Re: [pyrnet] Old time feeding.

["Tracy Bassett" <espinay@dynamite.com.au>]

My personal experience doesn't go back as far as some ;-) as I did most of
my early growing up in the late 60's to 70's.  I remember our first dog, a
Kelpie named Kelly (around from before I was born) who was fed some dry food
(PAL meaty bites was/is the primary brand here) with mostly table scraps and
bones.  Poor Kelly had a heart condition and I remember having to take him
to the vet to be euthanaised when it simply got too much for him.  He was
about 10 I think.

Next dog was a BCX called Jenny.  She was the only dog we had that was fed a
diet of totaly commercial food - canned and dry.  She was euthanaised at
about 6 years of age after developing extremely bad periodontal disease
which created great rotting holes in her skull through to her nasal
passages.  Boy was that a hard lesson.  This was at the beginning of the big
commercial advertising push on 'dog food' here and we thought we were doing
the right thing.  No such thing as doggie dentists or dental care here
then - we had never needed that sort of thing before.

Next dog was a Rescue Dalmatian X called Zeb.  When we bought her home from
the shelter she had chronic diarrheoa and nothing the vet gave us would
help.  My mother put her on a diet of rice, banana and yoghurt for a few
days and it cleared right up!  Zeb loved her veggies, had vegemite on toast
for breakfast every morning and plenty of bones to chew.  She did have some
dry kibble as well, but it was not a huge part of her diet.  She lived for a
long time - was there for most of my high school years, all through Uni and
for a year or two after I left sunny Queensland for cccold Canberra.

Tracy Bassett
Canberra, Australia
espinay@dynamite.com.au
visit my webpage at http://members.dynamite.com.au/espinay/index.htm