Dog Food / Health

Question
Hello there. Thank you SO MUCH for your service; for sharing your expertise.  I live in Thailand, and cannot find any highly rated brands of dog food here.  I am going to have to make my own.  Do you have a recommended diet for a Pyrenean Sheepdog ( I have three of them).  They are basically medium sized mountain dogs.  They aren't as active as they are when we are in Canada (we are heading back later this year - yay!). I can't take them for walks without being attacked by street dogs (I feel sooo bad for the street dogs here : ( )  so they run around on our property, which is a decent size.

They all seem healthy, though I catch them itching their skin a lot.  They don't have fleas or ticks, and I suspect that their skin is very dry in this heat.  Mine is!   They are not sunburned.

I have heard that Flaxseed oil can help pets who have dry skin.  Do you recommend me giving them jelly capsules of Flax seed oil with their food?

There are soooo many different websites with sooooo many different recipes for dog food.  I would love to have things narrowed down by an expert like yourself.

Do you recommend using the barf diet?

How many times a day should I be feeding them?

Thanks so much for taking the time to help out.  I truly appreciate it.

Best Regards,

Leah Smith


Answer
Hi Leah
Thanks so much for the kind words. I hope that I can give you something that's going to be helpful. Please find below some websites that I really like but do remember to use your own judgement. I don't usually agree with everything anyone says if that' makes any sense LOL. For example some recommend white rice, I prefer brown or long grain in my dogs diets. And no wheat, it's really well known for causing allergies. No soy either for the same reason. I'm a firm believer in supplements regardless of diet and am including some sites for those as well, One of those being flaxseed which I am STRONG believer in.  Vitamin C is wonderful and your dog depending on size should be getting probably 1000 mgs per day broken into three doses. Vitamin E, Fish oil, or salmon oil or cod liver oil, every day, bone meal is a very important additive as well.
Timberwolforganics.com is a great site for supplements.
http://www.50plus.com/Lifestyle/BrowseAllArticles/index.cfm?documentID=18264
http://www.greatflaxseedoil.com/info/flax-seed-oil-for-dogs-pets.html
http://www.drbasko.com/nutrition.htm

http://www.herbal-dogkeeping.com/articles_diy_supplements.html
http://www.wikihow.com/Prepare-Home-Cooked-Food-for-Your-Dog
I do like Barf, well ok I know people who like it and who have had good results with it. I am a bit leery of feeding too much raw meat unless it is organic. Too much ecoli etc. But if done carefully I think it can be successful.
Hope these links help you out
Cindi