done using programs or an app.  I choose to use a spreadsheet.  I hired a friend to create nutrient profiles based on current NRC guidelines.  I then took those numbers and I’m building a workbook to help me better understand the nutrients in the foods I feed to my dogs as compared to what they need on a daily basis.  You can learn more about what I’m doing by checking out yesterday’s blog post.

I’ve also taken it one step further and ordered a nutrient and heavy metal hair test for each of my dogs through ParsleyPet.com.  As well as a gut biome test for two of my dogs (I’ll test the other two when AnimalBiome offers a BOGO deal again).  These tests will provide me with a lot of information about how my dogs are doing with the diet I’m feeding.  I’ll publish blog posts sharing what I learned once the results have been received.
 

I don’t use any of this data to formulate meals; I simply use it as an educational tool to better understand what my dogs require nutritionally.
 

Do you track nutrients in your dog’s diet?  If you do, how do you do it?