Veg? No veg?

So, if you remember this post, where I mentioned fruit and veg in a dog's diet, and then this post, where I mentioned that I started off feeding veg containing minces, you may be wondering about the lack of veg in my dog's food.

Well, my youngest dog, Buster, will eat absolutely anything. Except cucumber. But other than that, if he can get it, he'll eat it. Even foods which are bad or not particularly good for him (bread, pasta, chocolate! etc). He's a gannet.

Enzo on the other hand, is so fussy!

When Enzo first came to stay with me, I gave him chicken wings and first dibs on huge turkey carcasses.
I also had some Wolf Tucker minces in my freezer, so although most of his meals were chicken wings, a few were Wolf Tucker. And he loved them.
So I sent him home with about 3 days worth of WT mince, which I was told he scoffed happily and "really loved". So much that he refused to eat his previous food (Pedigree tinned dogfood), and had 2 days of eating the tiniest amounts, but grudgingly!
5 days after he left, he came back to live here permanently, and again he went back onto raw and ate mostly chicken wings, some turkey, and lamb bones (well, he stripped the meat off the lamb bones, didnt really manage to eat the bones).

I didn't have many WT minces left, as the last time I bought minces I had decided to try Raw To Go, as they were a lot cheaper. Plus they had a better selection, including game meats. They included no veg, but then I was aware that many raw feeders do not give their dogs veg, so I decided to give them a go.

So Enzo came back and my dogs were having mostly RMBs with a bit of RTG minces in amongst. Enzo started to show fussy tendencies, and didnt seem quite so taken with some of these minces than others, although it could also have been because he was self-regulating: where as Buster I am sure would eat until he was too full to move, Enzo will walk away when he has had enough, he rarely manages more than 65g of food in any one meal now, where as when I first got him he'd eat 100g in one meal.

Well 3 weeks later I was going on holiday, so Enzo went back to his previous owner, along with a weeks' worth of Wolf Tucker minces (the ones he originally loved). Buster went to stay with my mum and dad.

On my return I was informed that Enzo didn't seem too keen on the food, and often left it quite a while before eating it. Oh dear!
Well, he didn't starve, but by the sounds of it he wasn't too impressed with his food.

He went back to eating mostly RMBs. I discovered he loves heart and tripe, and will a larger portion of them than other foods. I found he didnt seem to be as keen on rabbit mince, and he's not too keen on chicken wings anymore - though he loves chicken chunks, so I can only assume he is lazy and can't be bother with all the chewing. But then, given he lived his first 20 months on purely the soft stuff that comes out of the Pedigree tins, it is not too suprising. He never even had to use his teeth or chew his food at all before he cam to live here. Wet dog food is so soft it can be swallowed in bitesize mouthfuls.

A few weeks ago I tried him with the last of the WT mince. He refused to eat it at all. But will happily eat RTG minces. I can only assume that he dislikes the veg in the mince.
I have tried him with 'leftovers' of cooked veg, he will not eat them at all.

OK, so this dog is doing a good job of proving the opinion that dogs don't need veg or fruit in their diet. As I am a firm believer that if they were meant to eat them, he would. His refusal seems to me to be adequate proof that this dog knows he doesn't need anything else.... and why fill up on Butternut Squash and Carrots when there's Venison on the menu?


So, this is why my dogs no longer get veg with their food. Although Buster does occasionally get a little. He gets any leftovers (not a lot, maybe a teaspoon or two at most, once or twice a week) of mash, veg & gravy, or pasta sauce etc, and things like apple cores, or a chunk of banana, but it is not a regular occurance. As this is a vegetarian household, there is no meat leftovers either.
This is perhaps a good thing, as, as I mentioned before, this dog is a gannet and will eat anything and everything. He'd be massive if he got any more titbits and leftovers!