Home-Prepared Dog & Cat Diets: the Healthful Alternative (Paperback)

by Donald R. Strombeck (Author) "Ten thousand years ago human beings began domesticating dogs and cats and used them for herding livestock, hunting game, and controlling vermin..." (more)
Key Phrases: bonemeal tablets, tablespoons sardines, teaspoon salt substitute potassium chloride, Dietary Management of Disease, Pergamon Press, Grant Guilford (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Do you quibble with the kibble that comes in a bag? Worry about the preservatives being peddled to your pet? For pet owners and veterinarians fed up with commercially prepared pet food, this book offers sound advice about nutritional alternatives. With over 200 recipes and a wealth of information about pets' special needs, it makes a healthy diet for cats and dogs easy, sensible, and rewarding.

With an eye on the long-term health of pets, Strombeck outlines diets that the caregiver can prepare at home or in the clinic. He offers nutritional and dietary guidance for animals with particular problems, from obesity, allergies, and gastrointestinal complaints to diseases of the kidney, pancreas, heart, and joints. Each recipe includes nutrient content for proteins, fats, and calories and all rely on unprocessed foods that are widely available and marketed for human consumption.

Full of useful information about the nutritional and dietary needs of cats and dogs, this book is an indispensable guide for all those who are particular about what they feed their pets or their feline and canine patients.

From the Back Cover
A pet's diet determines its health and life expectancy more than any other care. Home-Prepared Dog and Cat Diets is a first-of-its-kind nutrition and dietetics book. It offers owners and breeders a wholesome alternative to commercial pet food and provides veterinarians with a unique reference for counseling clients. Written in clear, easy-to-understand language, this comprehensive reference includes the following:

• Over 200 computer-balanced recipes to provide complete nutrition for healthy or diseased animals


• Nutrient content data for each recipe, including proteins, fats, and calories


• Nutritional guidance and descriptions of special diets


• Recipe categories for management of obesity and diseases that affect the gastrointestinal system, skin, kidneys, heart, liver and pancreas


• Invaluable food quality and safety information

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 366 pages
• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell; 1st edition (January 15, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0813821495
• ISBN-13: 978-0813821498
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 5.9 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (40 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #34,307 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in these categories: (What's this?)

  #1 in	Books > Professional & Technical > Professional Science > Agricultural Sciences > Animal Husbandry > Nutrition
  #6 in	Books > Professional & Technical > Medical > Veterinary Medicine > Small Animal Medicine
  #7 in	Books > Science > Medicine > Veterinary Medicine > Small Animal Medicine

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

166 of 168 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A great resource for animals with GI tract problems., November 22, 1999

By	JoAnne M. Tomczak (Minneapolis, MN) - See all my reviews

If your dog (or cat) is suffering from GI tract problems and/or food allergies, this may be a book for you. If you are convinced that raw meat is the only way to go, you might want to stop here. But if you find the thought of feeding raw meat a little terrifying, the book is chock full of recipes for dogs and cats - including some vegetarian alternatives.

Flipping through it upon receipt, I was surprised to read that "ethoxyquin is safe as well as effective...has a very wide range of safety...[and] more so than any other antioxidant, has anticancer properties." Checking the author's bio, I found out that he "is widely published and has received numerous awards, including the Ralston Purina Award for research excellence in small animal diseases..." "Terrific," I thought, "an apologist for the pet food industry." NOT what I was looking for...

Reading further, however, I discovered Dr. Strombeck laying out his expose of commercial pet foods in a dry, clinical style that was actually a refreshing change from the strident and at times self-righteous indictments of the whole foods and holistic alternatives literature. Here is a lot of the same information expressed in a way that not only you can understand, but that your very straight-laced conventional veterinarian might actually consider.

The book is full of recipes that seem easy to prepare with one exception: unless you have a large animal, or are prepared to cook in larger batches, you will be trying to figure out how to measure 1/5 of a vitamin tablet or 1/10 of a teaspoon of salt (at least the recipes don't call for ethoxyquin). And, returning to that dry, clinical style, keep a dictionary handy unless you already know that "borborygmus" is basically those gurgling sounds in the gut.

I found the book very helpful in understanding why my dog's GI tract problems, which are probably food allergy related, are both so hard to diagnose and so hard to treat. It lays out a program that requires both patience and perseverance, but little in the way of medications or other invasive procedures. I'd give it at least 4 stars (5 if I wasn't a basically hard grader).

116 of 116 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A wonderful, fully documented resource, May 23, 2000

By	marketr (Pittsburgh, PA) - See all my reviews

I bought this book because my oldest dog was recently diagnosed with pancreatitis brought on by a food allergy and another reviewer had posted that it was a great resource for dogs with GI problems.

Unlike other books that I've recently purchased on this subject, when this author was expressing an opinion on something, the underlying research supporting that opinion was documented. As are the studies quoted in the text.

I would have felt like a fool sitting down with the vet and talking about the content of some of the other books I've purchased. In most of these books, when studies were mentioned they were seldom, if ever, documented with end- or footnotes, or even referenced by name, researcher, etc. in the text.

I will feel confident discussing this book with my vet. Everything is fully documented, and it is written in a crisp style that is easy enough for the non-medical person to read and understand (but keep a dictionary handy for some of the medical terms), and will (hopefully) be appreciated by the clinical veterinarian.

75 of 75 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Superb summary of Dog and Cat Nutritional Requirements, October 25, 1999

By	Suzecav (Pleasant Valley, NY) - See all my reviews

Whatever diet you choose to feed your dog or cat, this book will guide you in understanding the nutritional requirements for each. It is an outstanding treastise that contains many charts which do the intricate calculations in the NRC or Waltham Center Requirements so that you don't have to do them yourself. Additionally, there are well thought out cooked diets for cats and dogs enabling the breeder or pet owner to easily cook for their own dog(s) or cat(s). There is no other book that I know of on the market today that contains the wealth of information in this one; whether you are feeding a cooked, raw or commercial diet to your dog or cat, this information will be of value.