My dogs do "tear up the farm for hours" if by that you mean continue to be able to work all day. Livestock work is about endurance, not a "600 yard sprint" (uh, which actually wouldn't qualify as a sprint). My dogs need to do what they do multiple times every day, each day, plus have leftover energy for longer projects like what we'll do today -- vaccinating the first set of lambs, banding all the ram lambs.
Don't imagine I stick all my sheep in a barn or holding facility and then the dog does nothing while I work - I do all my work in an open pasture and my dogs are used to cut out individuals and hold them for me to catch.
Ben's on almost all raw and he doesn't last more than a third of a day. Yes, he's twelve, but he's never had the endurance unless I pace him very carefully, or add something like potato (but potato has health repercussions eventually for him too).
I suspect, all told, my dogs eat fewer carbs than yours. Their kibble is 40% carbs GA. Then they get fifty percent raw meaty bones - usually lamb, pork necks, or meaty chicken quarters (the bone in the one balances the meat and fat of the other). These items add to their caloric intake but add no carbs, reducing their carb intake total to around the teens. If anything my dogs are more in line with the ideal promoted by your mentor, than those who strictly feed his rations.
then we wonder why are dogs become allergy prone.
If this is yet another dig at Ben's allergies, Ben has never been on a food with prebiotics. He's sensitive to most of them. He's only been on four different kibbles his whole life, other than when he was at his breeder.
I have no idea where you get the notion that prebiotic action is bad (mea culpa, yes I do know "where"), but we'll just have to disagree there. Just because one person comes up with notions to sell his own dog food, with no scientific research to back up his statements, that's not enough for me to reject what both research and personal experience (meaning, feeding rescue dogs with a variety of challenges) has shown me to be true.
By the way, don't bother coming back with the whole, "That science is backed by the pet food industry and is suspect," mantra. The framework of mammalian nutrition lies far outside the pet food industry, spanning human to livestock to exotics to pets. I cannot say the same of a man who writes reams of undocumented opinions promoting his product as a one-size-fits-all approach to every dog on the planet. If anything, there is suspect information there.
Becca Shouse: Irena Farm, Semora, NC
Cord, Ted, Gus, Zhi, Maggie, Lynn, Lu, Min and Tully - and Sam!
Waiting: Bubo & Ben
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