Raw and Natural Nutrition for Dogs, Revised Edition

The Definitive Guide to Homemade Meals

By: Lew Olson, Christie Keith - foreword

Narrated by: Kirk Magoon

Length: 8 hrs and 45 mins

Publisher's summary

The definitive guide to feeding your dog a balanced, nutritious, and home-cooked raw diet - from the founder of a natural pets product company with over 30 years of experience

Many people want to prepare their dog’s meals at home, but feel it is too complex. Raw and Natural Nutrition for Dogs provides a road map to the essentials of canine nutrition, written in easy-to-understand language.

Pet owners seeking to give their dogs a better coat, better skin, and healthier teeth and gums, as well as longer lives and more stable temperaments, will benefit not only from the background data in this book, but also the step-by-step instructions and recipes for preparing these diets. The book includes charts with the recipes, instructions on keeping diets simple and balanced, guidelines on preparation, suggestions for finding ingredients, and how much to feed a dog by body weight. There are recipes for healthy adult dogs, as well as guidelines for puppies, senior dogs, and dogs with health conditions, including pancreatitis, renal problems, gastric issues, allergies, heart disease, liver disease, and cancer.

Tracing the history of feeding dogs, the author shows when commercial dog food rose and took hold of the market. She discusses canine nutritional needs and provides research on how home-prepared foods can meet pets’ needs better than commercial, processed dog food. Written with thorough information for the seasoned raw feeder, this guide can also be easily followed by any newcomer to home-feeding.

This revised edition includes new information on special care and feeding of pregnant, newborn, performance, and toy breed dogs, as well as senior dog considerations and the safety of the raw food diet for dogs.

©2015 Lew Olson (P)2021 North Atlantic Books

Great for raw feeders

An excellent resource for raw feeders. a lot of in depth talk about minerals, supplements, vitamins, etc. A bit of a dry read, and repetitive, but that's what makes it excellent for those trying to learn the ins and outa of raw feeding. The repetation helps hammer in the importance of proper raw nutrition and directions, etc.

The Definitive Guide to a Healthier Dog

I bought this audio book as a companion to the paperback book. This common sense, easy to follow guidebook, takes away all the fear and reluctance many people have about feeding their dogs homemade or raw meals. If pet owners follow through on the author's researched advice, they will be amazed at the change in their dogs' vitality, healthier skin and teeth, etc. I often adopt and foster older dogs. I've seen what appears as miraculous recoveries from both physical ailments, as well as behavioral issues.

A Bit Redundant And Gets Off Topic

This book was helpful in clarifying how to properly feed a raw diet (which is what I wanted). I will say that sometimes the author gives specific studies and numbers (which is helpful), and sometimes she just makes statements about what dogs "need" without stating how she KNOWS that's what dogs need. So I still feel I need to do more independent research.

The fact that she gives terrible training advice did not alleviate that concern for me, but rather served to make her less credible. People should stay in their lane and discuss things they are knowledgeable about. Trust me, your dog isn't willing to do everything you ask. That's Bologna. Dogs are living things with their own ideas of what they want to do. And as a dog trainer that one minute in the book made me want to rip my hair out.

She also tends to repeat some of the same information (for instance which supplements to use) in each chapter and even multiple times per chapter. It feels like an infomercial.

All that being said, I do feel more confident tackling the raw diet now.