Act 3 - Scene 5:
Additional Notes About Feeding

• It has been my experience that puppies and kittens will tell you when to remove a meal from their daily intake because they simply won’t want to eat as many meals.

• After your puppy or kitten has eaten its food, it doesn't hurt to massage their stomach. This helps to get the digestive system working and to help with elimination. This helps to simulate the licking and massaging that their mother would naturally do.

• Once your dog or cat has finished eating, put any uneaten food into the meat container and feed the next day.

• Try not to combine meats, but at the same time do not waste food. In other words, if you’re feeding beef today and most of it goes and tomorrow you want to feed lamb, then feed the lamb and add the remaining beef to the lamb. Just try to minimize this, that's all.

• If your dog or cat does not immediately go for the food, read the following part entitled “encouragement”.

• Don’t leave the food on the floor forever. You want to get your pet into a routine so that all the food is eaten within 10 to 15 minutes of placing the food on the floor. Once again, if you are having problems with this, read the following part entitled “encouragement”, but at the same time, make sure your companion eats food (even if this means you need to feed some commercial pet food with homemade food to get them to eat).

• Put uneaten food back into the fridge and use with the next meal.

• This program will only takes minutes a day once organized.

• Now, just maintain your food supply. For example, do some veggies or meat as needed. That’s it!

Grains:

In the past, many homemade foods have contained grains. However, leading animal nutritionists and holistic veterinarians are no longer suggesting that grains be used.

It is suggested that with grains removed, pets (including my own) eat significantly less food over a period of time (the food intake can drop by as much as ½ or more) and in general, many pets do a lot better without grains.

Holistic vets and animal nutritionists are saying that our carnivore friends can obtain all of the nutrients found within grains from the combination of meats and vegetables.

Grains are not eaten in large amounts by carnivores and since it appears grains can be hard on a carnivore's digestive system, many people are no longer feeding grains.

By not feeding grains you remove properties like gluten from our pet’s foods. Gluten, along with other properties of grains may be a factor in hidden allergies our pets are suffering from and grains may also be a factor in problems like candida.

I do not suggest or recommend the feeding of grains for three reasons:

1. Grains are not needed and your pet's health will generally improve without grains.

2. I'm lazy and grains need to be cooked. By not feeding grains, you will increase the speed, efficiency and ease of feeding a natural diet.

3. It is common knowledge that good food combining means that grains and animal proteins should not be eaten together. When grains are fed with an animal protein, the result is poor digestion. This might be the reason why pets who do not eat grains generally eat less food than those pets who do eat grains. As digestion improves, the body is able to extract more nutrition from less food. This ultimately means the body requires less food to get more nutrition. Once the body gets enough nutrition, it stops eating.

4. Believe it or not, but our carnivore friends are designed to eat a low fiber diet. By adding grains you also add fiber. Ironically to help prevent constipation in dogs and cats we want to feed a low fiber natural raw meat diet that uses wholesome foods. A wholesome raw meat diet then helps to bring moisture to the bowels which is one of the keys to preventing constipation. Remember, when we feed a wholesome raw meat diet the raw meat contains moisture as mentioned in Part 3 - Scene 2. Many humans who suffer from constipation eat lots of fiber and yet still experience constipation because they do not drink enough water. Water is crucial to good health and so pets eating dry commercial pet food as well as cooked meats meals are more likely to suffer from constipation related health problems which include, but are not limited to, constipation itself, hair balls, colitis, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), diverticulitis and more.

Let's keep it simple and let's keep our pet's healthy by not feeding grains.

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