I Accidentally Saved My Dog With Good Food

For the last 10 years, my wife and I have owned a husky who has had a lot of health problems. When he was a baby, we noticed his fur wasn't growing in like a normal husky. It was almost like cotton and his guard hairs never appeared. At 9 months old, he started losing his fur. He would have patches of hair missing all over his body for years. The hair loss started gradually. Mainly around his hindquarters. Then he started losing it along his sides, his tummy, his butt and then finally along his neck. 

So when this began, I started researching why this was happening to him. Apparently Northern Dog Breeds can suffer from Zinc deficiency. So when I brought this to my Doctor's attention, she told me to get off the internet and let them figure it out. My vet back then, wasn't familiar with dogs who had zinc deficiencies. So by the time I spent hundreds of dollars on testing, it turns out, that was exactly one of his issues. 

For his whole life he has been on Zinc. But it was never enough. He constantly lost patches of hair. Then the itching would start. His skin would flake and fluff off. And then the infections started. Due to his skin being exposed, he was always itchy. Bugs like spiders would bite him. He would scratch. Then the infections would spread. I'd put him on antibiotics to get it under control. I'd give him baths every other day. And the moment it seemed as though the infection would clear, we'd go through the cycle all over again. During this time he also tore both of his ACL's. Thank God for pet insurance because these operations are thousands of dollars.

About 3 months ago this all came to a head. He had lost 70% of his fur, he got a staph infection all over his body, he was sleeping all day, he didn't want to eat, he didn't get excited about walks and we both thought this was the end. So we prepared to put him down because we just couldn't watch him suffer anymore.

We took him to the vet, they did another thousand dollars worth of tests and they all came back perfect. So now we didn't know what to do and thankfully, the vet wasn't ready to give up on him. So she got us into contact with a dog allergist, who we actually saw in the past, but thought she had moved out of the area when her clinic closed. Turns out, she just moved to a different clinic not to far from us.

There was a 6 week waiting list to see the allergist. At one point our husky stopped eating and went from 84lbs to 69lbs. Now I'm Italian. And everyone eats in my presence. People and animals going hungry will now happen as long as I breathe air. And over the years, we had tried so many different foods for his allergies. Dog foods for sensitive skin, Purina Pro Plan, PureVita, Honest Kitchen. At one point the doctor even gave me food with Alligator meat in it. Now seriously, when is a husky going to eat alligator? None of it worked. His condition kept getting worse. And I was out of options. 

So one night, I decided to cook for him because I couldn’t watch him go another day without eating. I mixed chicken, pumpkin and rice in a bowl and he ate it. And not only did he eat it, he wanted more. That night, he ate 3 bowls of food. 

Then for a few days on this homemade food we noticed something happening right away. His hair started to grow back. He had more energy. It wasn’t struggle for him to get up. He wasn’t itching anymore. And then I went down the dog food rabbit hole.

I watched a few podcasts, read some news articles and researched everything I could find on commercialized dog foods. And what I learned is that my pets will NEVER get commercial dog food again. It turns out that when pet food companies make dry dog food (and yes even the good stuff because I was paying hundreds of dollars a month for limited ingredient dog food) they burn those pellets of food so thoroughly, that they burn all the nutrition out of them. Then there's the processing to do that. It's a 4 part process. Part 1 is they grind it into dust and mix it. Part 2 is they steam the mixture add hot water and then process it. Part 3 is where they shape it into those pellets. And Part 4 is the cooling & coating process where they spray-coat it with animal fats, synthetic vitamins, and palatability enhancers before they shove it into a bag and sell it to us. Sounds yummy, right?

Now think to yourselves, would you eat this? 

Then I have had some people say to me, well, I buy the Raw dogfood. Now, I'm not saying this is bad but it's Super expensive and comes with its own processing problems. That food is on average $10 per serving. I have 2 dogs large dogs that eat twice per day. $40 per day for 30 days is $1200. Not happening or realistic for most people. 

A few weeks ago, there was a news alert put out about the product RAAW Energy because they had to pull over 400K pounds of dog food off the shelves due to a Listeria Issue. Well how do you suppose that happened? It was during processing. Just like the food we eat, unless you use it right away, or freeze it, food is not going to last that long once you make it so besides possible hysteria contamination, you’ll also have to worry about how fresh is this raw food? 

And there are hundreds of stories about commercial pet foods being pulled off our shelves over the years for many different types of contamination issues. (Yes, people food too. But that's a whole other blog). 

The moment I saw my dog starting to change, I got rid of his dog food and started cooking for him and my other dog from here on out. Keep in mind, in our household, if it's not organic, we don't eat it. And that's another blog. I understand it's more expensive. But when I do my comparison blog of a non organic item versus the same companies organic item, you will understand why. 

The recipe is simple:

2-1lb packs of Organic pork or Hamburger----yes meat is expensive now. Especially beef. But Safeway commonly sells Organic pork on sale and the last time they had a 50% off sale, I stocked up on those $4 packs and just put them in the freezer. Grocery stores have sales all the time. Just keep an eye out. And if you don't buy organic, look at where the animals come from. 

1 can of Pure Pumpkin--most cans of Pure Pumpkin are excellent 

2 Cans of Organic Garbanzo Beans--We buy the Costco Version. Great Quality. Super cheap

A handful of Organic Spinach 

1 Cup of Rice cooked in Organic Low Sodium Vegetable Broth (You can use any broth, my golden is allergic to chicken. So because he eats this food too, we stick to vegetable or beef broth.) Manhattma Rice is a good brand. We use it all the time. 

4 Capsules of Fish Oil--there are some terrible ones out there. I've found Triple Omega Fish Oil from Sports research is a good one and Costco sells it. Keep in mind, fish oil can go rancid. So use it within a few months or toss it.

1 Teaspoon of Turmeric--Great for the joints

Rawbble Grain Free Supplement--This is the only thing I add from the pet store. This stuff is dehydrated animal organs (heart, liver, kidneys, bones) that add pure protein to our dogs meal. We fill up one cereal bowl with it, add warm water to rehydrate it and add it to the entire dog food container that we use over those 3 days. They need organ meat for protein. And cooking organ meat was making me gag. This stuff has no preservatives in it except for Tocopherol which is a group of fat soluble chemical compounds that make up the Vitamin E family. They function as powerful antioxidants that protect your cells from oxidative damage caused by free radicals. You can Google this or just look up the term. And Chewy sells this stuff cheaper than I can find it anywhere else. If someone finds another place that sells it for less, give me a shout out. 

This mixture makes 3 days worth of food for 2 big dogs. And we calculated that it costs about $12 total to make every 3 days. That's $120 month total for both big dogs. I was spending $124/month minimum on that dry food crap that was poisoning our dogs. Not to mention any toppers I liked to add to it. 

I attached pics below of our husky. The first one was about 1 week after I started his new food. Keep in mind, he looks like Pet Cemetery. But it was way worse a week prior to that photo when we were about to put him down. 

The second photo was 4 weeks after we changed his food.

The third photo was taken last week. 

And the 4th photo was him posing for you all today.

He has a few patches left, he has a ton of energy, he uses his husky vocals now to voice his very strong opinions, and he goes on 2 walks per day like a champ. 

When I finally met with the allergist (she saw him during pic 2) the first thing she said to me was that she wan't expecting him to have that much hair. So I told her about his food journey and her exact words were, "I don't think it's really the food." And in my head I was screaming (warning, swear words coming)...."What the fuck do you think it is then since it was all I changed!" I'm convinced our medical professionals have very little knowledge about the lack of nutrition in this country. And that corporations who sell us medicines and make our food our controlling the narrative. 

The vet then said whatever he suffered from was far more than a Zinc Deficiency (No Kidding). So she did a Thyroid panel. And lo and behold, the poor dog was Hypothyroid, like me. And suddenly, it all made sense.

I was diagnosed with Hypothyroidism & Diverticulitis 3 years ago and the first thing I did was change my entire diet. Once again, I'll discuss all that in a future blog. The moment I did that though, my life changed too. So what upset me, was I didn't see the same signs in him. But like my wife and I discussed, we don't think about our pets suffering from the same diseases we all suffer from. But they do. 

Taking him off of commercial dog food and simply taking a few minutes out of my day a few days a week to cook for him has changed his life forever and further reminded me that our food is poisoning all of us. 

I hope this story helps some of you. And as always, if there are questions, I will do my best to answer them.

Please keep in mind, I am not a Doctor, Vet, Scientist or work for any food companies. I just like to research stuff. Especially when it comes to the health and betterment of my family.