cottage cheese vs. yogurt

Do the same thing? Depends on what you want. Cottage cheese is probably higher in protein than yogurt. Cheese is milk, with enzymes added. It's allowed to cure, and processed. Yogurt is milk, with bacteria added. It is allowed to culture.

I give my dogs a variety of "toppings" among them are yogurt and cottage cheese.  For me, I don't really see any differences between the two, or for that matter any other toppings.  For the dogs, it does make the meal more enjoyable than the plain jane kibble and give offer variety in their diet. 

If you want to give yogurt a try, I would suggest you purchase plain low-fat yogurt and stay away from flavored yogurts all together.

I would suggest you purchase plain low-fat yogurt

We don't eat low fat ANYTHING, around here[] We get whole fat, organic yogurt, when we get it. YUM. The fat is what makes it taste good!

Amen to the whole milk! I used whole milk, real whole milk, not the stuff with the butterfat removed, for my youngest son after I weaned him. Do you know, it was the oddest thing, that milk would never "sour". How do I know this? Ahem. Well, let's just say I didn't always stay on top of keeping track of Joey's sippy cups and would sometimes find them a few days later. What I'd find when I opened them up was a cheesy top and a bluish thin watery fluid left over. Now, that stuff was Listeria City I'm sure, I'd never in a million years taste it, but it smelled pretty good, like rich cream cheese or ricotta.

But it made me wonder why seperated milk curdles and what impact that has on our health, if we drink a lot of it (or feed it to our kids). I don't drink a lot of milk (I'm intolerant) but I still give Joey mostly whole milk (I buy powdered, it's called Nido - he calls it his "sugar milk" []). I wonder whether there's some kind of antioxidant power in the butterfat?

I buy the whole milk yogurt whenever I can. It's not a staple of the dogs' diet but it's a staple of MIINE, lol. I love that cream on the top. Oddly, if I make sure to cut back calories elsewhere, I actually lose weight by replacing a snack or even a meal with the yogurt. I thought it was maybe wishful thinking, for years, but science seems to be backing me up now. Apparently dairy helps you lose fat - "belly fat" specifically. I like it plain with just a teeny touch of fruit topping, or mooshed whole fruit (mmm, fresh blackberries). The dogs like it plain. Except Her Highness Zhi, who likes to share my yogurt with the fruit. Sometimes I'll mash steamed butternut squash, pumpkin, or sweet potato in there.

I don't use a lot of cottage cheese - it is expensive for so many dogs and I think they get more benefit from the ground eggshells. And Ben is dairy intolerant, anyway.

When you say real milk, are you talking milk right from the cow?  I use to love to milk the cow, come in and strain the milk and drink a glass while warm from the cow.  When I married i still got milk from Mom and Dad, but after moving had to resort to so called whole milk from the grocery store and it gagged me.  It was like drinking half milk, half water.  It took a long time to where I was fooled into thinking it tasted good!  LOL.  I can't drink reduced fat milk even today, but i am not sure i could handle the "real thing" any more.
 
Also the so called whipping cream i buy at the store is like water compared to the almost  good paint l thick like cream we took off the top of the milk after it had seperated in the ice box.

I feed a little scoop of cottage cheese or yogurt. Just depends what I have available. I like the "live" cultures in yogurt...I know that is supposed to be really good for them...and us! []

I used to blend in a dollop of regular yogurt every now-and-then for my dogs and not to gross anyone out, but all I got for my effort were 2 pups w/ foul constant farting and watery poopage.  So never again, well, not for me at least.

I concede the fact that regular yogurt is better tasting, but for my personal sanity I'd have to go with the low-fat when it comes to the pups. 

I've always used plain yogurt with Roxie.  She has no complaints.  []

Ella gets her sea kelp and a spoonful of carrots (or green beans) in her yogurt.
I used to feed cottage cheese, but the yogurt really has the live cultures in it that I want.

My wife and I have just started feeding Winston lowfat plain yogurt with either diced, peeled apple, or mashed banana mixed in.  He LOVES it!  We're wondering though, what are the benefits of giving yogurt?  Live cultures I know, but what do they do for the dog?

ORIGINAL: Shohin
My wife and I have just started feeding Winston lowfat plain yogurt with either diced, peeled apple, or mashed banana mixed in.  He LOVES it!  We're wondering though, what are the benefits of giving yogurt?  Live cultures I know, but what do they do for the dog?

 
I give my dog plain, low-fat yogurt with a little peanut butter mixed in for added flavor and protein.  I wouldn't use the full-fat yogurt for this, since the peanut butter has plenty of fat in it!! As for the benefits, for humans the bacteria aids in digestion, because it helps break down food faster, so I would assume it would be equally beneficial for dogs.

We're wondering though, what are the benefits of giving yogurt?

It's the friendly bacteria. If we don't have a good balance of flora in our guts, we get sick. Antibiotics, and other factors, kill the friendly critters that we have. They need replacing, sometimes.

Dodger get cottage cheese, yogurt and kefir - sometimes a little bit of each throughout the day. He doesn't usually get cottage cheese on a daily basis - mostly when I want to cut back on the raw food for a day (or I didn't take out enough[]) is when the cottage cheese comes out!

[]I like giving my dogs yogurt.  I love the organic Liberty plain yogurt....for the dogs and myself.  I sometimes serve it on top of their meals, as a base for their veggie mush for raw meals...or a snack or meal replacement with ground organic flax seeds and wild organic berry mix. yum.
 
I don't feed cottage cheese too often as most have a high salt content....and the no salt added have a high sugar content.  At least that's what I found but looking at what's available to me.  I never did a market research on it tho[]