The Ultimate Pet Food Guide: Everything You Need to Know about Feeding Your Dog or Cat

by Liz Palika

Book Overview

The 2007 pet food recalls followed a multitude of pets getting sick and dying from contaminated food; now pet owners must take charge of what they feed their dogs and cats. With The Ultimate Pet Food Guide, veteran dog trainer, behaviorist, and author Liz Palika focuses on nutritional needs and covers every type of feeding, including controversial raw diets, homemade cooked food, and commercial foods. Palika also addresses introducing new foods;...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1600940714
• ISBN13: 9781600940712
• Release Date: April 2008
• Publisher: Da Capo Lifelong Books
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Great Book

This book is a great place to start if you are considering feeding your dog homemade food. It has many recipes and suggestions so you don't have to search several different books.

Ultimate pet food guide

I have tried some of the meals and gotten a lot of great ideas . My girls were already eating cooked chicken, this gives them some variety.

Common sense talk about dog and cat foods

I found the information in Ms. Palika's book has helped me a lot in looking at the labels of my cat's and my dog's foods. I appreciate the recipes for home made diets, both raw and cooked, but I don't cook that much for myself. But at least after reading this book I understand what to look for when buying a commercial food--and I even found a safe, easy to feed raw food brand for my pets. Thanks!

An important book for all pet owners

This book presents an easily understandable, yet comprehensive review of the options available to feed your pet. The book covers the complete range of pet foods, from kibble you can get at almost any store, through specialized dehydrated natural pet foods, and finally to raw or cooked foods you can prepare at home (too much effort for me!) Being a dedicated dog owner, I focused on that part of the book, although there is also lots of information on cat foods. Although the book provides a few examples of good and bad pet foods, its real value is that it taught me how to become an educated pet owner, so that I can provide my dogs with healthy meals that meet their nutritional needs. Understanding the nutritional needs of dogs is not obvious to the typical consumer - for example, it turns out that there is "good" kibble and "bad" kibble. Good kibble tries to mimic what dogs and wolves evolved to eat in the wild, while bad kibble mostly consists of grains and whatever meat byproducts that pet food conglomerates can put together at a cheap price. (You don't often see wolves, which are closely related to dogs, out cooking up a batch of rice or wheat for dinner....) I found this book to be a tremendous source of information on this subject. As another example, ground corn (the first ingredient in some dog foods) includes the entire ear of corn - not just the corn kernels, but also the corn cob, all ground up together. Yuck - but it's a lot cheaper than meat! Care to guess how much of that ingredient nourishes your best friend and how much passes straight through, for you to clean up later? In summary, this book really makes you think about what you are feeding your pet, and gives you the information to make better decisions. As Ms. Palika writes, the old adage that states "we are what we eat" also applies to our pets. Taking the time to understand that can pay benefits in healthier pets that are likely to live happier, longer lives. Highly recommended.

Great read on what to feed your dog or cat

This is a great reference book on what to feed your dog or cat, with a balance of information on all types of food. There are so many choices in pet food out there and so much mis-leading information about commercial dog food - especially some of the so-called premium foods. This book really brings it all together from homemade food, to what to look for in commercial food, and advice on supplements. I really appreciated her candid commentary and help in sorting through the options. She doesn't present a bias towards any one method or brand, but it nice to not feel guilty about feeding "homemade" food.