Before I start my findings on diet, I thought I would list the foods I recommend. This list could change, as sometimes foods are bought out by big names and the formulas are changed.
LIFE’S ABUNDANCE -can be ordered at Germanshepherdsrock.com This food cannot be purchased in stores. Every bag is tracked and there has never been a recall. It is a highly tested food formulated by a veterinarian with years of research to back it
Farmina ancestral varieties- can be purchased at most specialty dog food stores or online at Chewy.com
First Mate-Purchase at Chewy.com
Purina Pro Plan Sport or Purina ONE Smart Blend True Instict (they have a turkey and a fish variety) More on this food below.
Diet
Boy have I learned a lot about the proper diet for dogs over the years! Most of this knowledge came the hard way after I had many missed pregnancies and lost litters.
When I first started breeding I sought out an AKC stud and female with OFA hips. I did not know enough about temperament unfortunately so I thought the two parents I chose were incredible. The dam I bought won shows and even though she was “pretty” she was nothing like the dogs I have today. She was a hock walker and had severely weak nerves. When I first brought her home she would not eat a thing. For many days I tried EVERYTHING! The vet could not find anything wrong and I spent a few thousand on tests and still no answers. So I set out searching what little internet we had back then and started learning about the raw diet. Feeding raw meat to a dog was scary to me because I thought the dog would get sick but after this new girl had not eaten a thing for over a week, I decided to try it. I set a raw chicken leg in front of her and she looked at me with her terrified eyes and would not touch it. (Again, weak nerves) I came back a little while later and the chicken was gone! YAYYYYY!!!! From that point on she started improving and slowly became accustomed to her new home. She did start eating some dry food and I continued with raw about 3 times a week. I did not have a good raw supplier back then and so I fed it more as a supplement. I was also feeding some higher quality dry foods. I would usually feed Taste of The Wild, Purina Pro Plan and Diamond. This was before the Diamond recall and knowledge about the dangers of grain free on cardiovascular health. (Taste of the Wild is made by the Diamond company) I believed at the time that the corn in the Purina was bad and fed it sparingly. Even though I did not have any studies to back up grain free, I read tons of opinions online and it just made sense to me at the time. Dogs are like wolves, right?? Well, its complicated. More on this later.
So for seven years I fed this way and did well. Big healthy litters and healthy puppies. Even though the diet was mostly grain free, the dry foods did have vegetables and fruits that the body converts into carbs. I also would cook for them when I had time and it was usually a brown rice and meat like stew with vegetables. So more of a omnivore diet.
Then fast forward to when we moved to our current property. Still feeding the same, I started to have issues with girls getting pregnant. The normal ratio of females that I had getting pregnant, having small litters or strange heats should have been around 10% but when we moved to our new property, it started increasing drastically to about 80%! So I started changing foods, changing cleaning chemicals; anything I could think of and still only about two to three of my girls would get pregnant a year and even then I would have some smaller litters. A couple of my girls seemed unfazed by whatever was going on and then others never ovulated at all. MANY repro vet visits and tons of tests were ran only to find no answers. I removed so many girls from my program who were not getting pregnant and I chalked it up to them just not having good fertility. So, as time goes on, I started increasing the raw because I found a very good meat supplier and thought it was the best thing for my dogs. I was still feeding some of the best dry food I could find but at this time was eliminating corn because “opinions” on the net said it was bad. Well one day while reading a breeding forum, I read where a Doberman breeder found out she had high nitrates in her water which was causing fertility issues. WHAT??!! We were told that when we bought our new place that our nitrates were at 18ppm. I read up on it before we purchased the property that this was “supposed to be” only harmful to the really young or elderly so I though nothing of it. Then fast forward to the day I read this forum where another breeder said that nitrates cannot be over 4ppm for breeding animals! OH NO! A year prior, I also had a mare that had her foal two months early and the foal did not make it. I never knew it could be the water. (Remember the saying, “There must be something in the water?”) So, I thought I had finally found my fertility problems with my dogs; and I had, but only partially.
So we had a very large and expensive nitrate filter installed on our well and it was supposed to take 6 months to a year for things to get back to normal. Things did start improving slowly. Then after having 4 good litters in January of 2020, I increased the raw. I thought since raw was the best and I had a very good source, I would switch to almost all raw. Many of my girls went back not cycling normal and smaller litters! It wasn’t as bad as when we had high nitrates in the water but still not normal. In the early summer I had 5 girls go into heat and only one got pregnant. Then, during this time I see on Facebook that Royal Air German Shepherds had 2 litters of 12 on the ground and others coming. I thought, “She feeds Purina! How could this be?” Then another breeder I knew had 2 big litters and she also feeds Purina! Here I was spending a small fortune on food trying to do the right thing and having all sorts of problems and they were feeding what I thought was inferior food and having big healthy litters. I contacted Robin Krumm with Royal Air and she gave me permission to quote her on this page. Robin has had more than 30 years experience breeding and I feel so ignorant thinking all this time that she was simply trying to save money by feeding Purina. She told me she also tried the raw diet and had to switch to Purina because of problems the straight raw caused. Now there is a difference here: Robin fed the pre made raw and I have always fed raw whole. Not a pre made brand. The problem with pre made raw is there is a much higher chance of contamination from salmonella and e coli. Pre made raw is numerous ingredients ground up and not in its more natural state. I feed whole chicken legs, pork shoulder, gizzards, backs, feet, etc not ground up. Robin said that she and many other breeders have had to learn the hard way and always go back to Purina (or similar with years of research) because of the results. So even though my raw was whole raw and hers was pre made ground, the principle is the same. My dogs have never gotten sick from feeding raw the way that I do but I was still having fertility issues. Something was just not right.
Now I like to think of myself as a breeder that follows statistics, science based and pier reviewed studies. I like facts. Opinions are fine but I want to always research so I am baffled that I believed the numerous opinions on straight raw being the best and that foods containing corn or rice as one of the first ingredients were the worst. But after researching I found time and time again that other breeders swear by Purina and Life’s Abundance because of the results they produce. I used to read about how a dog would not go into a corn field and eat corn. Well, actually, they would! My dogs will eat corn. A study was done that shows dogs produce enzymes to digest carbohydrates. Wolves do not produce these same enzymes. Dogs HAVE evolved from wolves and do still love (and I believe need) animal protein but they also need carbohydrates. DOGS ARE OMNIVORES! This great article states studies showing how dogs have evolved to digest starches: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/canine-corner/201707/have-dogs-specifically-evolved-eat-bread-and-pasta
I know a lot of people like to refer to Dog Food Adviser website for advice about what foods are best for dogs. Please don’t do this. Did you know the Dog food adviser is a dentist with no training or schooling on animal nutrition? He bases foods off of how much meat it has in it. Now I do agree with him when it comes to certain preservatives. Some inferior foods contain terrible preservatives. Purina and Life’s Abundance both use safe preservatives and have had extensive research. Purina especially has done more research than any other dog food company. Just go to their website and see for yourself. While researching this topic I read where other long time breeders were saying the same thing. One breeder said that if she wanted to throw a girl out of heat she would just feed her raw for a day or two!! Carbohydrates feed the thyroid which is the hormone “super center” and without the proper amount of carbohydrates, the hormones are thrown out of whack. Another breeder said its too hard to make sure the diet was balanced when feeding raw (because its not backed by science) and therefore does not support healthy long-term fertility.
Another smoking gun (that I thought was just breed related) was how slow my dogs whelped. My dogs would take a very long time to whelp. I have a friend who breeds Golden’s and I was shocked at how fast her dogs whelped. Once contractions started her pups were born about a half hour or less between each puppy. She feeds mostly Purina and other dry foods. My girls would take two to four hours between pups and two hours after contractions started. Then after researching true studies on raw diets I found a very interesting statement on the AKC website: “studies at Whelpwise have shown bitches fed raw have a higher than normal incidence of dystocia, the inability to deliver pups effectively. The imbalance of calcium and phosphorus are thought to be the cause of dystocia.” Source AKC. Could this be why my dogs have almost always had long deliveries?? I was so upset thinking how my biased opinion and the opinions (with no facts) of others on the internet could cause me to feed my dogs so poorly but at almost the highest cost!
I do still feed about 10% whole raw because dry food does not have the live enzymes obtained in raw food. So my dogs get a little green tripe, ground beef, chicken,pork or turkey, gizzards, liver, chicken legs, etc about 3 times a week. Only a small serving. I also give for treats: carrots, apples, blueberries and apricots (its weird but they like them) spirulina and spinach for greens. I also give Nuvet supplements to fill in any gaps I may be missing. At night in their crates I will let them chew on cow hooves or ears. SO, lots of variety because DOGS ARE OMNIVORES!
To see a very informative video on how superior LA is, click here.
Vitamins: Nu Vet supplements listed on my site HERE. Nu Vet is an immune support supplement that will not grow your puppy too fast but protects against free radicals therefore enhancing your puppy’s immune system. And guess what else? Nu Vet has enzymes added for those poor little pups that are lacking! Your German Shepherd will protect you with its life. Why would you not protect its life?