Ortho Study

[Gina Heitz <brier@oregonsbest.com>]

This is a quoted post sent onto a list I belong to.  Since it's a quote and 
that person was given permission to pass it on I nabbed it for you guys. :-)


 >From Purina, Cornell and UPenn, they found that the prevalence
and severity of osteoarthritis (in all joints, esp hip and
shoulder) was less in dogs with long-term reduced food intake
than control dogs. Dogs that were fed 25% less food from 8 wks
to 8 years had fewer problems. The prevalence of lesions in
the hip joint was 15/22 (68%) in the group eating more food,
versus 3/21 (14%) in the group fed 25% less. Pretty significant!
This was done with labs from 7 dams and 2 sires and were paired
by weight and sex within litters and randomly assigned to a
limit-fed group or control-fed group. So, I don't know how one
tells how much is genetic or not, but given pups from the same
litters show significant variations in osteoarthritis based on
how they are fed, environment is certainly a large factor! Hope
this helps!<

Notes from Gina:

Sooo with that said it's my suggestion that everyone  look at your dogs 
regularly and access their condition.  How much to feed dogs is often a 
question many struggle with.  When dogs are puppies we are constantly 
looking for the magic formula week to week on how much to feed.  There 
really is no set amount though you ask your vet or even me and we say oh 
feed about XXX a feeding the dog food bag gives a recommendation don't ever 
follow that.  There really is no set guide that will work for all dogs at 
the same age.  The rule of thumb is to feel your dog, on a regular basis to 
access condition.  You should be able to easily feel the ribs, there should 
be a very light covering over the ribs.  You should also always be able to 
see a waist on your dog.  If your dog appears to be the same shoulders to 
tail it is over weight.  No waist, over weight.  This applies to puppies as 
well as adults.

One method of feeding I have started to suggest to my grooming clients and 
to you here is called Pulse Feeding.  When you pulse feed you are assuring 
that your dog is using it's food to keep the body working efficiently and 
that the metabolism is working at an optimum.  So if your struggling with 
weight on a dog, or even if your not, but *you* just  also have a problem 
taking food and treats away to diet your dog because *you* think food is 
much more important to your dog than it really is, because you have trained 
your dog to react as though food is so so very important to them, try this:

Let's say for the sake of simplicity you are feeding your dog 3 cups of 
kibble a day 1 1/2 cups each feeding and you treat through out the day with 
grain based dog treats, (Milk Bone ect) your dog is 1 year of age ( you 
know who you are here) <smile>.   Go to feeding your dog one time per day 
(this actually is much better for your dog than the two smaller meals as it 
removes protein and carbohydrate spikes that feeding more often causes, and 
cause problems to numerous to list right here right now.  Dogs eat in 
nature when they are hungry or when food is avail it's not uncommon for 
them to go several days with out eating).  So at 3 cups per day a way to 
pulse feed is to measure food over time.  With raw feeding we balance our 
diets over time and at least this part of the concept can carry over to 
kibble feeding.  This is how we as humans eat often as well...

Day 1:  Feed 3 cups, and cut treats to 50% of your norm by breaking the 
treats in half.  Your dog will not notice the size change of the treat.  He 
will notice he's missing dinner but not because he is hungry but because he 
is a creature of habit and up until now the habit has been to eat at X time 
of day every day because *you* have always provided this.  A way to make 
this easier on you is to skip breakfast, if you work out of the home and 
you are not around to see those big brown eyes begging you are less likely 
to feel guilty.  If you work from home you are going to just have to suck 
it up... <smile>

Day 2:  Feed 2 cups of food, yes 1/3 less than the day before.  Same on the 
rest as above.

Day 3:  Feed 3 cups.

Day 4: feed 1 1/2 cups yes dog is going to notice this but again, it's not 
because he is hungry it's the habit.

Repeat this pattern but don't stick to a pattern, it's even ok to feed 1 
1/2 cups two days in a row or to even skip a day entirely, fasting is 
good.  Assess every few days your dog's condition, feel the ribs look for a 
waist.  If your dog was already in optimum condition and you note little to 
no change after two weeks of this method then you are on track and you have 
successfully decreased your dogs intake to where his body is using it's 
food to an optimum.

  If your dog was not in optimum condition  and you do not see a change you 
need to further reduce intake and add bulk perhaps to the diet to aide the 
cause.  Bulk meaning fiber: ground carrots or green beans not pumpkin, it's 
a starch and tuns into carbohydrates, which are really the worst thing you 
can feed a dog in quaintly.  Dogs do not use carbs the way humans do, they 
really have to work very hard to turn carbs into energy hence why I don't 
feed grain based food... 1/2 cup mixed in with even further reduced diet:

Day 1: 2 1/2 cups

Day 2: 1 1/2 cups

Day 3: 1 1/2 cups

Day 4:  2 cups

Note on empty tummy barfing:
If you have a dog who does what we call empty tummy barfing throws up small 
amounts of bile in between meals the remedy here is  to feed a small a very 
small amount of food 2 times per day.  The bulk of the food fed can still 
be fed at the main time meal.

Now on puppies:

First let's get over the myth that puppies have to have optimum nutrition 
at all times.  This is marketing hype and is a fairy tale it's hazardous to 
your pup's health actually as more kindly noted above in the quoted material.

Yes I do recommend feeding pup's two times a day (not three times a day 
never ever never).  Pup's in the wild are only able to get to the scraps 
and what mom provides for them.  After about 8 to 10 weeks in the wild mom 
does not supply much to them...  This is nature at work and the old saying 
of mother nature knows best is really true here.  Remember you are training 
your dog to eat the way we as humans do.  You are human and it's only human 
nature to humanize dogs...  It's not mother natures idea, note teh saying 
that mother nature is cruel but fair...  You can as well pulse feed 
pups.  Simply skip a meal here and there, skip a meal once a week, this is 
a 1/2 fast so to speak.  Also just remove 10 to 15 pieces of kibble from a 
meal here and there, 30 on another day, or 1/4 cup...

All of this can be applied to raw feeding as well, just cut portions. Raw 
feeding is not a cure or an answer beyond feeding a biologically correct 
diet which is optimum in it's own respect, yes but an over fed raw fed dog 
is still going to be a un fit dog.  RMB's are 80 to 90% of a pup's diet and 
a RMB has so much packed into it that if you feed just RMB's even for as 
long as a week with some veggies to keep things flowing, skipping ground 
meat ect you are actually working off the best premise you can.

The benefits of  pulse feeding are many, kibble or raw.  To many to list, 
but the main reasons to do this is to help control weight, insure proper 
growth, and keep your dog alert and over all best his odds at over all best 
orthopedic and a strong immune system related health.  Simply it is a way 
to retrain YOU!  As you all know I feel that all of us need to be 
retrained, the marketing hype of dog food companies really is not to 
provide for your dogs in an optimum fashion it's to sell a product to make 
an income to support the economy. I don't want to support the economy via 
my pet's health....

Love,

Granny Gina