dog food

In the latter half of the nineteenth century, as pets came to be regarded as luxury items, the question of how to best maintain one's "investment" sparked new interest in canine nutrition. Fanciers were inspired to look beyond breeding and grooming for additional ways to "civilize" and elevate the canine race.

Since the eating of meat (particularly raw meat) was natural to canines, dog experts often pointed to that as a corruptive influence that led civilized pets to lives of savage depravity. The more well bred the urban dog, the more important it was to control its behavior through diet. It might be acceptable to feed large, mongrel, country dogs a carnivore diet, but according to Victorian British dog expert Francais Clater, meat caused manage or cankers and could "overexcite" pedigreed lap dogs adapted to life in city townhouses and apartments. Fresh meat brought out the worst in unspayed females, too. When the animals were in heat their primal passions could be inflamed by a "primitive"-and therefore-

 'wrong" - diet, leading to disgraceful bouts of nymphomania. To head off such a crisis, ice baths and meals of crustless bread, ground hemp seed and milk were prescribed to calm the animal's nerves. Writing in the 1800s, French author Jean-Robert pointed out that highly processed meals for dogs were "contrary to their carnivorous nature." Other dog authorities of the time, such as Charles Burkett, agreed and argued for a more rational approach to canine nutrition, adding that "it is not bad to vary the food with rye bread, brown bread and vegetables." In a conciliatory nod to modernist thinking about dogs, however, even these experts advised the meat be cooked. American veterinarian A.C.Daniels prescribed a recipe for homemade "canine cakes" of boiled minced beef or mutton, mixed with rice and vegetables, then baked, at the same time reluctantly admitting that canine nutrition was still "a subject of opinion"