Arthritis and The Dog
By: Dr. Ian Billinghurst DVM
No matter what sort of arthritis your dog has, a change to the right sort of diet will work wonders. The following is the diet I recommend for all dogs with any form of arthritis. This is the diet your dog will have to follow for the rest of its life. Don't worry, it is not expensive in monetary terms, it just takes a little effort. The benefits are enormous.
This diet will improve your dog's health in every way AND you will see a dramatic reduction in the arthritis.
1. Lose Weight
Is your dog overweight? If so, a normal weight must be re-established. This is so important that it cannot be stressed enough. Your dog must become lean. There are lots of sound physiological reasons for this which we do not have the space to discuss here. However, one very obvious and common-sense reason is that your dog will not have as much weight to carry around on those poor aching joints.
To achieve this weight loss you have to feed a diet with two important characteristics. It must be much reduced in the high calorie foods and much increased in the fibre rich foods. That means you will feed your dog less starch rich foods, less protein rich foods and very importantly less fat rich foods. To increase the level of healthy fibre in your dog's diet, you will feed your dog lots and lots of green leafy vegetables, all totally raw. How we do this will become clear as you continue reading.
2. No More Processed Food
Your dog must not under any circumstances receive any more procesed food.
That is NO MORE CANNED FOOD, NO MORE DRYFOOD, NO MORE SEMI-MOIST FOOD, NO DOGGY TREATS OF ANY KIND - ever at all again! And no more human processed food either - and no cat food, chook pellets etc. etc. either.
Do not feed any food that has the following substances in it. Added salt, sugar, preservatives, colorings flavorings, flavour enhancers etc. etc.. That is do not feed your dog any food which has had any foreign chemicals of any description added to it.
3. No more cooked food - all food must be raw
All food fed to your arthritic dog must be fresh whole and raw. Basically that means raw meaty bones, crushed raw vegetables and raw fruit.
4. No more grain foods
Totally eliminate from your dog's diet any food with grain in it. That
means no more toast, no more bread, no more pasta or rice, and of course no processed foods.
5. Much less food of animal origin
You must totally limit animal origin food. Particularly red meat. White meat should be the main meat fed.That is, small amounts of chicken, fish and pork. The best fish are the small ones which should be fed whole and raw. Sardines in spring water are a second choice.
6. Stop feeding dairy foods
With the exception of low fat yoghurt - no more dairy foods.
7. Fruit and vegetables should form 70% -90% of the diet
You may feed your arthritic dog any type of RAW fruit and vegetable - in fact the greater the variety the better - with the following important exceptions. Do not feed any citrus fruit to begin with. Once the arthritis is under control, the introduction of citrus fruit may be beneficial - but it must be the whole fruit not just the juice, and ofcourse it must be fresh and raw, and also TOTALLY CRUSHED. The same comments apply to the deadly nightshade family of vegetables.. That is, potatoes, tomatoes, egg plants and capsicum. Once the arthritis is under control, you may introduce these but they must be whole, raw and crushed.
All the vegetables you feed your dog must be whole raw and crushed. Put through a juicer is best. You drink some of the juice, mix the rest with the pulp and use it in the recipe which follows.
8. There are certain vital additives
The amounts required depend on the size of the dog. Eg for a twenty kg dog........
kelp powder or tablets 1/2 to 1 tsp - in the veggie mix
Fresh Cod Liver Oil 1/2 to 1 tsp daily - give separately
zinc tablet daily - 1/2 a childs dose - give separately
Fresh Cold pressed Flax seed oil 1/2 to 1 dsp daily - in the veggie mix
Vitamin E 200 iu daily - give separately
Vitamin C 500 gm twice daily - one of the best is ester C - give separately
Multi B vitamins - eg Troy Vite B 1/4 tsp daily - or 1/2 a childs dose - in the veggie mix
Shark/bovine cartilage - and/ or chewing the cartilage off the end of big bones
Extract of green lipped mussel - give separately
Genuine apple Cider vinegar - 1/4 -1/2 tsp daily - in the veggie mix or separately.
THE PROGRAMME
The vegetable meal - make the following into meal sized rissoles
This forms 80 % of the diet
3 1/2 kg Vegetable/fruit pulp, 1/2 kg lean chicken mince, small tub
non-fat yoghurt, 3 tsp kelp powder, 4 dsp flax seed oil, 2 tsp Troy vit. E, 2 or 3 eggs, 1 tsp apple cider vinegar .
Make up into meal sized portions and freeze.
The raw meaty bones:
Chicken wings, chicken necks and chicken carcases - form 15% - 20 % of the diet.
Large beef bones - with a small amount of meat - to chew on - form 5% - 10% of the diet.
