Dog Food .... Let's Get Real

Those of you who know us as dog owners or know me personally know we feed Honest Kitchen. I could write about how this is the best food out there by combing through the internet for everything that would have nothing but positive things to say about the brand. There are so many opinions out there, true or false, paid or unpaid I just won't do that! Our Blog posts are meant to be informative yes, but we would rather our readers learn something from our own experiences. Over the years we have learned a lot, decisions had to be made and my hope is that our research will help prevent these same things from happening to you and your dog.

Let me start by saying YES we LOVE Honest Kitchen products, but that didn't just happen. It was not on the market yet when I was a child. We got our first Rottweiler, when I was young, he was the first of many Rotties to steal my heart. He excelled at everything puppy, like destroying toys, shredding blankets and being adorable the entire time. As my little man grew up he got himself in some predicaments, but eventually he did grow out of being such a trouble maker. The one thing my Zeus never grew out of was chasing cars. He would race from one end of the yard to the other behind our fence. One day, he got out and was hit by one of our neighbors driving by the house. We took him to the vet to make sure he was not hurt internally. Thankfully, he was okay, just a little banged up. Years later a lump started to grow on his shoulder, coincidentally on the side that the car had hit. We took him to the vet and the diagnosis was fatal. He was diagnosed with bone cancer and we were told they could remove the tumor, but they would only be able to remove part of it and it would grow back. If they cut him open the cancer would've been exposed to oxygen which has been known to cause cancer to spread. The second option to get the entire tumor was to amputate from the shoulder down. This option would mean our boy would be a 3-legged dog, not a problem, but they wouldn't have been able to tell us if there was more cancer in his body. So once again we would have exposed potential other cancer to oxygen with that choice. The story only got worse from there since our third choice was to do nothing. The vet told us he had a maximum of 3 months to live if we decided against surgery. That day we made the decision to not do any surgery, since the risks were so high for our boy at 9 years old. When we left the vet our lives were changed! We were on a mission to save our best friend! Hours and hours were spent on the internet researching alternatives or second opinions, really anything that would help save his life and keep him from being in pain. 

We first found coconut oil which had positive effects of fighting cancer. (Stay tuned for a Blog about that as well). From there we researched dog food. Honestly back then we fed some brand we got from Sam's Club, being none the wiser. So of course we found awful facts about kibble back then. We decided to change what we fed as well. We went to feeding mostly hamburger mixed with eggs (shells included) and a variety of veggies, such as green beans, carrots and kale. Then we found that certain fish oils had been shown to help slow the growth of tumors. Needless to say at the end of our research our Zeus had a gourmet meal filled with loads of nutritional value. 

While doing our research we found lots of positive results from feeding a raw diet as well, so we added raw meat bones to the daily routine for a snack as well. 

What were the results of us doing our research and feeding our Rottie a completely different food you ask....Well I am happy to report that he lived over a year after the vet diagnosed him. We actually had gotten the tumor to shrink on it's own during that year.

So how does The Honest Kitchen fit into all this? Unfortunately back then The Honest Kitchen did not exist. When the company launched we were among the first people to be on board since we knew the value that 100% Human Grade food would have on our dog's health. 

Among our households today we have an Akita that eats either Fish variety, 2 Rottweilers that prefer hamburger and either Base Mix, 3 Australian Shepherds that enjoy Limited Ingredient Turkey, and as far as my 2 lovebugs Pluto and Orville, they do well on any of the grain free or limited ingredient varieties.