Wag Our Tails!: Healthy Cooking and Natural Living for Happy Dogs

By Melanie Waxman

We all want our gorgeous dogs to be super happy — with sparkling eyes, a shiny coat, wet nose and wagging tails. But have you thought about how a different diet could benefit your beloved pooch’s well-being and longevity?

Food and health expert Melanie Waxman shares her kitchen secrets and reveals how her simple and healthy recipes, developed over decades with her own dogs, can dramatically improve your dog’s life and mood. Some of the dishes are so yummy, they may cause some human salivating and a teeny taste too.

Wag Our Tails! also contains fascinating information about foods that have a warming or cooling affect, amazing superfoods, the use of essential oils, the benefits of acupuncture, dog communication and much more.

When we nourish our gorgeous dogs with fresh and local foods we also help to lower our carbon paw print which means a win win for all.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 26, 2021
• ISBN: 9781664190320

Melanie Waxman

Outside the front door of Melanie’s house in the Spanish hills overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, hangs a wooden sign. It says: Dogs welcome, people tolerated! The sentiment is tongue in cheek of course as Melanie loves people and is the mother of seven wonderful grown-up children. Dogs have always been an enormous part of Melanie’s life, giving endless hours of joy whether hiking in the mountains or snuggling with them on the sofa after a hard day’s work. Melanie is considered a pioneer in the field of nutrition, food energetics and holistic health having spent four decades practising integrated therapies and working with people from all over the world. She has also studied pet and eco psychology, and has worked with dog listeners, horse whisperers, trainers and Olympic world champions from the horse world. Melanie’s approach to life and especially with her dogs is down to earth, practical and realistic, and includes masses of love and wisdom.

Book preview

Wag Our Tails!

Healthy Cooking and

Natural Living for Happy Dogs

MELANIE WAXMAN

Copyright © 2021 by Melanie Waxman.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 08/26/2021

Xlibris

844-714-8691

www.Xlibris.com

834188

CONTENTS

Foreword

Introduction

How to Use this Book

A Note on Vegan Dogs

Chapter 1

Omnivores

The Evolution of Dog Food

A Closer Look at Kibble

Chapter 2

Benefits of Home-Cooking

What’s in a Meal?

Organic Farm to Dog’s Bowl

Things to look for when buying your ingredients

Foods to Avoid

Chapter 3

How Much Food?

Dietary Adjustments for Elderly Dogs

Dietary Adjustments for Puppies

Healthy Weight at a Glance

Chapter 4

Adapting to Home-Cooking

A Note on Allergies

The Water Bowl

Storing Food

Chapter 5

The Ingredients

Vegetable Protein Sources

Whole Grains

Specific Grains and Benefits

Vegetable Power!

Veggie Tips

Garden Herbs and Spices

Fresh Fruits

Chapter 6

Super Foods and Supplements

Super Foods

Supplements

Chapter 7

Where are the Vitamins and Minerals?

Chapter 8

Warming, Cooling, and Neutral foods

Cooling Foods

Warming Foods

Neutral Foods

Chapter 9

Super Soups and Doggy Broth Recipes

Fish Soup

Fish Broth

Nourishing Bone Broth

Miso Lively Soup

Quick Miso Broth

Chicken Soup

Soothing Sweet Vegetable Cream

Chapter 10

The Main Course

Chapter 11

Tasty Treats

Tasty Treat Recipes

Chapter 12

Putting it Together

Cooking tips

A Typical 7 Day Menu Plan

Chapter 13

At-a-Glance Natural Solutions for Specific Problems

Chapter 14

Natural Remedies for Dogs

Chapter 15

Essential Oils

Chapter 16

Remedies for Fleas and Ticks

Chapter 17

Spa Time

Baths

All the Better to Hear You With!

Sparkling Teeth – Give a Dog a Bone!

Chapter 18

The Benefits of Exercise

‘Poop’ Patrol!

Chapter 19

External treatments

Acupuncture

Chiropractic

Massage for Dogs

Massage for Stress Relief

Massage for Arthritis and Pain

Massage for General Well Being

Communicating

Saying Goodbye to Our Beloved Dogs

Chapter 20

Creating Consistency

Waiting for their Food!

Where to find Melanie

This book is dedicated to everyone who works

tirelessly to rescue and protect our beautiful dogs

from a life of cruelty and abandonment

This book aims to offer the best possible information on healthy home cooked food, and natural remedies for dogs. This information does not replace professional recommendations given by a qualified vet.

The material contained within the book is written with the greatest care. However this book does not give all the advice available on the subject of home cooked food and natural remedies for dogs. The information provided here, while based on solid practical experience, may contain errors.

This material is made available with the knowledge that the publisher, editor and author do not offer any professional veterinarian advice. In the event of your dog showing signs of illness or discomfort, please consult with a qualified vet immediately.

I wish to thank my fabulous, animal-loving children, Alisa, Madeline, Amy, Zoe, Andrew, Natasha and Sam, for always supporting and encouraging my endeavors. To my grandchildren, Sienna, Thomas, Isla, Giles and Griffin, for being unique and gorgeous. Thank you to Galgos de Sol for their incredible work saving the Spanish Galgos and for bringing Maggie into my life. To the Almos Dog Foundation for their wonderful work in Mexico. A huge thanks to Henry Smith for his amazing help in getting this book ready to publish and to Sue Ure Reid for her expert editing skills. Also to Claire Delliere, Mario Lopez and Susana Cojocaru for their support and ideas about Wag Our Tails! And a special thanks to Kim Pickett, Montserrat Peinado, and Sharon Nilsson for their compassionate understanding of dogs. Lastly to my amazing furry family, Felix, Bruno, and Maggie who bring such joy, fun and laughter into my life.

IMG_0012.JPG

Felix and Bruno, brothers in paws

Foreword

My name is Montserrat Peinado and I have been a holistic veterinarian for the past 30 years. It is an honor for me to write the foreword to this wonderful book on natural dog food.

I would like to thank Felix -one of Melanie’s fantastic dogs- for giving us the opportunity to meet, get to know each other, and work together as a team for the health and healing of this adorable canine!

During my career as a holistic veterinarian, I have observed that nutrition is the basis of health. Throughout the history of dogs as companion animals, we have gone through different stages with regards to their food. Over 30 years ago, in Spain, all dogs were fed with homemade recipes or leftovers from family meals. Then the food industry started using industrial livestock farming and this is where the idea of dog and cat food factories comes from. Companies took advantage of the leftovers from the human food industry. Instead of having a problem with all the waste, they turned it into huge profits. They packaged this new dog food in brightly colored bags and used clever marketing to make the food look wholesome (when really the ingredients were quite different). This has been to the detriment of our wonderful dogs and their wellbeing has suffered as a result.

Today, I am very happy to see that there is a much greater demand from the public to know how to feed their dogs in a natural way and it makes sense. Dogs that eat naturally are much healthier and happier. I can say this with absolute certainty.

I really like Wag Our Tails! because there is mention of Traditional Chinese Medicine (my true passion), describing the energetic characteristics of food in an easy manner. This can help families to understand that food can also be great medicine. A common sense and complementary approach to balancing many pathologies and improving health. I encourage you to begin changing your dog’s diet by using the simple and wise suggestions that Melanie presents in this book. In no time at all you will see how much your dog has improved in character, energy, eyesight, coat and their life in general.

Un Saludo

Monteserrat Peinado DM, CVA, CVF

IMG_0013.JPG

A young Melanie with one of her dogs, Thomas

Introduction

Outside the front door of my house in the Spanish hills overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, hangs a wooden sign. It says: Dogs welcome, people tolerated!

This sentiment is tongue in cheek, of course. I absolutely love people and am a mother blessed with seven wonderful grown-up children. Dogs have always been an enormous part of my life, giving me endless hours of joy whether hiking in the hills or snuggling up to them on the sofa after a hard day’s work.

The genesis of this book lies in the tragic and painful death from cancer of our first family dog Buddy, a rescue Samoyed. I had fallen in love with Samoyeds after seeing one in Portugal and told the kids we were going to get one.

Not everyone makes the association between diet and the prevention of disease but, having worked successfully with many humans regarding their health, I have come to feel strongly that the link between diet and health must also be true for dogs. The more I learn and the more I home-cook food for my dogs the more I have come to know what a difference home-cooking and using safe natural remedies can make.

I have also worked with horse whisperers, dog listeners and studied animal psychology. Today, I have three amazing dogs - a Golden Doodle, a Lurcher, and a Galgo. I do a lot of hiking in the mountains of Spain and believe my closeness with the earth has enabled me to stay strong, energetic and healthy in an often-stressful world.

This love of the outdoors and animals stems from my childhood. I was born in a freezing, cold, damp February in England and, from a few weeks old, my mother would put me outside for my daily nap in my pram. Apparently I loved it and would sleep for hours. This gave me