by Dr Greg on August 11, 2009
In his book,”In Defense of Food,” Michael Pullan suggests that the “western diet” (high carb, high saturated fat, low omega fat, low antioxidants) caused many native populations to get ill once they adopted that way of eating.
Fast food and packaged food in place of native diets led to health problems in native Aborigines, Hawaiians, and Japanese popuations that changed their tried-and-true eating habits passed down from generation to generation over thousands of years.
Isn’t that similiar to the high-carb, low-fat, commercial, dog food ingredients that we have forced on a native canine population that had been eating a certain diet for thousands upon thousands of years. Now it seems that our dogs are suffering from more obesity, arthritis, immune diseases, and cancer just like other native populations of humans that changed their diet.
The great thing is, every diet can be changed easily and economically using by reading the label for ingredients, and adding healthy human food and oils.In Dog Dog Dish Diet: Sensible Nutrition for Your Dog’s Health I try to reverse the affects of the commercial diets on some individuals that cannot tolerate them. Bone Appetit!
by Dr Greg on August 9, 2009
When I first came up with the idea for my book, I thought I’d call it Dog Dish Blues because that’s exactly what so many of my patients (and my own dogs) have had from eating the wrong food. Dog Dish Blues is the perfect name for this syndrome, if you will: dry, itchy skin; red, goopy ears; upset stomach; all manner of bowel disorders; and much, much more. Any one of these ailments is most definitely cause for the blues…both for dog and owner.
By my own count, at least six of the Veterinary Pet Insurance Top 10 ailments as listed have a nutritional common denominator and may be caused by diet. Furthermore, I can tell you that in our own practice at Gilroy Veterinary Hospital fully one third of visits involve a Top 10 condition that can become chronic (meaning that the same symptoms come back several times after treatment).
I didn’t end up calling the book Dog Dish Blues because I wanted to focus on the benefits of nutritional treatment instead. And so, the book I wrote is called Dr. Greg’s Dog Dish Diet: Sensible Nutrition for Your Dog’s Health. Our success treating 100s of dogs is most encouraging. Our countdown to publication continues. Bone Appetit.
by Dr Greg on August 8, 2009
Cousin Strider's gone to pot! Yeah, what do you suppose he's eating these days?
One of my great concerns is that the foods we are feeding our dogs today are so far removed from the diet of both wolves and the early ancestors of our dogs. It’s not just the fact that animals in the wild survive on a natural diet of game, berries and whatever they can forage, it’s the ratio of proteins, fats and carbohydrates that’s way off. In Dr. Greg’s Dog Dish Diet: Sensible Nutrition for Your Dog’s Health, I explain the difference between the typical commercial diet and the natural wolf diet…and what this should tell us about feeding our dogs. I use what I know as a vet (30 years in practice), a lifelong dog owner and as a student of wolves’ natural diet to suggest simple but important changes you can make in your own dog’s diet. I feel certain that NOT feeding our dogs’ inner wolf is the source of a lot of problems, ranging from dry, itchy skin and red, gooey ears to upset stomach and bowel disorders…and much more that I go into in the Dog Dish Diet. (By the way, these illustrations are by Caleb Laughlin and appear in the book.) Bone Appetit!
by Dr Greg on August 7, 2009
I worked on my manuscript for Dr. Greg’s Dog Dish Diet: Sensible Nutrition for Your Dog’s Health for more than a year. After the first edit, I did some rewriting. Then, for
Tucker leaning in for a kiss.
good measure, I put the manuscript through a second round of editing.
This is the phase that I call the slogging-through time. It’s the heavy lifting, and you feel as though you are so far from the finish line that you’ll just never see your book published. And believe me, once you finish writing even the first draft of your book, all you can really think about is the finish line and holding that hot-off-the-press first copy in your hand…My Book.
Make up! Quiet on the set!
I think the first time I thought I’d actually see the finish line and have a printed copy in my hands was when we shot the cover art. It had been a warm week here in Gilroy, California. We were all worried that a long shoot would be hard on the models.
The models, now that’s another [click to continue…]
by Dr Greg on August 6, 2009
Sadie went everywhere with me...to the point that Lonna often referred to her as "the other woman."
Wow, this is getting fun. I once heard a writer say that he didn’t like his writing while he was doing it…but when it was done? Well, that was a different matter. I’m beginning to understand exactly what he meant. Writing and publishing a book is a big deal. There are many steps, registrations and bar codes that need to be in place, services to coordinate, and the list goes on. Fortunately I can leave most of the administrative effort to my publisher Riparian Press, a division of Knowledge Access Books.
My friends know that I’ve been working on Dr. Greg’s Dog Dish Diet: Sensible Nutrition for Your Dog’s Health for quite some time. Actually if you consider all the years I’ve been discovering and unraveling the all-important link between nutrition and a dog’s health, I’ve been working on this book for almost 30 years.
But now after writing the book, rewriting it, and enduring a couple rounds of edits, I’m beginning to see the book come together. And I’d like to share just one aspect of the book with you now…the illustrations. Dog Dish Diet is heavily illustrated. I think there must be close to 40 illustrations throughout the book, and as I look at them I see my pets and my life coming alive on the pages. It’s a very special experience.
I feel lucky that Dog Dish Diet features the original sketches, caricatures and drawings by Caleb Laughlin. Caleb is a talented artist; if you need an illustrator, let me give you a link to Caleb’s email. He has effectively captured my story, my dogs and my message. Bone Appetit!
by Dr Greg on August 2, 2009
If you follow me on Facebook or Twitter, you may know that I’ve started talking about the coming publication of my book Dr. Greg’s Dog Dish Diet: Sensible Nutrition for Your Dog’s Health. I’m very excited about the publication, in part because it’s my first book but more so because I believe it’s going to bring relief to a lot of dogs. And I think it’s going to save pet owners both aggravation and money on vet bills.
You’re probably wondering how a dog diet book can save you money. Well, I’ll tell you. After 30 years as a veterinarian and a lifetime spent loving dogs, I’ve seen a very dramatic correlation between the food our pets (dog as well as cats) eat and their tendency to suffer from dry, itchy skin; red, inflamed ears; stomach [click to continue…]
by Dr Greg on July 18, 2009
I have to admit part of the blame for puppy mills. My profession neuters almost every pet to prevent an epidemic of unwanted puppies. Veterinarians and the dog-owning public have given the responsiblity of puppy production to:
- Responsible breeders (that try to not breed dogs with medical or behavioural problems),
- Irresponsible breeders (that breed dogs to obtain looks and ribbons without regard for problems),
- Puppy mills (that run an assembly-line operation or breed for the buck), and
- People that can’t afford the surgery or do not care enough to consider it.
What ever happened to the cute litter of mixed breed puppies down the street? They account for only 10% of my new puppy visits, [click to continue…]
