Lamb and Rice Diets for Dogs

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Lamb and Rice Diets

I have had many emails asking my opinion of Lamb/Rice diets and the connection between taurine deficiency and heart disease. I am have never been a proponent of the 'straight' lamb rice diet. I have said for years, based on my own feed trials, that dogs lose muscle mass on lamb/rice diets, and of course the heart is the biggest muscle in the body. I have talked about this in in discussion groups, lectures, seminars, my articles and in my interview.

Straight Lamb/Rice diets were NEVER meant to be used as a long termed diet anyway, they are what is referred to as an "isolation" diet for dogs with allergies. Basically the Lamb/Rice idea was highly promoted in the 80's by one dog food company and now people seem to think this is the end all and be all in a diet.

Also people use Lamb/Rice diets thinking they are an "allergy prevention" diet, which they are not, and if they use them all the time, if and when the dog has a food reaction, then there is nothing to switch them too for an allergy diet.

The fact is most allergies or skin and coat problems are due to systemic yeast infections. You need to familiarize yourself with this problem since it is rampant in this country in our pets.

So, if people want to feed a commercial food, it is important for people to understand "multiple proteins" (which means multiple sources of meat, poultry, fish) in a diet are CRITICAL for maintaining appropriate muscle mass. Just flip over the package and read, there needs to be proteins (i.e. lamb meal, chicken meal, turkey meal, fish meal, pork meal) listed more than once in the ingredient panel.