After 10 years of practicing “traditional” medicine in my veterinary practice, I slowly discovered that health was not to be found in my drug cabinet or inside the many bags of prescription diets stacked on the shelves in my hospital. As a natural health nut myself, making the change to recommending more natural diets to my patients was just a matter of time or should I say just a matter of Rose, my new white Boxer puppy.
 So it all began when my beautiful new pup began to challenge my veterinary skills to put an end to her diarrhea. When switching her to a prescription diet failed to bring us relief, out came the medication. The pills did seem to help, but stopping them always guaranteed another episode of misery for both of us. I became even more concerned when she failed to show the proper weight gain for her age and medical diagnoses like Boxer colitis and inflammatory bowel disease started me thinking of her more like a new patient than my beloved canine pal. Fortunately, my mother’s intuition started kicking in and I noticed that Rose was always a lot more interested in whatever I was eating and often had to be coxed to eat whatever I was pouring into her bowl. Unable to resist the stare of her dark brown eyes, I soon started giving her real chicken, also known as “people food.” Seeing how happy she was to be my new dinner guest was enough of a reward to make me challenge the number one sin of pet owners; Don’t feed your dog people food! Soon Rose began to refuse the kibble (the sign of a very smart dog) and wait for our dinner hour together. Not only did her bowel problem resolve itself, but she started gaining weight. I was thrilled to cancel further medical tests I had scheduled, discard medications, and donate open bags and cans of dog food.
I created DOGie Bag meals to offer dog lovers an easy, healthy alternative to feeding commercial pet food diets. My inspiration came from my own dog Rose, who did remarkably well after I stopped feeding her a commercial diet. I then started treating my patients that were suffering from similar gastrointestinal problems with selective homemade diets and continued to get very favorable results. In fact, I started suggesting homemade diets to all my clients who had dogs suffering from other chronic medical conditions, like skin allergies, kidney disease, diabetes, cancer and even senior dogs who had failing appetites. When some of my clients complained that they did not have the time or desire to cook for their dogs, I started offering them samples of the recipes I was making. When my patients eagerly gulped down the samples, the next question was, "where can I buy this?" And the rest, as they say, is history!
Keeping dogs healthy,
Paula Terifaj, D.V.M.
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