Episode 11: Nutrition for puppies and adult dogs: Balancing the correct ratio of calcium and phosphorus in your dogs’ food

Has your doctor ever suggested that you eat a diet made up only of processed foods? Of course not! 

For some reason, humans are capable of feeding their families a wholesome diet, but when it comes to feeding our dogs, things can get very complicated. 

In this episode, Dr. Dobias discusses nutrition for puppies and adult dogs, and why simply following nature can help you avoid health issues in your dog, including painful bone growth and joint problems. 

Listen as Dr. Dobias dives deep into how to achieve the correct ratio of Calcium and Phosphorus in our dogs’ food; how to balance a raw diet for dogs of all breeds, sizes and ages (even puppies!); why supplements are necessary and why good food is no longer enough; if there is healthy kibble for dogs; and how to prepare nutritious, natural food for your dog at home. 

If you’re overwhelmed by dog nutrition and the myriad of dog food choices out there, you won’t want to miss this episode.

Resources that you shouldn’t miss:

What is the correct ratio of Calcium and Phosphorus for dogs?:
 https://peterdobias.com/blogs/blog/what-is-the-correct-ratio-of-calcium-and-phosphorus-for-dogs

Almost every dog is deficient in essential minerals:

https://peterdobias.com/blogs/blog/11014049-almost-every-dog-is-deficient-in-essential-minerals

How many supplements are too many for your dog?:
https://peterdobias.com/blogs/blog/15072565-how-many-supplements-are-too-many-for-your-dog?

Why some vets still sell processed food and speak against a raw diet:
https://peterdobias.com/blogs/blog/43720261-why-some-vets-still-sell-processed-food-and-speak-against-raw-diet

Why kibble may be more expensive than raw:
https://peterdobias.com/blogs/blog/11015017-why-kibble-may-be-more-expensive-than-raw

Safer Vaccination for Puppies and Adult Dogs:
https://peterdobias.com/blogs/blog/safer-vaccination-in-adult-dogs-and-puppies 
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A Quick and Easy Raw & Cooked Natural Diet Course for Dogs: https://peterdobias.com/pages/course-rawdiet

The Healthy Recipe Maker for Dogs : recipemaker.peterdobias.com

GreenMin - Essential Minerals for Dogs: www.greenmin.com

The Fab4 supplements for ultimate health: www.fab4supplements.com 

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Visit Pax and I on our website: www.peterdobias.com 

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Transcript

This podcast is brought to you by GreenMin, an all-natural mineral-rich superfood. 

If you have never heard of GreenMin, I consider it to be the most important essential supplement for dogs and people. It is a great source of plant-based minerals, which are much more bioavailable and effective than supplements made from chemicals or ground up rock. 

Minerals cannot be made in our body and have to come in the form of food. Unfortunately intensive agriculture and food transportation have interrupted the natural nutrient cycle and soils and food are becoming increasingly depleted. 

Mineral deficiencies are one of the primary causes of disease. Let me give you another explanation: most people understand that plants in the garden would not grow if some of the minerals were depleted or missing. 

For example, if phosphorus is deficient, strawberries and tomatoes would not blossom and fruit. Ironically, healthcare has not fully addressed the fact that food deficiencies are a greatly predisposing factor when it comes to cell and organ dysfunction and disease. 

Malnourished and depleted plants in the garden are relatively easy to spot but a mineral deficient body is harder to detect until it's too late. The key to supplementing minerals is to provide them in the most digestible and bioavailable form, and this is why I chose alga calcaria for GreenMin. The certified organic algae originates from Brazil and has evolved to absorb minerals from the ocean water and deposit them in the roots to anchor itself on the ocean floor. 

Alga calcaria was first discovered by Brazilian farmers who fed it to horses, cows and other farm animals and witnessed an amazing transformation. The animals were stronger, grew better and rarely fell ill, which makes sense because there are 37 000 billion billion chemical reactions taking place in the body every second and they cannot proceed smoothly without necessary minerals. 

Since then, alga calcaria has been used in treatment of osteoporosis in people and I made it part of GreenMin in 2012 the essential plant-based mineral and amino acid supplement for dogs, and people in 2021. If you would like to learn and read more what other people say it is simple. all you need to do is to go to greenmin.com, or for the human supplement. greenminhplus.com.

Hello my dog lovers! This is Dr. Peter Dobias, and you're listening to Not Just About Dogs. 

Today I would like to talk about a topic that many people are discussing and asking about, and that is a question: What is the correct ratio of calcium and phosphorus for dogs and puppies, and how do we figure out whether we're feeding our dogs the right amounts? 

Before I start, I'd like to give you a little bit of an idea of what I am planning to do today. 

First I'll be talking about puppies after weaning and then adult dogs, and then I will answer the question about whether we can ensure the correct ratio of calcium and phosphorus in your dog's food. Now the next part I'll be talking about is how to balance a raw diet for certain breeds and if there is any difference for small and large dogs and medium-sized dogs.

The other question that people often ask is if there is any difference between diet for puppies and adults, and also if supplements are necessary and why good food is no longer enough. 

Now the last little part I'll be talking about is if there is any healthy kibble for dogs and how to prepare healthy natural food.

In the 30 years working as a vet I've learned that repetition is at the core of achieving good health for our dogs. I sometimes go out and talk to dog lovers undercover on my walks not telling them that I'm a vet, and it's kind of fun because that way they're more open to share their experiences with their dogs, and I can see more clearly what I need to write about and what I need to do. 

You may have not thought about it, but most veterinarians, myself included, don't really know what it is like to go to a veterinary clinic as a client or as a customer, because we are veterinarians. 

We don't usually see other veterinarians unless we need a specialist and I do sometimes wish that I was a fly on the wall and heard my colleagues talking to see how they approach medicine and nutrition. 

There are two areas that concern me the most and based on my undercover discussions in the park, dog lovers often talk about nutrition and vaccination. 

Now if you have not listened to my podcast on immunity and vaccination you can look it up in my podcast series, it is there and it'll give you an idea on how to keep your dog and puppies safe without excessive vaccination.

So the big question that many of you have is what is the correct ratio of calcium and phosphorus for dogs. It is actually surprising how hard it is to come across clearly stated calcium phosphorus ratio recommendations supported by research based on the Merck Veterinary Manual. 

The association of American Feed Control officials so-called AFCO considers the following levels of calcium and phosphorus acceptable for puppies after weaning: it would be a very wide range of 2 to 18 grams of calcium per thousand calories with the recommended amount about 3 grams so they give us a range of 2 to 18 grams per thousand calories, which means that the minimum is 9 times lower than the maximum, which is kind of wild. 

They do recommend though that the ideal or optimal amount should be three grams, and when it comes to phosphorus is two and a half grams of phosphorus per thousand calories. Now I'm going to go with the numbers for a little longer: adult dogs should be getting about a minimum of 0.5 grams of calcium per thousand calories with the recommended amount about one gram, and when it comes to phosphorus it's 0.75. So it's 1 to 0.75 calcium to phosphorus ratio. 

Now the Merck Veterinary Manual also states that the amount of nutrients may be modified up and down by 30 percent, which makes all these figures really vague. 

Like, how can I actually decide what to feed my puppy when the ranges are from two to 18 and then it still varies on top of that, 30 up and down, and to make this even more confusing for well-intended dog lovers and pet food manufacturers, not every food diet is the same. 

There is a difference between digesting meat and cellulose, which is quite common in kibble, which is basically ground up wood chips, but even if dog food contains the recommended amounts and ratios of calcium and phosphorus, dry food is much more calorie dense, which results in overfeeding. 

And puppies eat more volume that, or more calories per volume than they would if they ate regular food that dogs and canines eat in nature and this calorie dense diet is actually the primary cause of bone growth deformities and joint growth issues, like hip dysplasia or elbow dysplasia, in dogs that grow fast naturally. 

All of this makes the decision about what kibble to choose very difficult for well-meaning and caring dog lovers because there are so many variables and dogs are also individuals. They have individual requirements for food and they need to be considered. 

I have seen so many people experience a great deal of anxiety and worry and I understand why we veterinarians, along with pet food companies, have made dog nutrition extremely complicated and the recommendations are practically impossible to apply in real life. 

Now I know that some of you have kids and I wonder whether you worry and obsess about the food for your children as much as the food for your dogs. I think that it's much clearer what is healthy, good nutrition for humans than dogs. Now I'm not sure whether making dog feeding complicated is intentional or not, but I do know that it results in everlasting confusion endless debates and most of all unnecessary suffering of puppies and little dogs, and it's really hard for me to see because I see young dogs that have elbow dysplasia or hip dysplasia and they cannot enjoy their puppyhood. They cannot enjoy their early stages of life and they suffer in pain and discomfort quite often for a lifetime, and this is a serious problem and we need to address it. 

No matter how much people disagree with with some of the things that I will say, I will keep saying things over and over until people get it because it is not complicated, and after 25 years of following certain protocols, I've been able to figure out how not to trigger the genes that may possibly predispose dogs and puppies to bone growth issues and joint issues. 

For many decades the education of veterinarians in the field of nutrition has been done under the influence of processed pet food companies and manufacturers who are in the business of selling kibble. 

For example the Global Nutrition Committee has been active at such events as the World Small Animal Veterinary Association conference and educates veterinarians in the field of small animal nutrition. The problem is that this committee is also sponsored by three large processed pet food manufacturers, which makes it less credible in providing unbiased information and I think that this is a big problem. 

We veterinarians should not be educated by those who do make processed pet food because obviously they're in the business of making money. 

Now the question remains, can we ensure the correct ratio of calcium to phosphorus in our dogs’ food? For most dog lovers it would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to verify that their dog's kibble contains the right ratio of calcium and phosphorus in connection with the metabolizable energy that is available in the dog food. 

As I said there is a difference between calories and energy and minerals and calcium, phosphorus from bones and meat and cellulose. As I mentioned before, cellulose, or wood chips and other forms of fiber, are not digestible. They're used to bulk up the food volume and you can see that in a dog park when you see poop of a dog on kibble. 

Their poop is about three times as big as those who eat natural raw or cooked diet. The difference is so striking that I would bet my pants on recognizing a kibble-fed dog's poop and raw fed dog's poop. 

So what this all means practically is we cannot really determine 100 percent what the true ratio of calcium and phosphorus is in your dog's food. It may look good on the paper, but depending on the ingredients it may be low, it can be high, and you as a dog lover and dog guardian will have a really hard time to determine whether the ratios are correct. 

Now what does this all mean? I've had an opportunity to see thousands of dogs in my practice and most dogs that have growth-related issues that I have seen, including hip dysplasia, cartilage growth disorders, and growing pains, are on kibble. 

Dogs on kibble appear to grow faster. They're lankier and weaker and very similar to trees. If you over fertilize a tree they grow big but weak. Dogs on kibble can consume more calories before they're satiated and the bioavailability of nutrients fluctuates heavily based on the ingredients. 

In other words I would say that puppies that are kibble-fed are kind of over fertilized too, if we see it from the point of view of a gardener. But nature has the answer. Since I began feeding and recommending raw food in the late 90s, I've rarely seen dogs on raw food having any hip dysplasia cartilage problems or growing pains. It just does not exist, even though the genetic disposition may be there. The genes would have to be triggered by the inappropriate diet. It's called epigenetics. 

You know some time ago I decided that I will not worry what other people think of me. I just have to be there for my patients and for my clients and make sure that they will be given the right information, even though 9 out of 10 veterinarians may still recommend kibble. 

I don't know any human doctors who would say that processed food is better for our kids or ourselves over healthy, natural food, and the same applies to dogs. I am 100% certain that dogs fed proper, well-formulated raw or cooked diets that include meat, raw bones, vegetables, along with natural vitamins and other supplements for dogs grow slower and they grow stronger. 

Now you don't want your puppy to grow too fast because as I said they grow weak and they're more likely to suffer from problems. Preventing hip dysplasia and joint and bone deformities is actually really easy when we follow nature's recipe. I'm really confident that feeding such a diet is far superior to kibble and it dramatically reduces the growth abnormalities and bone and joint disease in puppies but also in older dogs.

I've been asked many times by pet food manufacturers and raw pet food manufacturers if I would endorse their food. Or some clients and customers ask me what food is better and what they should feed. And I do my best to stay unbiased and do not actually participate in any endorsements of raw food because I want to be an unbiased independent voice when it comes to feeding and diet, because I think that that's the best for you and also for your dog. 

So now when I've gone through the basics of why I don't recommend kibble, I'd like to mention how to balance raw diet and especially how to balance raw diet for certain breeds, and if there is any difference. And the simple answer is no. Even in nature there's about 36 different species of the Canidae family, and they would include wolves and coyotes and dogs and foxes and jackals and dingoes and raccoon dogs and fenix and they have the same dentition, the same digestive tract, and they eat the same food. 

The way biologists determine what animals should eat, and that includes dogs and humans, is they look at their teeth. So canines generally have very sharp incisors to scissor and rip pieces of meat off the bone and then they have the canines, which are the teeth that grasp the prey and also rip the skin and muscles. Now the premolars, which are the teeth behind the canine, behind the large teeth, are very scissor-like sharp teeth and they're designed to shear off the muscles and also crunch the bones, especially the large carnassial teeth, the large premolars. And then there are a few molars, just because dogs also eat some plant materials and molars are usually much more common in herbivores. 

So generally the dentition of a dog is, or suggests, that dogs should eat meat and bones with some amount of herbs, plants and fruit. So now when we acknowledge the fact that nature doesn't make a difference between the different species of canines, the next question is if there is a difference between raw diet for puppies or any diet for puppies and adult dogs. 

In nature, as soon as puppies start accepting solid food, they start eating the same type of food as adults and this continues all the way into old age. I don't know any dogs in nature, any canines or wolves, that would be eating different foods when they are young adult or senior. 

Now the life stage and breed-based processed food idea is, in my opinion, an invention of bad food companies who needed to create the impression that feeding our dogs is very complicated, and that we should not attempt to do it ourselves. 

While no human doctors are saying, “hey you know you have to feed your kids processed food because it's too complicated,” we all know that humans are perfectly capable feeding their children a wholesome diet, and there is no difference in dogs. 

Most problems arise only if dogs are fed kibble, which is unnaturally calorie dense and it is made of ingredients that dogs would not eat on their own, such as grain, corn, rice, cellulose, just to name a few. 

But there's another problem that even if if the dehydrated food is made of the same species appropriate ingredients, it still sits on the shelf for six months, sometimes years, sometimes even more or longer. 

And now the second problem is that the processed food often lacks four essential nutrients, minerals, vitamins, probiotics and omega fatty acids. Many people tell me that they will feed raw food, but supplements are not necessary. And I believed the same thing in the early days. Believe it or not I actually fed kibble to my first pets. My cat mina, who actually lived until the age of 21, got kibble the first five years or seven years of her life, and then she became hyperthyroid and I switched her on raw food, and I started using homeopathy, and she actually lived without any hyperthyroid medication until she was 22 just on raw food and homeopathy. It was quite the shocking discovery. 

Now then the next phase was when I got Skai. I fed him raw food but I did not give him any supplements until about the age of seven years and he was okay, but when I started giving his supplements when he was seven and when I introduced my formulas I saw a huge difference, the same difference that some people see in their dogs. 

Now Pax is lucky because I've had 25 years of experience of feeding raw and natural food, and he's also been getting supplements since he was about eight weeks old, and he's a totally different ball game. He's a strong, sturdy, happy puppy and I'm so grateful that I've been given the opportunity to see the difference between raw diet and kibble, and that I have had 25 years of observing my patients and also my own pets and how they're doing. 

I've pretty much dedicated the past 15 years to development and formulation of natural diet recipes and also essential supplements. I wasn't really happy with what I've seen on the market and I could see that some people and companies have used a human approach to nutrition in dogs when it comes to probiotics and when it comes to some vitamins. They were made of chemicals such as coal and crude oil and that made me realize that the veterinary industry and animal supplement production is actually very behind the human nutrition, so that's how we started implementing the fermentation processes. 

We choose the best quality ingredients when it comes to the supplements. Many of our products are certified organic and some of you may think that I'm crazy to go to that length and that maybe the products are too expensive, but personally I think that our pets, our animal friends, are as important as as humans. 

And we know how important they've been, especially during the 2019 2019-21 when we didn't get as much opportunity to see other humans and interact socially in a normal way. Our dogs basically rescued us and they deserve the best. Nevertheless I would not recommend essential supplements if it didn't make sense. 

Seeing the difference between dogs on kibble and raw food, dogs without supplements, and dogs with raw food and supplements is one thing, but there also has to be some sort of logic to all this. 

For the past hundred years, intensive agriculture has caused severe soil depletion, which reflects in depleted plants and meat. Now if you grow crops on one field for 100 years without really supplementing all the nutrients back in the soil, it must be depleted and this is what happens when the produce or the crop is harvested is distributed in different parts of the world. The compost at the best ends up either in the field in the destination, or at the worst it ends up in the landfill, but it almost never gets back to the field unless the produce ends up in some sort of local supermarket and then people recycle and compost all the produce and also put the manure back on the fields. 

So as time progresses this causes severe soil depletion, and this depletion does transfer to food and then to us and our animals. Nature never intended for this to happen. You know if you go to Africa and see the African animals in the savannah, it still works perfectly because the animals graze grass, and then the carnivores eat the herbivores, and then eventually they all go back to the ground and the cycle completes. 

When you transport food from California to somewhere in Canada, it never gets back to the Californian fields and the farmers do not have the resources and the money to supplement all the different nutrients. Plus, the soul is gradually stripped of the microbiome and the food is just not the same and I think this is one of the biggest reasons why we see so much difference when we introduce simple mineral supports such as GreenMin. 

Now GreenMin was my first product that I formulated from the supplement lineup, and I love it. I take it myself, and we are actually introducing a human line in 2021 because so many of our dog lovers and customers started taking GreenMin themselves because they see the difference and they just don't want to miss out on getting all the nutrients. 

Now there are 37 000 billion billion chemical reactions happening in the body every second and these reactions cannot happen without having all the building blocks. And the body cannot make any minerals on its own so it's logical that it has to come from food or supplements, and if it doesn't come from food the only choice we have is supplements. 

Now when it comes to GreenMin, I used two core ingredients. One of them is alga calcaria, which is a mineral-rich algae. The algae actually anchors itself at the bottom of the ocean to make sure that it wouldn't float away, and it deposits and basically creates this paperweight in a way, to make itself heavy and anchor itself at the bottom of the ocean. 

The farmers in Brazil started feeding this algae to the animals, farm animals like cows and horses, and they started seeing them growing stronger and being healthier, which improved the bottom line later on. 

Alga calcaria started being used in people for osteoporosis, and we are the first company that used alga calcaria for production of whole food-based mineral support for dogs. 

Now the second ingredient that I've added to GreenMin is spirulina, and spirulina is a so-called astronaut food. It's actually a complete diet, and complete nutrition, and it has the full spectrum of amino acids. 

Amino acids are essential. The body cannot make all of them on its own, and therefore I added spirulina. Now spirulina is also a green superfood, which helps the body to cleanse and balance digestion, and it has an important role in preventing disease and chronic inflammation, and it is the key component for ensuring the healthy function of organs and cells in the body. 

I have people often asking me if there is any healthy kibble for dogs because they're busy, and feeding kibble is so convenient. People also believe that it is actually cheaper, but when you add the veterinary bills plus the cost of food and the cost of cellulose and wood chips and other fillers, it is actually not any cheaper. 

Personally when I go to a dog park I recognize raw fed dogs from kibble fed dogs, especially when they reach five six years of age. They no longer can run on youth and you can start seeing the difference in their energy level, mobility and even body weight, and how they feel when you pet them. I know that for some of you, you may not be ready and I don't hold it against you. 

It requires time, patience and also a little bit of courage, because there are so many people who will try to discourage you from feeding raw food. If what I just said makes sense to you and you feel ready, I can say with confidence that your dog will live a healthier and longer life on average, and your vet visits will be less frequent. 

As I said, I do not know any human doctors who would recommend processed food instead of wholesome natural food, and I hope that one day the same will be true in veterinary medicine. I know that it will be hard. Sometimes you run into a veterinarian who is not open to raw diet feeding or even cook diet feeding. I understand because we've been educated and brainwashed for more than five or seven decades, and it will take some time for this to be undone. 

Now if you run into my colleagues who will make you feel guilty or make you feel like you're not a caring dog lover if you say that you're feeding raw diet, or you're thinking about feeding raw or a good diet, just tell them that you're grateful for their opinion, but you're gonna do what you feel is the best, and I recommend that you talk to other dog lovers and see what their experiences are and go online to see that a raw, natural diet and cooked diet is becoming more and more popular. It just doesn't fit in the business model of processed pet food companies and that's the biggest problem.

The same situation happened in the automobile industry when Tesla came up. Everyone was negative and the conventional car manufacturers were trying to discredit it, and now it's a company that is the most valuable of them all and it sells three times as many cars in North America as, for example, Mercedes or or other german brands. 

I believe that there is karma, and if we do act based on our conviction and what we think is right, we can sometimes make mistakes but in the long run I think that it'll always guide us to the right answer and to the right solution. 

Now if you are ready to prepare healthy, natural food I recommend a few things here. One, you can go to recipemaker.peterdobias.com. I'll spell that recipe maker that's easy dot peter and the last name is d-o-b-i-a-s dot com. Again recipemaker.peterdobias.com, and it will give you a whole bunch of information about how to feed a raw diet, how much, what ingredients to use, which ones are not safe for dogs, and how to recognize whether your dog needs more or less food. 

Now it's really easy really simple and there's also 15-minute video course on making raw diet. If you have any questions you can always contact us through our website at peterdobias.com. 

If you would like to get more information about GreenMin, the five star rated mineral-rich superfood, you can go to greenmin.com it's g-r-e-e-n-m-i-n-dot-com. 

I also would like to thank those of you who have been trusting my work and my products because it allows us to help other dog lovers if they have any questions or inquiries about their dog's health. 

It allows us to do research in the field of health and longevity of dogs and continue working on how to create a healthy and longer life for your animal friend. 

If you have not subscribed to our newsletter you can always do so at peterdobias.com. I send weekly newsletters with information on how to keep your dog healthy, and if you trust me enough to share my information with others I'd be very grateful. 

Thank you so much. Have a wonderful day and give your dog a hug for me. 

Take care!