Baby Carrots, Green Beans,Tuna,Salmon

[lancewil27]

Hi All,

I'm trying to learn more and more.
Do you think it's a good idea for 2 to 3 days a week to feed my dog Wilbur, (10 years old Lab Mix), a meal of green beans, baby carrots and either 1/3 to 1/2 can of Tuna or Canned Salmon. I feed a high quality kibble, Acana, however it is still processed.

Would 2-3 days of the Baby carrots, green beans and Tuna or Salmon sound like a good idea.
I was going to get the Honest Kitchen Embark, but was thinking that for the $80 cost of Honest Kitchen Embark plus tax that I could feed him homemade with fresher ingredients...
I don't want to hurt him though..

any thoughts would be welcomed
thanks
Ken and Wilbur

[whiteleo]

You can leave out the carrots as they are prretty useless, but I know that when I fed my dogs kibble (Acana) the owner of the store always said he added a can of green beans to his dogs food, the dogs really liked them and since they are cooked I'm sure they have some nutritional value to them, I would definitel add rinsed canned salmon as this is a good source of omega 3's, I'm not a fan of tuna for dogs. Hope this helps.

[RawFedDogs]

Hi All,

I'm trying to learn more and more.
Do you think it's a good idea for 2 to 3 days a week to feed my dog Wilbur, (10 years old Lab Mix), a meal of green beans, baby carrots and either 1/3 to 1/2 can of Tuna or Canned Salmon.

The tuna or salmon would be great. The veggies are useless to a dog since he is a carnivore and has no dietary use for such things. Any meat (preferably raw) would be good for him.

I was going to get the Honest Kitchen Embark, but was thinking that for the $80 cost of Honest Kitchen Embark plus tax that I could feed him homemade with fresher ingredients...
I don't want to hurt him though..

The veggies won't hurt him. Neither will they benefit him.

[sassymaxmom]

Salmon, mackerel or sardines are better choices than tuna. Tuna is high in mercury! If you can find water packed and salt free that would be the best. Or fresh cooked. Or raw. I am sure one meal a week would be fine if that is what you have at hand though. I would want to add some sort of cooked or well smashed up veggie to the fish to bulk the meal up if he is used to the fiber in kibble. Agree, green beans are probably better than sugary carrots. Try about 25% veggie by volume to the fish.

Those premixes are great for people worried about doing right by their dogs but DIY has got to be a lot cheaper. For a couple meals a week you don't need to worry balancing the meal.

[magicre]

maybe look at primal grinds....if you want to feed a fish high in omega threes.....they have a sardine, with the bone and innards, ground that my dogs adore...it's the only ground food we use and only because we wanted to try it out...

for travel this would be perfect or for supplementation, for all it is is sardines...nothing else added.

[whiteleo]

Re, my dogs liked that mix for awhile, now they won't touch it! Got several chubs in the freezer!

[magicre]

Re, my dogs liked that mix for awhile, now they won't touch it! Got several chubs in the freezer!

we're only using it now to use it up....i ran out of sardines....but i can see people using their grinds, because they don't want to deal with the whole bone thing....i think that scares people in the beginning, don't you?

BUT. we did take a trip to uwajimaya yesterday.

i have to remember not to go there right after payday...wow....

we got american style kobe beef scrap...for the price of hamburger and trust me, it's not for the dogs LOL

[SubMariner]

Salmon, mackerel or sardines are better choices than tuna. Tuna is high in mercury! If you can find water packed and salt free that would be the best. Or fresh cooked. Or raw. I am sure one meal a week would be fine if that is what you have at hand though. I would want to add some sort of cooked or well smashed up veggie to the fish to bulk the meal up if he is used to the fiber in kibble. Agree, green beans are probably better than sugary carrots. Try about 25% veggie by volume to the fish.

Those premixes are great for people worried about doing right by their dogs but DIY has got to be a lot cheaper. For a couple meals a week you don't need to worry balancing the meal.

Your comment about the high mercury content in tuna is somewhat misleading. Please take a look here regarding the FDA advisory about fish & shellfish: What You Need to Know About Mercury in Fish and Shellfish

[sassymaxmom]

Gotmercury reports canned light meat tuna has .118ppm while sardines have .016, salmon has .014 and herring has .044.

Looking through canned fish listings on nutritiondata I also see that tuna isn't even high in Omega 3 with 78 mg of total Omega 3 while chum salmon has 368 mg of Omega 3 per ounce.

I will chose one of the other high omega 3 fishes if I need to increase O3 in my dog's diet. Don't see much reason to use higher mercury, lower Omega 3 tuna for my dog's diet.

[lancewil27]

Hi everyone.
just reporting on my trial this week with Wilbur.
I've decided 2 days a week to feed him Green Beans with A can of low sodium Salmon or Sardines.
The other days I will rotate between Acana Grasslands and Pacifica formulas (kibble).

On Monday morning Wilbur got 1 cup green beans with 1 can of Salmon. At night-time he got 1 cup green beans and 6 ounces fresh cooked chicken breast.

My concern prior to starting this 2 day a week regime was for 2 reasons..
to get Wilbur away from processed foods a few days a week.
I also wanted him to stay regular with his #2 bathroom visits..

I was happy that with the green beans and Salmon and Chicken, that he stayed right on schedule going #2 in the evening and morning..
Good News

Regards
Ken and Wilbur