Nutrition

Over the years, we have tried a huge variety of diets that were considered by many to be the best you can give your dogs. Some have been very good, and others have been lacking, but we are now feeding a diet that is quickly becoming very popular for those who take the time to ensure that their rottweilers are given the absolute best. In a nutshell, this diet represents very closely what our domestic dog's ancestors have eaten for hundreds of years in the wild. That is, a raw diet consisting of the same balance of nutrition that a healthy wild canine predator would receive in an ideal environment that is rich with food sources. To learn more about this diet we feed, click on the following links and read each article:

Article #1 - Raw vs. cooked

Article #2 - A single food source that is a nutritionally complete diet on it's own

Article #3 - Feeding raw bones

Excellent Book on Raw Feeding

Basically, we feed our adult dogs two meals a day. The first one is a bone meal consisting of maybe a pound or so of raw chicken, or maybe an equivalent amount of turkey backs or beefy bones. The second meal usually consists of one of three different sources of raw meat. The first choice is raw uncleaned tripe, which preferably is exclusively from grass fed cows raised on an organic farm. These cows are never fed pesticide rich grain, and are also free from growth hormones, steroids, antibiotics, and other nasty ingredients that are commonly given to commercial raised beef. A couple of times a week the tripe will be replaced by whole raw mackerel, with the bones, head, and organs intact. If raw, whole mackerel is not available in your area, you can find canned wild caught salmon that is also a very good source of fatty acids and vitamin D. At times when our tripe supply is scarce (our organic farmer runs a small farm and does not have an endless supply year round), we will feed our dogs raw deer meat. With this second meal, we always include a vegetable/fruit puree that we make up with varying ingredients from fresh or frozen produce. Most of the puree is made up of organic vegetables and fruit, but even when organic is not available we always only use all natural food that is free of artificial flavors or preservatives. For the sake of convenience especially when traveling, you can easily find and order dehydrated vegetable and fruit base mixes that are balanced and easily added to whatever meat/protein source you are feeding. The Honest Kitchen is one company that comes to mind that offers these convenient mixes, and Sojo's is the other. The only daily supplements that we give are also added to the second meal, and they are Dog Bloom VM Supreme, salmon oil, and MSM. It is important to note that we vary the diet on a day to day basis, by adding other high quality, raw, natural foods. Three or four times a week we will mix a small portion of organ meat, whole plain organic yogurt, tofu, raw organic eggs (with the shell crushed up), or other high quality food in an attempt to give our dogs a variety of good nutrition. At certain times of heavy workload or stress for a particular dog, we may also add other supplements as well. For instance, we add organic raspberry leaves to a female's diet who is coming into heat soon, and if we breed her we will continue to give this supplement until she is finished weaning her puppies. A stud dog with a busier than normal schedule might be given an increased amount of vitamin E, and perhaps an extra raw organic egg each day.

We always try to vary our feeding program, so that our rottweilers get a variety of fresh and wholesome foods. This avoidance of routine is also completely natural, and we believe that this adds to the promotion of superior health for our canine companions. Great care is taken to only acquire foods that are completely natural and decontaminated. For example, we purchase our raw chicken and turkey from an Amish farm that raises them free range, avoiding any steroids or other chemical additives known to promote fast growth. In addition, no pesticides or other chemicals are added to the grains that they feed on, which also is important not to pass down the food chain. In short, our dogs probably eat better than we do!

Our approach to nutrition is indeed extreme, but we only want the very best nutrition for our dogs and of course our family as well. The vegetable/fruit puree that we add to our dog's meals is prepared with a product that uses the whole food and not just the juices. In many foods, the peeling of a fruit or skin of a vegetable contains more vitamins and minerals than the rest of the food itself does. Therefore, to get the highest level of nutrition from the food we feed our dogs, we use a product called the Vita Mix. This is not typical food "blender", but rather a commercial grade pulverizing machine that is powerful enough to liquefy even the core, skin, and seeds of the largest and toughest of fruits and vegetables. Therefore, our dogs (and family) get the maximum amount of nutrition from the foods we buy, and we are not wasting and discarding the most nutritious part of the meal. Also, just recently we actually bought into a herd share at the organic farm we obtain much of our dog's diet from, which enables us to enjoy the many benefits of also eating healthier foods like raw non pasteurized milk.

Lastly, but just as important, is the water that we give our dogs. Our rottweilers are given fresh purified water daily, without the harmful chlorine and other additives that city water normally possesses. This is extremely important, as studies have shown that water additives are suspected of many health ailments in dogs including a possible cause of sterility. Also important is that the water is purified free of fluoride, which has been proven to be harmful to health and is responsible for many reproduction problems in both animals and adults. Fluoride is found in almost all city water all over North America and overseas as well. To remove this chemical, typical water purifiers fall short. However, the best system that we have found and currently have in our home is a reverse osmosis system. And our dogs are only given water out of stainless steel bowls or buckets, and never from plastics that can leech toxins into the water and thus contaminate it.