Bad breath from veggies?

[map1986]

I have been using a vegetable mix for Maggie that includes carrots, peas, lima beans, and green beans. One of those gives her bad breath I think. What veggies do you recommend so there is no bad breath?

[jlab]

Is this a prepackaged commercial raw food mix or are you mixing these veggies yourself?

What's your reason for feeding veggies to begin with? Dogs lack the necessary digestive enzymes in order to break down and absorb veggies. They pass right through the digestive tract just giving you expensive scat. Look at how a wolf eats in the wild concerning veggies:

"Wolves usually tear into the body cavity of large prey and...consume the larger internal organs, such as lungs, heart, and liver. The large rumen [, which is one of the main stomach chambers in large ruminant herbivores,]...is usually punctured during removal and its contents spilled. The vegetation in the intestinal tract is of no interest to the wolves, but the stomach lining and intestinal wall are consumed, and their contents further strewn about the kill site."

"To grow and maintain their own bodies, wolves need to ingest all the major parts of their herbivorous prey, except the plants in the digestive system."

L. David Mech, Wolves: Behavior, Ecology, and Conservation, 2003

[Baloo317]

So he classifies the heart as an organ? Hmm.

[jlab]

So he classifies the heart as an organ? Hmm.

LOL. You think I gave you misleading information in another thread. The heart is a muscular organ that most raw feeders use as a muscle meal in a whole prey diet for our dogs. Just to clarify, when you drag an elk carcass into your backyard for Baloo and Peanut to feed on, you don't have to be concerned about organ percentage, muscle meat percentage, etc.

[map1986]

Some of the research that I've found has said it's good for them. I puree all the veggies which breaks down the plant walls so they can digest it. Am I wrong about that? It's definitely a possibility. I guess technically it's the BARF diet.

[CaliforniaLabLover]

You mentioned in your other thread that your baby is only 5 months old, which means she is likely still growing in some teeth (which typically makes their breath smell horrendous during this time)...could this be what is going on?

[map1986]

Oh I didn't know that!! That definitely could be part of the bad breath she's having. Just yesterday she was chewing on her bone and I notice a little blood. She has lost quite a few teeth that are already replaced with her adults, but she still has a long way to go!

[Baloo317]

So he classifies the heart as an organ? Hmm.

LOL. You think I gave you misleading information in another thread. The heart is a muscular organ that most raw feeders use as a muscle meal in a whole prey diet for our dogs. Just to clarify, when you drag an elk carcass into your backyard for Baloo and Peanut to feed on, you don't have to be concerned about organ percentage, muscle meat percentage, etc.

Riiiggghhhttt... Methinks my neighbours would chase me out with flaming torches if I did that. ???

[jlab]

Some of the research that I've found has said it's good for them. I puree all the veggies which breaks down the plant walls so they can digest it. Am I wrong about that? It's definitely a possibility. I guess technically it's the BARF diet.

That's the explanation that I heard many years ago and it seemed to make sense at the time. I did feed veggies to my labs for a few years because of that reasoning. From what I remember, it was explaned that just to puree the veggies was not effective enough, it really wasn't breaking through the cell walls. They were recommending juicers to release all the nutrients. I even went out and bought this juicer that had strong magnets in the grinding wheels to facilitate breakdown of plant cell walls to release all the nutrients.

One reason that I stopped feeding crushed veggies was when found out that dogs don’t have the digestive enzymes in the right quality or quantity to deal with the nutrients in plant material even when those nutrients are released from the cell walls.

All that being said, when I was feeding veggies, I don't remember any of the veggies you mentioned causing bad breath. What else is in Maggie's diet?

[map1986]

Well, shoot, I guess we'll stop with the veggies. It does make sense as they are carnivores. The only other thing in Maggie's diet right now is chicken and the occasional lick of peanut butter. We are getting ready to integrate other meats into her diet as she's been on RAW for about a month now.