Other websites focused on the care of your pets:

Here is a list of some of the Web sites and resources we like and recommend to help you in your pursuit of a healthy pet! Please contact us if you have questions or want more information about any of these.

Dr. Karen Shaw Becker's Practice: Natural Pet Animal Hospital

Dr. Karen Becker at Mercola Healthy Pets

  • Articles, videos, discussions and information to help you in your pursuit of a healthy pet!

Resources for RAW feeding:

Dr. Billinghurst's Barf Diet

Barfworld.com Products for Raw Feeding

Education Resources:

Check our store for books, DVDs, video excerpts from our seminars, free downloads including articles and other educational information: you'll find articles we've written, articles about the composition of prey animals, articles about the mineral and fat content of homemade food – things that we think you might be interested in. Right now, you'll have to sift through and see what's new, but we hope to have it organized into sections soon!

DOGWISE, the dog (and other animal) book people: www.dogwise.com

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Freeze Dried Hearts and Livers

  • Companion Natural Pet Food www.companionnaturalpetfood.com

    • Provides frozen foods, freeze-dried treats, and freeze dried hearts
    • Equivalent of freeze-dried to fresh meat provided on site for each product
    • Available online or in retail stores

  • Bravo Raw Diet www.bravorawdiet.com

    • In retail stores, provides frozen complete and component diets and freeze-dried heart and liver
    • Equivalent of freeze-dried to fresh meat provided on site for each product
    • Available in retail stores

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Supplements and ingredients we like:

You'll need some of these for your fresh food program

Enzymes:

Many excellent products on the market. We like these, but others are great too.

  • Pet's Friend Enzymes LP

  • NOW brand Super Enzymes

    • Available in health food stores and online

Bone Meal:

All human edible bone meal is made in USDA plants, tested for heavy metals and other contaminants before use by USDA manufacturers. Each batch that enters a USDA plant carries a certificate guaranteeing that it meets USDA standards.

  • KAL: cooked bovine bone meal from New Zealand

    • Available in health food stores and online

  • NOW: cooked bovine bone meal from US

    • Available in health food store and online

  • Solgar: cooked porcine bone meal from US

    • Available in health food store and online

  • MCHA: freeze dried (raw) bone, from New Zealand – this isn't a brand name.

    • Usually available in capsules, very expensive for medium to larger dogs
    • Available in health food stores and online

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Glandular supplement

  • Pet's Friend – Pet G.O. powder and wafers

    • In our experience, the powder is preferred, but if your pets like them, the wafers can be used as treats
    • Available in a few dog health food stores and online www.mypetsfriend.com

Fatty Acid supplements

Acceptable products have been tested for heavy metals and provide documentation of testing. These products are available in retail store and online.

  • Jarrow Krill Oil

  • Carlson's products

  • Ascenta veterinary products

    • (human ones come in capsules and may also be used)

Trace minerals

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Frozen fresh foods

In our Real Food for Healthy Dogs and Cats book you can find general guidelines for choosing foods. Below are links to some foods we like. Some sell direct, delivered to your door in a cooler. We like this because it's two steps closer to you: it's about as fresh as it's going to get if you don't make it yourself.

We're not trying here to give you a complete review of frozen food products, only to tell you about some that meet our requirements, and to give you some guidelines for purchasing. If you've read our booklet, you'll remember that we don't recommend that you feed kelp or alfalfa. As you read the ingredient lists for these foods, you'll notice that almost all of them use kelp and many use alfalfa. These two plants very popular for adding minerals to a recipe. Don't let their inclusion stop you from buying some otherwise excellent products: just try to provide some food that doesn't have kelp or alfalfa.

Foods that are shipped to your door from the maker have spent the least possible time since their production "on the shelf". They're as fresh as they can be and will have suffered the least loss of flavor and nutrition. Much depends upon the shipping and packing of the products. If these aspects are done well, having food shipped to you will get you the freshest food. Shipping is pricey but sometimes the prices even out – each product differs.

Online products, freshest to your door

  • BARFworld

    • a meat and veggie diet with similar protein/fat/carbohydrate to our recipes. Made at a USDA human plant with all human-edible ingredients. Also available in retail stores. Use the link to go direct to our account.

  • Companion Natural Pet Foods

    • meat and veggie diets made with great attention to detail, variety in vegetables, and a wide range of choices. All human edible ingredients. Also available in retail stores

  • Darwin's

    • specializes in direct shipping: these foods are not found in retail stores, they are shipped direct from the manufacturer only. A simple meat and veggie diet formula offered in both free-range ingredients and regular human-edible (grocery store level) ingredients.

  • Aunt Jeni's

    • an excellent meat and veggie food, found in some retail stores or online

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Frozen products available in retail stores..

..have usually traveled through several destinations. All steps may have been accomplished with no loss of quality, but it's up to the customer to make sure of this. Food should not be excessively frosty or freezer-burned. Food that has warmed and cooled develops frost on the outside and freezer burn looks like food has dried out – which it has.

"Nuggets", or "medallions", pieces that weigh one ounce or less, are the most prone to damage because of their small size. Nuggets are good for transition to fresh food (because you may want to use very small amounts to start), but they are not so great for keeping food well. Some manufacturers manage to minimize this problem, and you'll see that some nuggets look good and others don't. Sometimes this has to do with manufacture and sometimes with storage after manufacture. Whichever it is, you're paying a lot of money for this food, so be fussy.

Patties, bars, and plastic containers are all better choices. They have less surface area exposed to air and often they are sealed in flat packages that exclude air and thaw quickly. Food often comes packed in plastic 1# or 2# or even 8# containers. The right size package is one you'll use in a few days. Rigid plastic protects food well. These products, too, are subject to damage from warming and freezing so examine them carefully. Buy your food at stores where the food is in good condition.

In all choices, look for fat content at about half the level of protein. Lamb is never this low, but occasional lamb meals are ok as part of a rotation. Each product has different feeding directions. Some are excellent, some not so good. It's worth figuring out about how many calories your animal uses, so you can be more precise about what's needed. You can usually find calorie information on company websites. If a food has markedly higher calorie count per ounce than other similar meat and veggie foods, that food has a lot of fat.

Complete Meat and Veggie Foods

Component products

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