Naturally Reared Puppies
Before you get your new puppy, so much has already been decided – like its parents and lineage, its environment, how it was fed, and the length of time fed by its mother before it was weaned.
Breeders hold the fate of so many puppies in their hands so by supporting their breeding program with natural rearing practices, they pass on vitality and health to each litter of puppies.
There’s nothing more heartwarming than seeing a litter of new life, all lined up with tails in the air suckling at their mother’s breast. Not only are they bonding but they are getting much more. Not just food for these infants, breast milk is a potent medicine.
Nourishing a puppy begins long before the womb and continues with the mother’s milk and the healthy microbiome it has created – setting up the pup for a long, healthy life.
It’s the first sustenance they will receive filled with vitamins, minerals, fats, protein, carbohydrates, hydration and immunological components. But before mother’s milk, before the litter of puppies, everything begins with your perfect breeding pair. It’s a pair that has been naturally raised (and even better if their sires were naturally raised) and fed a species appropriate diet, preferably organic.
It’s better if the species appropriate diet is biodynamic (seasonally produced products and feeding) but organic is a great start. Whole fresh foods are the best. Raw is even better.
Organic foods provide less exposure to pesticides especially organophosphates whose residues are cancer promoters and endocrine disruptors. Organic foods are higher in anti-oxidative and anti-mutagenic activity as well as being better inhibitors of cancer cell proliferation.
There are studies proving positive effects of an organic diet on the weight, growth, fertility indices and immune system development for organically fed animals. The benefits of organic feeding to the reproductive ability and overall development of healthy breeding stock are clear. Organically grown foods with important levels of polyphenols and vitamins ensure “food as medicine” is at work.
Even resilience of living organisms is being attributed to organic feeding so there’s no doubt: feed your dogs a natural, whole food organic diet. Milk from organically raised animals is higher in n-3 linoleic acids and CLA (conjugated linoleic acid) which means less cancer. Health effects from foods are usually tested first in animals so these studies are fair representation for our dogs too.
NO VEGANS NEED APPLY.
A vegan diet would not be healthy for your breeding pair, and all pregnant and nursing companion carnivores. Besides the seven critical nutrients that are not supplied by a vegan diet, there are literally over 23 critical nutrients that are too low in vegan diets to make a healthy puppy.
Vegan supplementation cannot be nourishing in these critical nutrients and synthetic imitation supplements will not work as a suitable replacement. In the case of vitamin B12, a deficiency may not be recognized for years and by then the damage to the neurological system to the brain of your puppy will be irreversible. The breeding pair should be fed real whole foods that nourish the microbiome and create a healthy robust microbiome. Feeding not only probiotic supplements but also a variety of fermented foods is critical for delivering to the perfect puppy that same healthy microbiome. It’s necessary for healthy digestive and immune systems, for mental health and even everyday behavior. Strong healthy genes are handed down to the litter from the breeding pair so do not skimp if you want strong healthy sane puppies.
Don’t feed the breeding pair a diet of meats from CAFO (concentrated animal feeding operation). Factory farmed animals are full of toxic ingredients that include genetically engineered feeds, antibiotics, hormones and other toxic substances that lead to genetic alterations and poor gene expression. Eighty percent of the antibiotics in the world are sold to the food industry; CAFOs are the largest purchaser and administrator of those antibiotics into food producing animals.
Homemade organic bone broths and a large variety of healthy fermented foods plus supplementation with probiotics are all ways to feed up the gene pool for your soon-to-be perfect puppy. Eating clean and organic, if not biodynamic, nourishing the gut to cultivate a healthy microbiome and therefore a healthy digestive and immune system are all easy steps, right? This strategy with the breeding pair will continue to build a strong foundation for making your puppy healthy as well. Once the pair is bred, the pregnancy will take about 64 days. A little over two months and voila: your perfect puppy!
Natural Rearing Breeding
MOTHER’S MILK now comes the critical part. When the pups arrive, nursing of the first milk (colostrum) should be initiated within the first hour. Colostrum, a yellowish and sticky substance, is more important for building an immune system, shoring up the mucosal surfaces and developing the right biofilm for the digestive tract than it is for nutrition.
Timing is absolutely critical because the digestive tract is born leaky allowing the larger antibodies and immunoglobulin across into the bloodstream. The leakiness will close up within three days forming a barrier so that larger molecules cannot easily cross.
COLOSTRUM FIRST! Colostrum is high in protein, low in sugar and loaded with beneficial compounds. The colostrum helps the immature digestive tract develop properly with a coating of IgA secretory immunoglobulin, a vital member of the primal immune system.
Colostrum is highly antiviral so mom’s antibodies against canine distemper and rabies virus help defend the neonate but so does the colostrum environment. Parvo virus maternal antibody delivered to the puppy can last for a long time, sometimes four months in some dogs. Rabies maternally derived antibody can last 3.5 months in the dogs. These values are the results of actual studies. Colostrum secretory IgA coats the ears nose and throats of the puppies as well as the digestive tract. The puppies also get probiotics (good bacteria) that are necessary to create a healthy microbiome.
There are non-digestible sugars that act as prebiotics that feed the beneficial bacteria. This intelligence is even more amazing when you learn that the non-digestible sugars like oligosaccharides and glycol-conjugates role is to also act as competition inhibiting binding sites on the epithelial surfaces of the intestines. So they are actually helping with the growth of the beneficial bacteria while inhibiting bad or pathogenic bacteria.
Naturally Reared Puppies
SPECIES BENEFITS SPECIES: A note here about the benefits of species milk only: studies have shown that only mom’s milk will do as the adherence of the probiotics develops into the right biofilm only with mom’s milk.
Formula or replacement milk from a different species will not work. This biofilm is a shield of protection in the digestive tube that is the puppy’s main barrier to the outside world and needs to be an impermeable defense. In dogs, pretty much the entire infant immune system comes across the breast. Ninety percent of the antibodies come from colostrum; only ten percent come across the placenta.
The yellow color of colostrum reflects the maternally derived antibodies, immunoglobulin and a list of other immune cells and components to establish the neonatal immune system. There are many components to help the newborn specifically deal with neonatal illnesses from bacteria, like lactoferrin and lysozyme, free fatty acids and interferon that are antiviral, fibronectin that decreases inflammation along with lactoferrin, many white bloods cells (40 percent of the colostrum is composed of these immune cells).
Probiotics like bifidus and lactobacillus probiotics seed the body and set up that crucial microbiome that will keep pathogens out. Colostrum it seems is all about setting up a quick but permanent defense mechanism to protect the neonate. The breast works on supply and demand as the puppies grow.
Breast milk is the perfect raw food for the naturally reared (NR) puppy supplying the ideal nutrients in the right proportions and in the right composition. The nutritional value of breast milk is influenced by the mother’s diet and that has a lasting effect on the puppy’s health and wellbeing long term.
Benefits of Naturally Reared Puppies
HEALTHY DIET, HEALTHY DOGS. If the mother is deficient in B12 there will be irreversible damage to the neurological system. If the mother is deficient in vitamin D3, the milk will be more deficient and the puppies even more deficient as a result.
Proper animal based foods fed to the mother, ensure healthy perfect food to the puppy via breast milk. Saturated fats, animal based omega-3 fats and vitamin A are only effective if they are supplied as animal based in origin. Healthy puppies develop faster and will have teeth erupting by three weeks of age.
Then the mom will be at peak lactation with the largest demands on her body to produce milk. This is the time to introduce puppies to foods like ground organic chicken and raw goat milk. Let the breasts have a break as the teeth come in. The puppies are growing really fast so shift over the demand for nutrients to a real organic raw food diet.
There are other benefits to breastfeeding besides the building of the immune system, an automatic defense system against disease and the seeding and cultivation of a robust microbiome. There are psychological benefits of breast feeding to both the puppies and the mom. Proper cognitive development is dependent on the breast. There is an emotional connection, a very unique connection that breast feeding serves both the mom and the babies. Mental health and behaviors are dependent on this connection. Stress during this intimate connection can have devastating effects. Hormones are a big part of breast feeding, not only oxytocin which plays into bonding, but also cortisol which aids in immune system health.
AN AMAZING THING.
As the puppy nurses, there is a backwash of spit that occurs. The breast is so smart that if that litter is starting to get sick, the milk will automatically change back to a more yellow color from the white of milk as it produces a higher composition of immune components to medicate the puppies.
A FINAL THOUGHT.
The mammalian immune system is perfectly capable of providing the primal immune defense needed to be healthy without the intrusion of vaccinations. C-sections present an intrusion to the system and if they occur, proper seeding should be done to replace the seeding that would have occurred in a natural birth. Drugs for pain or antibiotics are an intrusion and obstacles to health. If breast feeding is not possible the next best thing is same species provided raw milk. Formula is so lacking that if you cannot find a same species milk nurse to provide for the neonates, then raw milk from a goat would be acceptable.
Immunity that comes from the breast is specific not only to the offspring but to the locality where the offspring will be raised. When moms are ready to deliver, you shouldn’t move them to a new place.
An amazing thing is that nature intended immunity to be specific and targeted it to what is in the maternal environment. Nature knows that breast is best and feeding parents and generations on raw food supports natural rearing practices that pass on vitality and health to each litter of puppies.
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