My small Schnauzer has suddenly decided that he will not eat any of his meals unless there is some portion of a banana in the dish. He got his first taste of one when a piece fell on the floor and he gobbled it up before I could get it. I am concerned that this may not be good for this animal, but now he simply refuses all meals unless there are some pieces of a cut up banana on top. Can any of you animal lovers help me with info?

Hi there--a couple of thoughts. First off, banana won't hurt a dog, especially in small amounts. What is of concern is this notion that the dog is controlling you. Dogs aren't in charge, we are. A better way to go about giving your pup banana is to make it a treat, given on your terms, not his. Offer the dog his food, then if he doesn't eat after 20 minutes, pick up the bowl, no fuss, and put it away until the next mealtime. Repeat. The dog will eat when the dog is hungry. AFTER that first non-banana meal, give him a little chunk of banana as a reward.
(Oh, and my weird dog loves banana, also.)

As far as I know, bananas aren't harmful to dogs. But then it wasn't that long ago that few knew grapes and raisins could kill dogs. The safest thing to do is to stick to dog chow and little else.

Often overweight is part of the problem when a dog won't eat. Here is a link to a great guide to the proper weight for any dog, http://www.puppychow.com/products/po...condition.aspx Adjust his food and exercise as needed to reach his ideal body condition.

As for not eating:

Put down the dish with what the dog should eat, and give it 15 minutes to eat. Then take it up. Do not give it anything to eat until its next scheduled meal. In a few days, it should be eating what it needs. Continue to check its ribs and adjust the food as needed. This is not easy. I had a Shepherd go 3 days on a few nibbles. I was a wreck, but she was fine. It is almost unknown for a healthy dog not to eat what it needs. Unfortunately, in too many cases, it is less than the package says, and less than the owner thinks the dog should have. Many dogs are quite good at holding out for tastier chow. Like kids, sometimes it calls for tough love.

Your dog may know more than you do about what his nutritional needs are. If you feed him nothing but commercial food he is definitely in need of enzymes. Bananas are full of enzymes. Enzymes only occur in living food and are cooked out of dry and canned dog foods.

There is nothing wrong with feeding your dog natural fresh food if he wants it. It would be a good idea to educate yourself on what is good for him and what isn't but most things that are healthful for you are good for him except onions. Again I mean fresh veggies, fruit etc. My dogs are carrot addicts. After they eat their regular food they get a handful of chopped up carrots for desert. It's their favorite food!

There are several books out about raw diets and ways to supplement your dog's diet. Also the internet is a wealth of homemade dog food diets.

Hope this helps.

For all animals,
Molly

BARF and other variations of raw diets are a terrible idea, based on junk science. The AVMA condemns them and now the FDA is too because of all the people getting food poisoning themselves from handling all the raw food. Check these 2 links, http://www.secondchanceranch.org/rawmeat.html and http://www.avma.org/onlnews/javma/jan05/050115ww.asp If anybody wants authoritative, objective information, I suggest they go to www.avma.org and do a search on ''raw''. It is terribly irresponsible for anybody to advocate it without a strong warning about kitchen sanitation. In all the glowing reports about it I have read, nobody warns that you can ruin your own health too. There are no large studies showing it is safe or improves dog's health. There is nothing but anecdotal evidence backing it.

Suppose you knew a breeder that bred hundreds of dogs a year, mostly Labs, Shepherds, and Goldens. They provided all the medical care for most of them the first year. At the end of it, they did a complete physical including hip X-rays on all of them. They then spent $35,000 training them before giving them away. They have a large data base of breeding records. Dogs with any physical or temperamental problems are unfit for the program and are a waste. Their well equipped clinic and vet staff are available for serious problems as long as the dog is working. When the dog is no longer able to work, it is replaced at again the $35,000 plus a large emotional upheaval for the person depending on the dog. They have experimented with different diets and exchanged data with other such breeders. Don't you think that what ever they are feeding is healthy and safe? What kinds of controlled studies do you have backing your choice of diet? How objective are the sources of your information? Is your dog's health, their top priority?

I have been raising puppies since 1991 for a large dog guide school that does exactly that. What do they feed? They instruct us to feed Pro Plan chicken and rice puppy chow until 4 months and then switch to adult Pro Plan chicken and rice. I know enough of the people with the trained dogs to know they continue the Pro Plan. The group I meet with monthly for training includes people that have raised puppies for 6 different service dog schools. Some of them are feeding other premium commercial chows including Iams and Eukanuba. Any dog owner wanting a healthy, long lived dog can make this regimen work, leaving more time to spend on the dog. It is also relatively economical.

The BARF diet is built on many fallacies, starting with the idea the chicken from the supermarket is similar to natural prey. Not so. At the processing plant, all the nutritious insides including the organ meats are removed. They are sold to the commercial dog food producers. Have you ever seen a predator eat a kill? What do they eat first? Right, all those nasty byproducts that go into the commercial dog food.

I really don’t want to get into a nutrition war here but I must reply to Labman’s “Hogwash” theory.

I have always thought that of all the food Purina puts out Pro Plan is their best. Not that I think it is good enough to feed to my animals. But if I was raising hundreds of dogs (which I don’t think is ethical) I might consider it, because Purina gives really great discounts to breeders. And by the way, I have been involved in grooming, raising, rescuing and training dogs for 42 years. I used to feel the same way you did about dog food Labman, but after much study and observation, I am now on the other side.

Below are the ingredients in Purina Pro Plan Chicken and Rice adult dog food. If you know about dog nutrition then you know the first three ingredients should have at least two quality protein sources, preferably more. As you can see Pro Plan has only one and it is of questionable quality since the statement “chicken” (rather than “chicken meal”) can be three quarters water when weighed and by the time it gets to the food will be much less in volume. Rather than brown rice they use brewers rice (a by-product of the alcohol industry) which is very low in nutritional value. What can I say about wheat? Many dogs are allergic to it. Poultry by products will mean only the parts that nobody else wants to use. It will not contain the heart, liver or kidneys or any other useful nutritious parts of the bird, only beaks, eyeballs, tumors, some feathers etc. If your lucky, but you won’t know, there might be some necks in it. Corn is another ingredient many dogs are allergic to. Animal fat, that is really dangerous. Never feed your dog or cat a food that does not identify the kind of meat in the ingredients.

“Chicken, brewers rice, whole grain wheat, poultry by-product meal (natural source of glucosamine), corn gluten meal, whole grain corn, animal fat preserved with mixed-tocopherols (form of Vitamin E), corn bran, fish meal (natural source of glucosamine), animal digest, dried egg product,”

Ok, that’s it for my mini nutrition course. If you are really interested in feeding your dog a good commercial food try Innova, California Natural, or Evo all made by an ethical company called Nutura. You can see their ingredient breakdown at Nutura.com I sell this at my grooming shop and feed it to all my dogs and cats, along with fresh food. No by products, human grade ingredients, no bone meal (bones from a rendering plant could contain euthanized dogs and cats etc). No corn or wheat.

If you want to know more about dog food in general, check out this comprehensive site. It tells you all you need to know.

http://www.boxerworld.com/feeding/

Hope this helps.

For all animals,
Peace,
Molly

You just want to spread your ideas without opposition here.

It is quite clear the dogs are being raised to provide the visually impaired with dog guides. Yes, otherwise unwanted dogs can and are sometimes trained. I have arraigned several donations myself. However that takes much more time and money than carefully breeding dogs for the purpose and carefully socializing them. Perhaps you could arrange for the additional millions of dollars it would take to replace the dogs from the breeding programs.

Thus your experience and knowledge exceeds that of all the professionals, including the veterinarians on the staffs of all the service dog school in the country? You really think so? You can knock off the snide remarks about ''experts'' too. Even with all the credentials you claim, I find them unimpressive compared to that of people I have worked with closely with for years.

You also know more than the AVMA about dog nutrition? Give me a break.

I find that there are plenty of dogs dying in shelters that could be rescued and used for service dogs. I think it is unethical to add to the already exploding pet overpopulation problem.

No, my experience exceeds yours. I wrote that because on every one of your posts you have a signature on the bottom that shows how much experience you have.

As far as the AVMA, not ALL vets are in agreement with what you say. I have worked with many who believe that just like humans, dogs and cats need to eat fresh foods. Maybe you can live on an all cooked and processed diet but if you do, I'll bet you'll have some kind of degenerative disease by the time you are forty. Have you ever heard of a study called Pottinger's cats? You should read it sometime.

I think that people should have the option of making up their own minds about what they feed their animals as well as themselves. And having more information about different ideas regarding diets can't be a bad thing. So that's why I have been posting here. As far as I'm concerned, there is no one right way to nutrition, not even your's. And I doubt that your nastiness is going to help anyone make a good decision about their pet's diet. My "fringe" ideas are much more popular than you might think.

For all animals,
Molly

You have seen the X-rays of these dogs, determined they are young enough to have a long service live, examined their pedigrees to make sure they don't have any genetic disposition to problems that would shorten their working life, checked there reaction to traffic, elevators, slippery floors, etc. etc. I question the ethics of squandering scarce charitable dollars on dogs that have remarkably less chance of being able to serve as service dogs. Before the school I work with, accepts a dog as a donation, one of their staff evaluates it, somebody that actually has trained dogs to be dog guides. Of the dogs they accept as donations, 70% never graduate. Tell me, do you have a clue what it costs to train a service dog?

Perhaps you need to offer your experience to a nearby service dog school to help them improve their success rate with donated dogs.

Actually I was suggesting being even MORE pro active then that and going into the shelters and picking out likely candidates. And I would love to volunteer to help with that, but I already volunteer for animals about thirty hours a week, plus of course running my own grooming business ten hours a day, five days a week. So as you can see, I am doing as much as I can right now. I only wish I had more time to help with all the abandoned and abused animals in my town.

For all animals,
Merry Solstice,

Molly

Back to bananas - I am not that worried about the dog actually eating a little bit of banana, but rather that the dog is refusing to eat otherwise...

Obviously if he skipped a meal or 2 (and the dish was picked up after 10-15 minutes) he would get back onto a regular eating routine.

He's got your number, and it's working. As my favorite trainer says "Dogs do what works" So if he gets the banana he wants be refusing to eat... he is more likely to refuse to eat again... He has been conditioned to refuse in order to obtain the banana

-Beth