Photo: Brad Klopman
Did you know that the world's oldest living dog is a vegan named Brambles? If you'd like to check out this amazing being who could teach us all a thing or two about food, both for ourselves and our pets, click here.
My previous dog, Mason, died of kidney failure, and with 20 fatty tumors plaguing his poor body. I have no doubt it was because I fed him commercialized dog food.
When I adopted Kansas he had degenerative back disease and hip dysplasia from the get-go. He walked like an old man, even as a puppy. I began researching, and found that not only was the cause a lack of proper nutrition, but the solution was also to be found in nutrition.
In fact, there were no cases of hip dysplasia in dogs before commercialized dog food, like 60 years ago. And dogs' ancestors, like wolves, do not have hip dysplasia either. Interesting, no? I wrote a blog post about it. Check it out here.
The post also contains a recipe for stew that I make Kansas each week. His diet is 75% vegan. And although I was told Kansas would not live a long life, he's going strong at 7 years old. (Update: Kansas died January 4th, 2015 from heart failure.)
As Hippocrates, the founder of medicine, said, "Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food."
Not only do I make Kansas his food, but I also make his treats. I've adapted this recipe from others and added flax seeds for extra nutrition. I've made these many times without flax seeds though. And I have yet to meet a dog who doesn't love them!
Peanut Butter Dog Kookies (K for Kansas)
1/2 cups peanut butter (I use all-natural.)
1 cup water
2 Tablespoons oil (Dogs naturally love refined coconut oil, but you can use vegetable or canola oil.)
1/8 cup ground flax seeds
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1 1/2 cups white flour
Preheat oven to 350. Mix peanut butter and water and oil, add flax seeds, then slowly add the rest of the ingredients. Knead dough.
I roll the dough out to 1/4" and use a cookie cutter. But you could also just make the dough into a long cylinder shape and slice pieces to flatten. (I mark them with a "K," because I'm ridiculous like that.)
Bake for 25 minutes on ungreased cookie sheet. Let cool on cookie sheet.
The flax seeds make this a bit gooey because flax seeds by nature are an egg substitute that I use in baking. I usually bake the kookies a bit longer when I use flax seeds.
The treats do go bad so I usually leave about 10 out and refrigerate the rest.
Here's Kansas eating a kookie this morning. A happy peanut butter loving dog!
Photo: Brad Klopman