Jean Hofve - Paleo Dog: Give Your Best Friend a Long Life, Healthy Weight, and Freedom from Illness by Nurturing His Inner Wolf

A tell-it-like-it-is approach that offers dog lovers the tools they need to make informed choices to improve their best friends health with natural, earth-friendly techniques.

Amy Shojai, CABC, author of New Choices in Natural Healing for Dogs & Cats

Do dogs in the wild have can openers? The benefits of feeding your dog fresh food are huge: increased energy, brighter eyes, glowing fur that never needs a bath, resolution of very serious ailments, and increased longevity. Paleo Dog shows you how to improve your dogs health dramatically with a fresh, natural diet.

Christina Chambreau, DVM, associate editor, IVC Journal

Paleo Dog is a must-read for all pet guardians wishing to help their dogs thrive.

Jodi Ziskin, holistic nutrition & wellness consultant for pets

Paleo Dog is the bible for every dog lover. A must-read.

Tony ODonnell, PhD

An excellent book on how to awaken the doctor within all creatures great and small. I know from decades of being a veterinarian that the most important lesson is prevention. Paleo Dog is all about optimizing the cell replication capacity of our best friends.

Stephen R. Blake, DVM

Everyone who feeds a dog must read Paleo Dog. Based on (un)common sense and decades of research and experience, it is the resource for following Natures original design of the canine as you feed and understand your dog better in the 21st century.

Kate Solisti, author of Conversations with Dog and The Holistic Animal Handbook

Never before in my 22+ year veterinary career have I seen so much comprehensive and useful material all in one place. Hopefully, it will propel canine guardians into practicing a healthier lifestyle that dogs so truly deserve.

Michael Dym, VMD

Hats off to Jean and Celeste for bringing awareness to holistic pet care and empowering conscious-minded dog lovers with healthy choices for their best friend. Paleo Dog is a much-needed reference guide for the future of animal health.

Jenn Royster, DDiv, intuitive spiritual counselor and radio host

I would recommend Paleo Dog to all my clients. There is so much useful information to help your dog to lead an active and healthy life well into old age. It is destined to become a classic in the world of natural pet care.

Marcia Martin, DVM, holistic veterinarian

Most people strive to do what is best for their dog, and Paleo Dog addresses the whole life, not just diet. I would highly recommend this book for anyone wanting to know more about offering the best life to their dog/dogs.

Sherri Regalbuto, dog trainer, blogger, writer, photographer

This is a very important book for all dog owners.

WILLIAM SHATNER, award-winning actor, philanthropist, and animal activist

A practical guide with much insight about how to return your dog to a more natural state of health and longevity.

W. JEAN DODDS, DVM, coauthor of The Canine Thyroid Epidemic

Paleo Dog is refreshing, highly informative, and a lifesaver for our four-legged best friends.

JONATHAN EISEN, coeditor, New Zealand Journal of Natural Medicine

Mention of specific companies, organizations, or authorities in this book does not imply endorsement by the author or publisher, nor does mention of specific companies, organizations, or authorities imply that they endorse this book, its author, or the publisher.

Internet addresses and telephone numbers given in this book were accurate at the time it went to press.

2014 by Jean Hofve, DVM, and Celeste Yarnall, PhD

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any other information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher.

Illustrations by Michael Gellatly

Cover and title page art by Michael Schwab

Chapter opener and sidebar art by iStock. by Getty Images

Book design by Joseph Rutt

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file with the publisher.

ISBN 978-1-62336-146-4 trade paperback

ISBN 978-1-62336-147-1 ebook

We encourage and enable people to improve their lives and the world around them.

rodalebooks.com

To Willy, my best canine pal, whose gift to me was a great love for all dogs!

Jean Hofve, DVM

To Nazim, my beloved husband, whose love and support gives my heart wings.

Celeste Yarnall, PhD

PART III

Pretend with us, for a moment, that we are making a movie about our modern dogs ancient ancestors, wild wolves, to show what life was truly like for them.

PALEO DOG ~ The Movie

FADE IN:

EXT. SNOW-COVERED LANDSCAPEDUSK

We SEE on the horizon a pack of healthy TIMBER WOLVES, running at full tilt, chasing their intended prey, a YOUNG LONE DEER. We HEAR their heaving panting as they run. STEAM rises from their open mouths as they dart through the heavy snow. SuddenlyWHAMits over. The DEER is down. The FEEDING begins.

CLOSE ON ALPHA WOLF AND DEER

ALPHA WOLF, with fangs bared, digs into the deers rump and bolts down huge pieces of meat. The ALPHA FEMALE WOLF gulps down a few pounds of rump meat, then moves around and opens the carcass just behind the ribs. She eats a portion of the liver and several strips of fat from the mesenteric membrane. The rumen is dragged away by a subordinate wolf; he rips it open and shakes it to let the contents spill out onto the ground, then lies down to chew on the muscular organ. The large intestine is dragged away and subsequently ignored. Small bones are eaten; larger bones, including the long bones of the legs, skull, and vertebrae, are stripped of meat and cartilage; they are chewed on but not consumed. When the pack moves on, there is little left besides hair, hide, and bones. This PACK will sleep on full stomachs and live to see another day.

SLOW DISSOLVEA MODERN GERMAN SHEPHERD DOG at his DINNER BOWL:

We see our proud wolves descendant, todays selectively bred, pedigreed GERMAN SHEPHERD DOG looking down at his bowl of KIBBLE, which is sitting in a wire rack. For a moment, there is a flash of confusion, as though he doesnt quite understand what to do. His deep brown eyes look full into the CAMERA, trying to tell us something important. He sighs, lowers his head, and eats.

FADE OUT

Everything about the wolves in our hypothetical movie script shows us that canines are meant to hunt and kill their dinner. And they eat it raw, not cooked, kibbled, bagged, or canned, and not in cute shapes or fun colors.

The wolf and its wild relatives (wild dogs, jackals, coyotes, and foxes) are completely dependent on their ability to chase prey, kill it, and devour it with jaws and teeth designed and conditioned to do so. It is the hunt, kill, and eating of the carcassbones and allthat keeps them in top condition.

In Paleo Dog, we will share with you how to safely integrate the best of the ancestral dogs lifestyle into the daily regime of your modern dog and help you navigate the promises and pitfalls of 21st-century living and modern veterinary medicine.