Paleo Diet and Paleolithic Diet Questions & Answers

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I know dogs are not people, but I figured it cannot hurt to ask...

I have a 13 year old dog who has been super hungry for the past three years (all tests/bloodwork/thyroid are normal..spent a fortune at the vet).

Reading all the human posts, I was thinking maybe he is not getting enough fat. He currently eats whole prey (guinea pigs, quail, baby chicks).

So, if I wanted to add some fat to his diet, what fat would you suggest? Plant (coconut oil) or animal? and how much?

Sorry if this is not relevant, but my animals are all paleo too :-)

edited Jun 24 at 5:29

asked Jun 24 at 3:11

Chinaeskimo
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Btw, thanks for what you do to rescue animals. Went to your website and was very moved. You're awesome:) – Karin Jun 24 at 4:43

...pssst do not tell your dog he is not a people, it will hurt his feelings! – Snauzoo Jun 24 at 5:22

@Karin: Wow, thanks so much! You don't know how much it means (especially since poor hubby is really burnt out supporting my "animal" habit, lol). – Chinaeskimo Jun 24 at 5:25

@Snauzoo: Yes, Mr. Bear once sauntered onto a soccer field. One of the kids yelled "DOG!" Mr Bear said "where?" – Chinaeskimo Jun 24 at 5:26

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Dogs ARE paleo: medium rare with a little pastured butter! – CaveMan_Mike Jun 24 at 13:10

show 3 more comments

Dragonfly · Answer 1 · 2012-06-24 03:49:45Z UTC

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We supplement our dog's grain-free food with both coconut oil & lard. He LOVES both!

Try adding a tablespoon or so a day and increase slowly. Hopefully, you will be able to see him sated & know when to stop increasing the fat.

Hopefully someone who feeds raw will chime in!

answered Jun 24 at 3:49

Dragonfly
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I gave him a spoonful of coconut butter tonight. You should have seen his face :-) It took him forever to swallow it all down. Then he went to sleep, and stopped bothering me for food, so maybe it worked? – Chinaeskimo Jun 24 at 4:20

tanukicons · Answer 2 · 2012-06-24 03:53:46Z UTC

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egg yolks are great too...actually, whole eggs, shells & all are fantastic.

answered Jun 24 at 3:53

tanukicons
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That's a great idea! I have some quail eggs from Chinatown in the fridge...I forgot all about them! – Chinaeskimo Jun 24 at 4:20

I add egg yolks for my cats - it really satiates their hunger. Apparently whites aren't that great for cats (can block ability to absorb biotin.. one won't touch whites, the other likes the whole thing), but growing up we had paleo dogs and we used to give them the whole egg, shell and all and they loved them. – Jackie Jun 24 at 4:23

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Boy, Mr. Bear is gonna be in for a treat next week. I am gonna do an experiment and try egg yolk, coconut butter, and fish oil and see what happens. So would this be a d=1? ;-) – Chinaeskimo Jun 24 at 5:24

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Oh, not at the same time, but all three, one at a time and see which has the best result. – Chinaeskimo Jun 24 at 5:24

Knejuhl · Answer 3 · 2012-06-24 04:44:50Z UTC

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I would introduce the fat in slowly though, too much fat at once could send you back to the vet with pancreatitis. I've seen this many times at work and my boyfriend has done it to our own dog once. No fun, watch for vomiting and loss of appetite.

answered Jun 24 at 4:44

Knejuhl
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Good point, although I wonder if eating raw would make him less likely to get pancreatitis? Dogs are the only carnivores whose bodies regulate their pancreatic enzymes and a dog fed a raw vs a grain based diet has their enzymes set on high. – Chinaeskimo Jun 24 at 5:04

Any fat they consume should be raw, no question. – wickedween Jun 24 at 14:22

@ Chinaeskimo, I'm sure that they are less like than those who are on grain based diets but if they have been eating low fat levels the high introduction can still cause issues probably just not as severe. All the dogs I've seen at work have been on grain based kibble, so that is a definite but my lab mix is on a grain free kibble and he "cleaned" the pan we made 2 lbs of bacon in that morning. Next morning we were at the vet because he was vomiting up everything and had no appetite. At the vet it moved through his system and turned to very stinky bloody diarrhea. – Knejuhl Jun 25 at 0:52

Snauzoo · Answer 4 · 2012-06-24 05:16:32Z UTC

I tried to transition my dog to a BARF diet and he could not tolerate it. I talked this over with my vet and here is what he said. Your dog is a champion show dog, bred to look exactly like the breed wants it to look like. This has been going on for countless generations. As a result this particular breed has some digestive issues with an ancestral diet, because it simply has adapted to a cooked food diet. Our final solution was a grain free diet that is cooked.

My dog is a miniature Schnauzer, a breed that is known to be prone to pancreatitis and I have to watch his fat intake. He gets zero people food unless he finds it on the floor - small bits of cooked carrot and sweet potato get slipped to him occasionally. No dairy, no grains, no legumes. So he is a paleo schnauzer! He is German. Seriously, his blood line goes back to a breeder who first brought this breed to California in the 50s. He is not adapted in the least to anything but what top breeders buy. Most top breeders avoid corn and wheat, BTW. He is most assuredly not adapted to tropical oils.

As far as eggs go - we buy pastured eggs and I accidentally allowed one to roll off the table. I do not recommend raw eggs for dogs with 4 inch long beards. After the egg was offered to him, and he enjoyed it, trust me, he had to have a bath. He had egg on his whiskers, beard, mustache, eyebrows and legs. I would not feed him grocery store eggs any more than I would eat them myself. I think the fat profile is far more digestible.

The food he gets contains probiotics and it seems to keep his sensitive GI track calmed down.

Sol · Answer 5 · 2012-06-24 14:07:14Z UTC

I give my German Shepherd fatty meat (raw), salmon (cooked, canned), meaty rib bones (raw), chicken (raw), eggs (raw, occasionally) and all kinds of raw bones except for those big weight bearing bones. She does great on that diet. No issues with her pancreas.

Snauzoo · Answer 6 · 2012-09-30 00:30:49Z UTC

Wanted to follow up on my original comment and apologize that it took me 6 months to do so.

I wanted to point out my vet is totally not influenced by dog food companies. Furthermore he has a masters degree in infectious disease from UC Davis in addition to his other post grad training. He does not feed raw foods to his own dogs but does feed them cooked food and allows them marrow bones.

And I wish to reiterate that my dog is a near replica of his 100 year old ancestors. My sense is that dogs that breed adlitim can actually start expressing other epigenetic changes not seen in careful selective breeding of a champion line where a bitch may not even bE bred if her tail is set too low or she has white in her furnishings. In a true sense a show dog is a designer dog. It is very likely that the inbred nature of some champion lines can result in digestive issues. We see this in the hip dysplasia in German German Shephards. My schnauzer is American, going back many generations who were fed whatever was popular. He does not seem to be able to tolerate garbage dog food or garbage human food. He does well on what we feed him, and is of normal weight, glossy shiny eyes and irrepressible spirit.

A Doggie question

6 Answers