Do NOT buy a dog from a backyard breeder | Page 12 | Animals | Forums

I grew up with 'papered' dogs that were given to my family because the breeder, who was also an AKC judge, had too many dogs to manage by herself. I love the breed and hubby and I have had 2 other 'papered' dogs given to us by breeders just because they knew the dogs would be going to a good home. After our last dog died, we ended up going the 'rescue' routine and ended up with 2 dogs (male & female) that makes us all a happy 'pack'.

There is some advantages to looking at rescues for pets - one being that you have a better chance of knowing if the animal has medical challenges. A BIG thing for us is the fact that our beloved breed is so over bred and gotten for wrong reasons that the statistics are something like 1 out of 600 make it out of shelters/pounds alive. And by the way, the cost is way lower and NO 'Oops!' pups since rescued dogs are all spayed/neutered.

Of course there are always surprises! Our male blew out BOTH his rear knees - surgery. The female has a high 'prey drive' so ended up bit by a rattlesnake (had been vaccinated for it before - phew!) and they both get ground chicken (lightly cooked - raw caused salmonella) and home made 'kibble' as I have ingredients for it. 

Yes pups and the Frenchies pictured here are so cute! But I read somewhere that in order for all the dogs in pounds to find homes, each person in this country would have to have about 4 or 5 pets EACH. Really made me sit back and rethink encouraging breeding.

KVR said
what do you add for your kibble?

I save (good, not bad bits) of vegetable and fruit trimmings in a container in my fridge. When it gets full I cook those in a pressure cooker with a little water added, blending the softened mass into a puree to which I add ground up rice and maybe some flavoring (chicken bullion). I cook this to make a heavy 'paste' that I keep in a plastic container and serve some with the cooked ground chicken (mainly trimmings including bones from cut up whole chicken) mixed together. My dogs eat it right up and seem to digest it well too.

'Raw' is a part of a 'natural' feeding, but so too is incomplete digested intestinal contents (usually grasses and grains)! I decided that feeding a dog 'veggie/fruit + grain[rice]' was in line with how a canine would eat in nature. But seeing how a canine's digestive tract wasn't able to digest 'whole' pieces of such food, doing the 'break-down' process before feeding would be necessary. Thus the puree/ground method evolved.