Since the tragic dog food recall last year, public attention has focused on the important question of what really is a safe food for your dog. Most pet food manufacturers suffered tremendous financial losses when their foods were recalled for containing unsafe ingredients. And even some who weren’t targeted for having dangerous melamine in their foods came under close scrutiny, and heavy sanctions, for advertising quality products that were not actually present in their foods.
 
     Dogs are carnivores. No matter how many "designer dog" breeds we may invent, and no matter how strange they may look, one thing about dogs remains the same: they love to eat meat.
 
     For millions of years, before we opened our homes and hearts to dogs, they lived in packs and hunted for their meals. Now we are their packs, and they offer us their unconditional love and loyalty.
 
     But they still crave meat. It’s how they’re made. Their digestive tracts just aren’t set up to eat corn and wheat. After all, when’s the last time you saw your pampered pooch chow down on a big bowl of Cap’n Crunch, or munch its way through a box of Wheat Thins while watching the big game on TV?
 
     Oh sure, many dogs do enjoy some roughage in their diets. Jo O’Brien, owner of Cocoa Village’s Rainforest Pet Store, says, "Whenever my mom fixes a big chef salad, she shares it with her four dogs (two standard poodles, a bulldog, and a weimaraner). And they all crunch their lettuce, carrots, and celery with enjoyment." Such is a dog’s love for its human, that it will willingly eat foods it normally would sneer at.
 
     But in its heart, every dog would prefer a rare chunk of steak or chicken or venison to a dry kibble made up of bone meal, animal by-products, and grain fillers. Why? Because dogs are carnivores! And they don’t just crave meat; they need it for healthy bones, teeth, and coats.
 
     Dry kibble is convenient, because it can be stored for a long time (especially if it’s loaded with preservatives), and dumped into a bowl at mealtime. Cleanup is easy; just wipe out the bowl and refill it. But is it healthy for your dog? More and more experts are saying, "No!"
 
     In the wild, dogs hunt for their prey. When they bring down an animal, they eat its meat. Any plant matter they eat is incidental, the occasional by-product of eating the prey’s last meal along with the prey itself.
 
     So why are we feeding our most loyal friends food that’s loaded with grain fillers, artificial ingredients, animal by-products, antibiotics, hormones, and chemical preservatives? Even pet foods that are commonly considered healthy by the media are often worse than the bag of Cheetos sitting in your cupboard. It’s no wonder that so many dogs suffer from food allergies that result in everything from acute nausea to severe skin lesions, hair loss, and even death.
 
     So what can be done to improve your dog’s health and happiness?  Well, there are several possible solutions.
 
     1) You can cook your own grocery-fresh meats, such as chicken, beef, or turkey, and mix in small amounts of vegetables that have a reputation for not causing pet allergies. (Vegetables that are generally considered non-allergenic include sweet potatoes, squash, parsley, alfalfa, and Icelandic kelp.) Preparing your dog’s meals from scratch insures that you will know exactly what’s in its food. But unless you really love to cook, it can quickly become a nuisance.
 
     2) You can feed your pet a dry kibble or canned food that really is healthy. The highest quality brand of dry or canned food is Solid Gold. When Sissy Harrington-McGill, founder of Solid Gold Health Products, began breeding world champion Great Danes in 1958, she realized that there were no dog foods in America that were good enough for her "babies." In 1974, she founded Solid Gold Health Products, and named her first product "Hund-n-Flocken," which is German for "dog food flakes." Hund-n-Flocken was the very first holistic dog food to be approved by the FDA--and for nearly 35 years it has set the standard for holistic dog foods in America by maintaining the #1 position for quality.
 
     Solid Gold Health Products now offers several different kinds of food, specially tailored to your dog’s size and age, from Wee Bits, which is specially made for small dogs, to Wolf King, which offers superior nutrition for large breeds. Their formula for elderly or overweight dogs is called Holistic Blendz, and their premium line, Barking at the Moon, offers exceptional quality with lower carbs, for those health-conscious connoisseurs.
 
     3) You can buy a variety of pre-made frozen raw foods. These typically include a mix of fresh meats and vegetables, to offer your pet a balanced diet. Simply thaw a patty (or chunk, if you buy the bulk packages called "chubs") overnight, and serve it to your dog the next morning. No fuss, no special trips to the health food store for those hard-to-find ingredients, no slaving over a hot stove for hours every week.
 
     There are several brands of raw foods available. The highest quality product is called Raw Health. Their beef or chicken patties are sold in 5 pound chubs, or in 4 pound bags that contain 32 patties per bag. The number of patties you should feed your dog per day depends on your dog’s weight.
 
     Raw Health prides itself on offering convenient quick-frozen patties made of USDA PREMIUM (restaurant quality) chicken or beef, cancer-fighting Omega 3 and Omega 6 oils, Icelandic kelp, farm-fresh sweet potatoes, alfalfa, squash, and parsley. NO artificial ingredients, artificial colorings, chemical preservatives, antibiotics, hormones, ground corn (or grains of any kind), animal by-products, or fillers. Just 85% USDA premium meats, and 15% vegetables and nutrients. Nothing else.
 
     Jo had this to say about the growing trend in high-quality pet foods: "I’m constantly amazed by the number of people who come into our pet store to buy these holistic pet foods, when they’re content to munch on a McDonalds cheeseburger themselves. When I asked one customer why she’d skimp on her own nutrition, but buy the highest quality food for her little Pomeranian, she looked at me like I’d lost my mind, and said, ‘She’s my baby! She deserves the best!’ "
 
     That really says it all, doesn’t it?
 
     The Rainforest Pet Store offers a huge variety of pet supplies for all kinds of animals, including durable toys, nutritious treats, grooming supplies, leashes and collars, beds, and of course the very highest quality holistic foods such as Solid Gold dry and canned foods, and Raw Health frozen beef and chicken patties.