Why a Vegan Great Dane?

In 1987, I brought home a beautiful female Harlequin Great Dane whom I named Dagmar. (In Danish, it means "joy of the Danes".) My Dalmation, Sasha, immediately took over the job of potty training and other canine maternal tasks. When I took Dagmar to the vet, who also happened to be a homeopathic vet, I asked the vet if it was possible for a dog to be vegetarian. I was a bit timid about even asking the question, not wanting to impose a nutritional regimen that might not be suited to a canine digestive system, or worse, might be detrimental to the health of the dog. I was surprised when she answered, "Not only will that make your dog healthier, it will extend her life expectancy." I found two "higher quality" brands of dog food at the pet store and, with some of my own dinner menu mixed in, raised my Great Dane as a vegetarian, and switched my Dalmation over to a vegetarian diet. My Dalmation lived to 16 years, and my Great Dane, who was supposed to live 7 to 9 years, lived beyond her 11th birthday. When Dagmar died, I expected to get another Great Dane, followed by a second one, when I was ready, but life got busy and complicated and I lived 14 dogless years before I got another one. On September 23rd, 2012, after I had searched the internet for over a year for exactly the right puppy, my husband and I went to the breeder to pick up a beautiful female Harlequin Great Dane. She was a couple days shy of being seven weeks old. I named her Valentina, which means "brave protector". (It was the name I had come up with 14 years previously, in anticipation of getting another Dane puppy after Dagmar died.) I'm sure every parent thinks they have the most beautiful baby in the Universe, just as every puppy owner thinks they have the most beautiful puppy, but I must insist, this dog is beautiful and very smart. She learned her name by the second day with us, and within the week, she had learned "come", "no", how to ring the peepee bell on the door, "kisses," "sit" and "no bite", (even though teething and tempted to bite everything in sight!). After two weeks with us, Valentina understood questions like,"Do you want to go outside/inside?" (She goes to the door.) "Do you want to go upstairs?" (She runs to the foot of the stairs.) and "Go eat your food." (She would go over to her food dish, look in it, and then look up at me as a signal that I needed to put more food in the bowl.) as well as the command "shake hands." After having read so much about the atrocities contained in commercial dog food, I vowed to make her food from fresh, organic, vegan ingredients, so she could have a good shot at exceeding the current life expectancy for Great Danes. I went to my nearby PetsMart, to get a bag of "transitional vegan kibbles," and found that they no longer carried any. We were happy to find that a local specialty pet store had vegan kibbles and I began transitioning Valentina toward the vegan kibbles, and transitioning myself towards making all her food. So much has changed with the internet. I have found a wealth of knowledge, and connected with people that I never would have found in a library. I have ordered books, researched blogs and websites, and amassed a compendium of vegan canine recipes, all via the internet. And, yet, I feel I have just scratched the surface of what I need to know.

So, Vegan Great Dane will be a record of what my husband and I experience and learn about providing a nourishing diet for Valentina with more-than-minimal nutrients plus everything else involved in raising a healthy Great Dane. (And, of course, I won't be able to resist including some pictures of her.) Much has changed about the approach to puppy training -- I have been surprised to learn that I did a lot of things right in training my other dogs in the past.

One more detail: Valentina will be a bi-national dog. We split our time between Austin, Texas and Lake Chapala, Jalisco, Mexico. Like Kafka, the Dalmation that I had before Sasha, Valentina will be trained in two languages, so she will understand commands both in English and Spanish. There are requirements for taking a dog into Mexico and for taking a dog into the US, so, I'll also be sharing those experiences with you. I welcome your comments, support and any information you might offer. If you are offended by veganism/ vegetarianism, please take your criticism elsewhere. I raised two dogs as vegans, and they were extremely healthy their entire lives. I'd love to hear from you, your experiences, information, your stories, and your support. Thank you.

Companies That Sell Vegan Dog and Cat Food

Evolution Dog Food -A 100% Complete For All Life Stages Dry Dog Kibble. Human Grade Pure Vegan Ingredients. (Also sold on amazon.com)
F & O Alternative Pet Products Vegan dog and cat kibble and canned food1-877-376-9056
Harbingers ofa New Age Vegecat™, Vegekit™, Vegedog™, and digestive enzymes406-295-4944
Natural Balance Canned and Kibble Vegan dog food 1-800-829-4493
Natural Life Pet Products Canned and kibble dog food 1-800 367-2391
Nature's Recipe Canned and kibble dog food 1-800-237-3856
Newman's Own Organic vegan dog treats
Pet Guard Canned dog food and biscuits
V-Dog Vegandog foodv888-280-8364
Wow-Bow DistributorsCanned and kibble dog food and biscuits1-800-326-0230
Wysong CorporationDog and cat kibble 989-631-0009




Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Almost Birthday Time!






 
 


We survived the heat! (I'm talking about Valentina's heat, not the Austin weather!) It went longer than websites predicted -- around three weeks. With the adjusted timeline, we now have no idea how long she is impregnable, so we have been postponing the dog park a little while, just to be safe.)

Since my husband Tom and our puppy dog have the same birthday (August 7th), Tom said I needed to have a birthday cake that both he and Valentina could eat.  His suggestion was a peanut butter cake, since she loves her peanut butter, given every evening in her Kong, just before bedtime.

Valentina is beginning to mellow.  I've heard that Great Danes take longer to mature physically (18 months, instead of 12) and emotionally (3 years instead of 2), but we already see many grownup changes in her.  Her receptive vocabulary is immense.  She understands phrases such as "Do you want to go water the tomatoes with me?" (She runs over to the gate at the tomato enclosure.) My last Great Dane (also very bright) was only interested in watching the occasional black and white TV program (The Donna Reed show, at 5 AM was her favorite.) Valentina loves color television.  She recognizes all the dog images, and surprised us when she recognized a very primitively drawn cartoon image of a dog in a commercial and started barking at it, and followed it as it ran across the screen. She has a large number of toys that she will bring to us when they are named. She watches African animals on the AT&T U-verse channel, knows many of the names of the animals,  and when she saw a large, painted metal sculpture of an elephant outside of a consignment store, as we waited for the traffic light to turn green, she raised her ears, focused her eyes intently, and began to bark at it. She now has a big stuffed elephant toy that she loves.

I've already bought Tom's birthday present, but we haven't yet bought Valentina's.
I now sprinkle and mix in  Barley Grass Powder and Wheat Grass Powder in addition to Alfalfa Powder on her soft food. (This is a good healthy way to keep their breath fresh, and enzymes flowing, and is much better than the grass they occasionally eat in the yard.)
Stay tuned for a few additions/ modifications to the Kibble Recipe.