For Experienced Greyhound Owners Only!

[sobesmom]

This is totally not for newbies - nor anyone with a grey with a sensitive stomach. I've been on vacation - which means I'm not anywhere near a store. We ran out of dogfood (my poor planning). So -my dog has had leftover steak, hamburger, chicken, mac salad, yogurt, and Chinese beef and broccoli takeout with rice for the last 3 days. Her appetite is the highest I've seen in a while, and he poops are just fine.

 

I certainly wouldn't recommend this as a "normal" diet. But - it's a testament to the fact that there are "substitute" human foods that are perfectly fine.

 

[Remolacha]

Not exactly a balanced diet, but dogs can eat an amazing array of food, and other items lol! I'll bet she is enjoying her vacation meals

Edited August 26, 2014 by Remolacha

[Time4ANap]

Unless you feed something out of the ordinary, Wag.com or Petflow.com can usually get a food order to you in 2 days, sometimes faster depending on where they are shipping from.

 

Your hound is going to start making you pull the car over when you drive by the Chinese takeout.

[AZGreyGirl]

Livy would love that going in...but I would hate what would happen in the going out phase. Any change to her diet throws her poops a loop...unless it's turkey necks.

 

Chloe, on the other hand, has an iron stomach but is much less excited about what she gets to eat for dinner...unless it's turkey necks.

[silverfish]

Mine have had all that (except the Chinese, since we simply don't eat it ourselves) but only as add-ins.

 

Dogs are naturally scavengers, so it shouldn't surprise anyone too much that they can do well on 'leftovers'. Trouble is that as a permanent thing, unless you know your nutrition, they are going to suffer long-term from deficiencies/metabolic imbalances, and the vulnerable ones - as you say - will suffer gut upsets and maybe pancreatitis.

 

But it's interesting to bear in mind that in the past most pet dogs (here in England at least) were always fed that way - nobody bought 'dog food', they just fed the family dog with whatever they had handy. I'm not even sure how long 'dog food' as such has been around - but of course, in the days before 'dog food' was available we didn't eat the way we eat now, and there was no fast food.

AFAIK it's where the expression 'As fit as a butcher's dog' comes from, because on that kind of diet the only dogs that were truly fit were working dogs (which were usually fed better) or the butcher's dog, because the scraps the butcher's dog ate tended to be leftover meat scraps, including the 'non-organ' innards, etc, and raw bones. They were doing 'BARF' long before we were!

[Guest june]

I am NOT showing this thread to the girls. I would be dealing with a strike!

[Batmom]

Meat, carbs, some nutritious veggies .... Sounds like a pretty good diet to me.

[scullysmum]

Mine have had all that (except the Chinese, since we simply don't eat it ourselves) but only as add-ins.

 

Dogs are naturally scavengers, so it shouldn't surprise anyone too much that they can do well on 'leftovers'. Trouble is that as a permanent thing, unless you know your nutrition, they are going to suffer long-term from deficiencies/metabolic imbalances, and the vulnerable ones - as you say - will suffer gut upsets and maybe pancreatitis.

 

But it's interesting to bear in mind that in the past most pet dogs (here in England at least) were always fed that way - nobody bought 'dog food', they just fed the family dog with whatever they had handy. I'm not even sure how long 'dog food' as such has been around - but of course, in the days before 'dog food' was available we didn't eat the way we eat now, and there was no fast food.

AFAIK it's where the expression 'As fit as a butcher's dog' comes from, because on that kind of diet the only dogs that were truly fit were working dogs (which were usually fed better) or the butcher's dog, because the scraps the butcher's dog ate tended to be leftover meat scraps, including the 'non-organ' innards, etc, and raw bones. They were doing 'BARF' long before we were!

You took the words right out of my mouth

 

The only thing I would add is that much of the "scraps" that dogs used to get fed were actually better quality that some of the stuff that humans eat these days

[Guest Dancer]

My boys would love that vacation diet! Good luck returning to normal

[cleptogrey]

my daughter's international street dog was rescued at around 5-6 months of age- she was the fattest street dog in san antonio! she knew how to fend for herself and inhale garbage. yes, dogs can survive on table scraps, when i was a kid the mutt across the street ate kosher fried beef liver for dinner every night. rocky lived to 17! he also jumped out of the car in harlem and made it back to yonkers on his own. the owners were out at work, he came scratching at our door! dogs are really incredible survivors...

 

good luck going back to kibble...

[Hubcitypam]

At the track their meals often include ground beef. pasta and/or veggies. You just fed those things in different versions.

 

When we'd go on trips Buck refused dog food of any sort. At one B&B they scrambled eggs for him but all his other meals while on short trips were plain Arby's roast beef and McDoubles. My yorkie loved the meat in Taco Bell soft chicken tacos so that was his road food.

The last year we went to Abilene I went to get Buck's burger and when the lady at the window saw him she laughed and said "I should have known...almost every plain and dry McDouble I've served tonight went to a car with a greyhound inside".

[winnie]

We periodically buy our hound pack a Wendy's cheeseburger for a treat. They love it and haven't suffered any ill consequences.

[Guest missecho]

Curry chicken was a big hit recently--no bad after effects, either.

[tra708]

When we were on vacation and staying at a hotel with Abby, we ordered room service steak and eggs for breakfast and fed it to her with a fork.

[Blaidd49]

Too funny.

I flew to Texas with my (non-grey) pup when she was five months old. I feed raw/home prepared and knew I could not take that with me (we live in Canada) so made up some dog cookies with bonemeal in them so I could balance whatever we could come up with down there. (Going without calcium supplements for a week would not be an issue with an adult but I did not want to chance it with a growing pup). A bunch of us would go out for supper and by far the best prospect was to get on the table with the pre-teen kids.

Boomer loved that trip. Steak, sweet potato, veggies cooked al dente, pasta, eggs, bacon, you name it, she ate it.

[Sambuca]

I've done that for a meal or 2, but Bu eats over 6 cups of food a day and Sailor 4 cups. I don't have enough leftovers to feed them and can't afford to buy my food for them for long. They do get lots of my leftovers as treats though and people are always surprised. They got yellow squash yesterday. We were at my moms last week and she have them some roasted potato and she was surprised when I gave them the green beams as well. Generally I believe anything non poisonous is fine in moderation.

[maria]

Mcdonalds cheeseburgers occasionally are used if they are just hungry and there isn't anything else on the horizon. My gut gorger girl doesn't like pickles (I think it is the only thing she doesn't like) and my picky eater will gobble up the pickles. They are all so funny!

[Guest normaandburrell]

When we traveled with our last grey, we always looked for a sonic. We would sit outside and feed him a junior sonic burger without any toppings. He couldn't go by a sonic without crying. We are looking forward to establishing the same tradition with our new dog.

[Guest beetle_slayer]

I once took our first dog to the vet because she wouldn't eat. She always ate the kibble as soon as I put it down. Then one morning she stopped and went and laid down. This went on for a week. I took her to the vet and he couldn't find anything wrong. Come to find out, my wife was putting a piece of bacon in her food bowl after I left for work. She was perfectly fine; just waiting for her bacon.

 

Good luck getting back to normal. I wish you all the best!

[maria]

All of this treat talk makes me think of the first bit of advise we got from Recycled Racer's Marnie, "If you spoil her, she'll let you". No phrase has been more true.