Eat Your Veggies

My dogs love fruits and veggies. They all get introduced to them at a young age. When Samba's puppies were about three weeks old we could feel tooth buds popping up and we started giving them baby carrots to chew on. They used the cold hard carrots  as teethers and it probably saved our hands from many bites from sharp puppy teeth.They still get excited when we take carrots from the refrigerator.

Sebastian was older when he found us, about eighteen months and he'd never eaten fruits or veggies. When we offered them to him, he either turned away or politely took one, then put it down on the floor for someone else to grab. It took a while to get him used to the strange tastes. I started with green beans, putting just one bean on his dinner. He ate around the bean, but after a couple days he tried it. I gradually increased the number of beans on his meal until I noticed that he was eating the beans first before the kibble. He now eats all sorts of fruit and veggies along with the others.

Recently Rob came across an article online called The 10 Healthiest Human Foods For Dogs. Here's what the article had to say.

1 Green Beans- a source of omega 3 fatty acids, vitamins A, C and K, calcium, copper, fiber, folic acid, iron, niacin, manganese, potassium, riboflavin, thiamin and beta carotene.

Wow, my dogs get these several times a week.

2 Cantaloupe - a source of vitamin A, B-6 and C, beta carotene, fiber, folate, niacin and potassium.

Cantaloupe was Bentley's favorite fruit.

3 Spinach - iron

Sorry to say, my dogs have never had spinach, but that's going to change.

4 Apples - antioxidants and vitamin C

One of our favorites.

5 Pumpkin- fiber, vitamin A and antioxidants

My dogs love fresh pumpkin but don't like the canned variety.

6 Sweet Potatoes - Vitamins E, A B-6 and C as well as calcium, iron, folate, potassium, copper, thiamine and iron

We have these often. They're a favorite because of the sweet taste.

7 Blueberries - high levels of resveratrol that fight cancer and heart disease plus tannins to help prevent urinary tract infections

Dr B told us about these long ago to help keep senior moments at bay. Morgan gets fresh ones in the summer and blueberry capsules the rest of the year.

8 Watermelon - Lots of lycopene and vitamins A, B-6 and C plus thiamin

Since Mitch and Maggie introduced us to watermelon several years ago, it's become one of our summertime favorites.

9 - Asparagus - Vitamin K, A, B-1, B-2, C and E along with folate, iron, copper, fiber, manganese and potassium.

This is one of my favorites and Bentley loved it. We don't have it as often as we should but that may change. Most of the dogs like it but it's an acquired taste.

10 - Brussels Sprouts - Vitamins K and G plus manganese, folate, fiber, potassium and Vitamins A, B-1 and B-6

Rob loves brussels sprouts but I don't like them. They taste bitter to me. The few times a year that I fix them I cook them in mustard to disguise the taste, BUT I tried a new recipe this week that cooks them with bacon and bleu cheese. They were actually good and I liked them, even had a second helping. The dogs had them for the first time and liked them. They didn't get the bleu cheese but I mixed them into rice and sweet potato and bacon. Yum!!

OK, I know this is getting really long so I'll quit here. Tomorrow I'll tell you about an article in The Whole Dog Journal that tells us about other good foods to feed our fur kids.