Raw and Natural Nutrition for Dogs: The Definitive Guide to Homemade Meals [Paperback]

Lew Olson (Author)

Book Description

Release date: June 22, 2010

***The first guide to both raw feeding and healthy homecooked meals for dogs.

In the whirlwind of information about local, organic, and whole foods, it’s easy to forget that our canine companions can also benefit from—and deserve—a more natural and nurturing diet. Preparing Fido’s food at home may seem daunting, but it’s really not, says Lew Olson in Raw & Natural Nutrition for Dogs. Olson discusses canine nutritional needs and explains the research on how home-prepared foods, particularly raw foods, can meet pets’ needs better than commercial, processed dog food. Step-by-step instructions and recipes make preparation easy. 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. 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, are sure to welcome this book.

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: North Atlantic Books; 1St Edition edition (June 22, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1556439032
• ISBN-13: 978-1556439032
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.6 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (66 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #30,932 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #41 in Books > Professional & Technical > Professional Science > Agricultural Sciences > Animal Husbandry

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A good diet can mean the difference between a happy healthy dog, and one that suffers from a variety of ailments, such as allergies, obesity, diabetes and other common conditions. In her new book, Raw & Natural Nutrition for Dogs, American Kennel Club judge and canine nutritionist Dr. Lew Olson introduces you to the benefits of home feeding your canine companion… Raw & Natural Nutrition for Dogs is an excellent resource for both novice and seasoned home-prepared feeders."
—Animal Wellness Magazine

“Raw & Natural Nutrition For Dogs is a key guide to making homemade, nutritious meals for dogs, and is a ‘must’ for any pet owner who wants specifics on nutritional needs and raw foods. Recipes and diets for a range of pet conditions can be adapted by weight for different breeds and ages and offer whole-food recipes perfect for any new to at-home pet foods.”
—Midwest Book Review

“[Raw & Natural Nutrition for Dogs] is by far the best dog nutrition book I have read to date… Taking the leap from kibble to real is a scary one; Lew Olson, PhD makes it clear and much less frightening.”
—Just Dogs with Sheri

“Lew discusses canine nutritional needs and explains the research on how home-prepared foods, particularly raw foods, can meet pets' needs better than commercial, processed dog food. Very important stuff...especially with all the nasty news and recalls on processed foods over the past years! But the best part is that Lew talks about how you can start with small steps to improve your dog's diet, and grow from there! And for those that think feeding raw is difficult, well, this book will make you think it's easy and you can do it too… We highly recommend the book.”
—Raise A Green Dog!

About the Author

Lew Olson has written for numerous dog magazines, including The New Zealand Dog Gazette, The Rottweiler Quarterly, Mein Hund Naturich Gesund, and The Total Rottweiler. An AKC judge and the president of two dog clubs, Olson has designed several dog supplement blends. She lives in Magnolia, TX.

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: North Atlantic Books; 1St Edition edition (June 22, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1556439032
• ISBN-13: 978-1556439032
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.6 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (66 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #30,932 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #41 in Books > Professional & Technical > Professional Science > Agricultural Sciences > Animal Husbandry

More About the Author

Lew Olson began her research on canine nutrition in the 1980's. She began sharing her ideas with other dog owners on the internet in the early 1990's, and writes a monthly email newsletter on Canine Nutrition and Health for B-Naturals. Her articles have been published in numerous dog journals in the United States, as well as New Zealand and Switzerland. She currently lives in Texas and enjoys showing and training her Rottweilers, is an AKC dog judge and continues her research in canine nutrition and health issues.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

66 of 71 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars not so sure about the supplements October 10, 2010

By Gregory E. Lucas

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

This is a very good book from which I learned a great deal; however, I don't like so much emphasis put on supplements. The book is closley linked with the B Natural supplements. Nutritional philosophies are sure to vary on supplementation but according to my holistic vet, if 1/3 or more of my dog's diet is raw food, there is no need for me to add digestive enzymes. Digestive enzymes and/or vitmain supplements + (sometimes other supplements) are big parts of all her recipes, raw or cooked. I've been advised by other well recognized canine nutritional experts and by my vet not to add vitamin supplements or digestive enzymes supplements to my healthy dog's cooked food meals that make up 1/3 of his diet since 2/3 of his diet is already completly balanced with the highest quality commercial raw and Instinct kibble foods I use. This book recommends much more supplementation than that.

Raw food already has enzymes and beneficial bacteria in it and a lot of bio-availabe nutrients, so it makes no sense to me to include digestive enzymes to raw food for a dog with no digestive problems to begin with. And there's no need to add vitman supplements like Berte's Daily Blend when adding fresh food to kibbles like Orijen or Instint or Wellness; they already have plenty of vitamins. (Whatever your feelings are about high-end kibbles, postive or negative, lack of vitmains is not a problem with those kibbles, and using vitmain supplements like Berte's Daily Blend that include vitmain D along with kibbles that are already high in vitamin D, is not advisable accordng to very reliable sources in my research.) Why add a supplement that includes vitmain A when you're feeding meals that include liver and other organs? Liver is already high in vitmain A.... In short I think this author over supplements and that the book was too much of a means of getting people to buy the Berte's supplements, and no other company's supplements, rather than to provide a truly fresh food natural diet.

My idea of a natural diet is one in which as many of the nutrients come from the foods as possible, not from powders and capsules. I learend much from the book and found the chapter on the history of dog food interesting. This book served me as a good step forward to improving my dog's diet, but it is not a way of feeding that I strictly follow. I just use basic supplements like fish oil with vitmain E and use egg shells at her suggested dosage to balance the boneless meat meals calcium to phospherous ratio. But I even try to use salmon most of the time instead of resorting to fish capsules.

When I was using the Berte's Daily Blend for a month, it did not agree with my dog at all. (He had small loose stools for a month and he's never had a problem like that before or after using the supplement.) Maybe this was because of the whey that's in it, or it was too strong at the suggested dosage -- I don't know for sure. But without the Berte's Daily Blend supplement, the approximate 1/3 portion of my dog's diet that is fresh cooked foods (eggs, wild salmon, bison, etc.) has been working out great.

The book makes for good reading, it brought about positive changes in my dog's diet; it taught me a lot, and I'm glad I read it.

Update six months later: I've read the author's comment to another reviewer in which she says that she does not sell or make money from the sales of the B Natural supplements. I believe her, but it came across that way to me too from the book because the B Naturals are such an integral part of her feeding concept. I think it is a flaw of this book to have limited her supplementation recomendations to B Naturals and to have never even mentioned products from other companies that enhance a fresh food diet and that make fresh food feeding so easy. There are good options from other companies. I no longer feed any kibble at at all. I mostly feed fresh meat meals with an excellent product called Wysong Call of the Wild, which is a powder that is added to fresh meat,(and I feed some commercial raw). It's okay to supplement a fresh food diet, if it's not overdone. I think that anyone interested in feeding a homemade raw or cooked diet should read this book, read Unlocking the Canine Ancestral Diet by Steve Brown, and read the site Dogaware. Put the knowledge of those 3 together and you'll get good results. Read more ›

33 of 35 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best books on dog nutrition you'll find for home-prepared foods: raw or cooked December 27, 2010

By OwnedBySibes

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

We've been feeding our Siberian Huskies holistic foods for several years now; after noticing the "highest quality" commercial food (now branched with P&G)they were on, was causing more harm than good. Our journey started with making a simple chicken soup (homemade), while looking for the right holistic brand of food. That adventure included trying the B.A.R.F. diet (raw food & bones), but our huskies hated it and we weren't too adapted with it either. We found a good USDA human-grade dehydrated food made for dogs that worked well (even recognised as "doable" for raw feeding), but ended up preparing our own meals more and more (by adding cooked meats into the dehydrated food & then creating and alternating our own cooked recipes). Not many books were available or known on canine nutrition back then (in 2001), so much was relied on the internet and our veterinarian. This is one of those books I wish was available back around that time. It would have helped saved me a lot of time, engery and work. I could not put this book down until I finished reading it!

I am one that is not comfortable or convinced on the feeding of bones or feeding raw meats (especially of pork, poultry & fish), but I understand why most raw feeders look toward the science and ancestory of the wolf to determine dogs are carnivores & meant to eat raw. Yet, 5,000 years ago(even 200 years ago for that matter), there wasn't so much worry about illnesses caused by pesticides and polution, as there is today. In today's wilderness, even these wolves, coyotes, etc.. (eating their hunt) aren't living as long as their ancestors did...and even then, the alpha of the pack usually is the one getting the best parts of the hunt (in a given group). Wildlife just isn't as healthy as they once were.... So, this is hard for me to justify feeding my huskies raw meats and bones as the only answer. They aren't in the wild...they are domesticated, and instead of going out to hunt, they are relying on their human parents to provide them the best nutrition.

What I appreciate about "Raw & Natural Nutrition for Dogs: The Definitive Guide to Homemade Meals", is that it was written for those interested in feeding raw, those desiring to homecook their dog's meals and even those that only wish to supplement their "kibble"...it was meant to help inform. Of course, as I'd want it, it does focus mostly on the raw feeding and homecooking, by providing sample recipes. It's definitely not one of those, "the only way to help your dog live a long and healthy life is by feeding raw" type books. Raw feeding isn't for everyone & the writer understands that.

The author not only goes into explaining the importance of nutrition in a dog's diet, but also the reasons behind those nutrients and the best sources to get them. Regardless of whether you prepare raw foods or cook for your dog, the importance is in the meat & fats. This book will definitely help guide you along to have a better understanding of canine nutritional needs. I love how the vitamin & mineral section isn't so generic and vague! Too many nutrition & diet books for dogs encourage you to rely on adding full spectrum multi-vitamin/mineral supplements to their diets, and they generally fail to explain the whys and where to get these nutrients. Olson goes a step further and helps guide you through this area where others slack off. There is also interesting information and nutritional tips for feeding and caring for dog's with health issues.

If raw feeding isn't for you, don't be discouraged by the title...this book is an awesome resource. I'd recommend this book to anyone who has a dog. This is one of those books that should be on every canine parent's shelf. Read more ›

24 of 26 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent & Clearly Written book on the dog nutrition July 8, 2010

By Tiffany Huebner

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I have been a follower of Lew's for many years on the K9 Nutrition group ([...]) and her site [...]. Her knowledge and understanding of the canine diet and nutrition is second to none. She really lays it out for anyone to clearly see the benefits of the raw diet and what's necessary to successfully transition to it. I've helped many clients switch to raw over the years and always point them in the direction of Lew Olsen to make sure they make the right decisions about their dog's diet and how to supplement. Lew certainly enlightens dog owner's looking to make better nutritional decisions for their dogs. If you feed raw read it. If you want to feed raw read it. If you are hesitant or set on kibble read it. Regardless you'll get something out of it.

28 of 33 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Very little to learn in it, more of a sales pitch for her supplements March 8, 2011

By SometimesYouFeelLikeANut

Format:Paperback

I bought this book because I thought it would give me some good educational reading on feeding raw. Instead, it is a book that is based around lew olsen's supplements that she sells. She recommends them throughout the book. What is also odd, is she has a part where she tells you to use Hills canned food if you're in a pinch for food. What??! I would use anything other than Hills when I'm in a pinch. Why would I feed that garbage when I'm feeding raw? There are very limited sample plans of what to feed your dog. I didn't learn anything from this book other than which of her supplements to buy for different diet requirements. What's more is, we have no idea if the supplements are safe and if they are made with human-grade ingredients and where those ingredients come from? Do they come from China? I don't want that for my dog. Anyway, back to the book... oh that is the book, she wants you to buy her supplements. No thanks1 If you feed your dog a good healthy diet with all the nutrients of raw whole foods, you don't need supplements.

Now off to get another book that will actually stick with the subject of how and what to feed your dog when you want to feed raw and I'd definitely recommend that people stay away from authors who use a book about "natural" feeding and then tout their supplements to make more sales.