You are what you eat is a common phrase with a lot of truth behind it. Your pet is a carnivore. Dogs and cats should be eating meat-based diets. This is a common sense belief held by many who have witnessed improvements in pets who once merely survived on heat-processed, grain-based diets and then thrived when transitioned to better quality meat and even raw diets.

Dogs and cats are carnivores and digest meat protein better than plant protein. Conventional veterinarians know corn and wheat are common food allergens, which often stimulate dermatitis. Holistic veternarians consider highly processed grain diets to be inflammatory or contribute to Damp Accumulations, from the Eastern perspective. Therefore, we are supportive of the raw meat diet or at least "natural diets", especially canned diets with less processed grain, more moisture, more meat-based, and NO artificial preservatives such as BHT, BHA, or ethoxyquin. Innova, California Natural, Nature's Variety and Merrick are considered to be among the best natural diets according to top holistic vets, herbalists, and The Whole Dog Journal. So we stock these in addition to commercial raw brands.

Regardless of what you're feeding, it is important to change diets very gradually.

Natural diets should be stored in original packaging, in a dry cool area since they have fewer preservatives. Raw diets are stored frozen and thawed in the refrigerator before feeding (may be best stored in Pyrex to prevent leakage and bacterial accumulation).

Raw meat diets are intended to mimic the "carcass concept", and therefore should contain all the nutrients required for good health. Commercial products can be very convenient and should be fed from stainless steel or ceramic bowls. Very little supplementation is necessary when feeding a complete raw diet, but supplements are necessary additions to ANY commercially heat-processed diet (kibble/dry or canned).