May 13, 2020
AC Slater’s Fish Food
The main reason I have to go to the grocery store about twice a week is that I need to buy white fish and sardines for AC Slater’s diet.
I can’t buy more on each trip because our local fish has been frozen at sea and then defrosted locally. It needs to be cooked and not refrozen.
Packages of frozen white fish, like cod, come individually wrapped, which is a pain to unpackage and an environmental nightmare with all that plastic. Plus each packaged fish piece is full of water or some solution, which makes the resulting mixture really watery.
So, why does AC Slater need white fish. Since last summer, AC has been struggling with MASSIVE food allergies that resulted in him chewing and clawing holes in himself as he was itching so badly. It has been a nightmare for me as I cannot bear to see him suffer. EVERYTHING I fed him caused him to react.
To make a long story shorter, I finally took him to a terrific holistic vet who tested him for the foods that were the worst offenders—five foods, some of which are in pretty much in all the commercial dog foods—and started him on a holistic remedy protocol that has stopped the reactions for the most part. He is not out of the woods yet—and we are taking things a day at a time—but his sores are healing and he is not going at himself tooth and claw. When he starts to react again, I give him the remedy.
Here’s his food, which I make fresh about twice a week. I put broccoli and carrots (chopped pretty fine) in a big pot, add about an inch of water, and lay the fish over the veggies. I cover the pot and cook the fish and veggies, and then break the fish all apart. I add to this mixture, a cup of blueberries or some peeled and chopped apple and 4 tins of sardines. Sometimes I add a few tablespoons of good coconut oil. Each bowl is topped with a vet product that helps heal the gut (Antronex) and two squirts of Dr. Mercola’s krill oil for pets.
AC is lean and full of energy and is quite happy. He loves his fish meals. BUT, I worry about the heavy toxins in big fish and that, long term, he is not getting the right nutrients.
Now…
What went wrong here?
I will go to my grave believing his 1-year rabies booster started this cascade of issues. And poking around the internet revealed that allergies like what AC has can and do follow a rabies vaccination.
I also learned that there is no scientific basis for the current, legally mandated, vaccine schedule. I know rabies is a problem. It is a serious problem here in Maine. I also know that it would be wiser to check for antibodies with a blood titer rather than mindlessly giving animals more and more boosters that can and do harm them—just so vets get a steady traffic into their businesses. And, that factor is the rational for the legal rabies schedule, not animal health. It was a deal cooked up between vet business people and public health officials.
I did try to work with our local vet at first, who is very nice and caring. But her toolbox didn’t work. That protocol was to use a drug that suppresses the immune system reactions in combination with a prescription dog food. I have since read that the drug used comes with serious side effects.
Also, the prescription dog food is one of the worst industrial products, in my opinion, I’ve every seen. Protein is broken up (hydrolyzed) into tiny bits that are meant to fool the immune system. The protein source is…wait for it…CHICKEN FEATHERS. And the first ingredient is corn starch. The product smelled terrible; it reeked of a heavy chemical odor. AC loved it, until he went off the drug and reacted to it. He thought it was candy, with its sweet, sticky nature.
That left AC with getting more of the drug and switching to the only other formulation of hydrolyzed protein, soy beans. As it turns out he is wildly allergic to peas, so that clearly was not going to work. And this whole fake, chemical food solution would cause other problems down the road.
The other problem is, as I said above, that other kibble concoctions all contain one of the 5 foods that AC is allergic to. So, fortunately, I’ve always fed my dogs real food anyway, and I don’t mind cooking for him.
And one of my unanswered questions is whether or not his immune system reacted to certain foods willy nilly or whether it was because they were in his diet as I tried to find food that didn’t make him sick.
I suppose time will tell.
For right now, he is healthy and happy.
The fish diet is EXPENSIVE, however. And in this pandemic, sometimes I have trouble getting the cheaper versions of available fish.
It’s time for a change in how we treat our beloved pets, from their food to their medical treatment. It’s time for science to prevail, not business models.
Louisa Enright's Blog 