Friday, October 7, 2011

My First Puppy Post

This is Roscoe*
This is Zuma
They are our puppy friends who let us take care of them. They enjoy treats, belly rubs and chasing each other around the house. They are also vegan just like us. They didn't exactly tell me that they wanted to be but I went out on a limb and tried them on a vegan dog food (this one) and they both are doing really well on it. Roscoe used to be really stinky and now he's only really stinky occasionally. Vegan diets can do a lot but they can't work miracles. Zuma has slimmed down a bit and has lots of energy. Both of their coats are much softer and less flaky. I have learned since that Roscoe loves pumpkin, lettuce, beets and tofu. Pumpkin we found out last year when he literally scraped off the face of my jack o'latern I had spent hours carving. We know that not everyone is on board with vegan diets for dogs but most people aren't on board with it for people either and it was hard to keep feeding them something we didn't think was good enough for us.

We feed them Dick Van Patten's Natural Balance Vegetarian Formula which on their site says it's a true vegan formula. From our reading about vegan dogs, we found there were two amino acids dogs need to stay healthy (L-carnitine and taurine) and both of these are found in this dog food. As for treats we use Fruitables (think fruit+vegetables=fruitables) and Crumps Naturals Sweet Potato Rawhides (just like those other ones except way less gross and made from Ontario sweet potatoes...that's it!) and our dogs freak out for them. Roscoe once walked on his hind legs with his nose stuck to the unopened bag all the way from the front door to the kitchen just to sniff a bag of Fruitables. They are incredible and tiny so they can have a few in a day and they don't put on extra weight. We never used to feed the dogs people food...alright I didn't, my mom is a sharer...but now I am a little more free with it. Roscoe and Zuma usually start circling once they see the cutting board out. Veggie time means snack time for them. I am always surprised what they love, like Roscoe loves the lettuce "bones" (crunchy stem part) and will bark at me to get my attention when I am making salad. He also comes running when he hears the tofu press coming out since he loves plain tofu. Zuma loves oranges, especially clementines and I swear as soon as you break into the peel and that first little spray of oil comes from the peel, Zuma comes running.

So there's my first puppy post though I'm sure it won't be the last, these two are too cute not to share with everyone!

* Roscoe looks so regal in this picture...in all reality, he's a big goof ball. These pictures were taken out on our front lawn while we were having a picnic and Roscoe is on guard making sure there's no one coming to steal our food...that's his job, after all!

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