Connie do you cook them or crush them or anything first, or just add them thawed from the frozen berry bag?

I don't even thaw.

Two of the dogs like them enough to be a frozen treat (not as high in value as meat or Zuke's, but still .... ).

The other one eats them without hesitation when they are mixed into his "real" food.

Soft berries don't have the kind of cellulose and hemicellulose (with pectin) walls that something like broccoli has. (To take the broccoli example further, cooking changes the cellulose that made the raw food so hard and stiff into teeny little fibers.)

Think of a raw carrot, with its hard crunch. Its cell walls of hemicellulose and pectin have random cellulose fibers reinforcing them. But a blueberry's insoluble fiber (its hemicellulose) decreases as it ripens. Its soluble fiber (pectin) doesn't present the challenge to a dog's set of dietary enzymes (example: the dog's lack of the salivary enzyme, amylase) that the cellulose and hemicellulose do.

BTW, blueberries are good as is. So is something like zucchini guts, or water-filled fiddleheads, or tender dark outer romaine leaves. If you wanted to give something with more of a stiff wall, maybe like celery tops attached to those thin stalklets at the top of celery, freezing is a simple way to help break down the walls and make the nutrients much more available to the dog.

A wolf would get his produce in the form of the insides of the rodents and other small animals that that he would eat in their entirety, and (from, say, a large ungulate) what we call green tripe, and, as mentioned, fallen ripe berries and even some water-filled ferns that grow beside streams. When we try to replicate this, we try to get the produce closer to the "processed" state the wolf gets.

But some, like blueberries, don't need that.

Keeping the dog thin will go a long way to help the orthopedic problems.

 Quote: Betty Landercasp

Keeping the dog thin will go a long way to help the orthopedic problems.

Two of my adopted dogs are Pugs. One of them, Oliver, pretty old (maybe 14-ish), is now off the NSAID he was on for a couple of YEARS. This is since his weight went down.

He wasn't fat by any means, but losing 5% or so made him light enough to relieve his OA pain by a lot (as in stiff-with-occasional-vocalizing to not).

I knew long ago from the experience of adopting seniors what weight management can mean to a dog's health, but this was a bolt from the blue to me .... that for a dog with joint issues to go from average to a bit underweight (I do not mean emaciated) could be so effective.

Not exactly what this thread is about, but anecdotal observations to add a big exclamation point to Dr. Betty's advice.

I thought this information might be useful- this is from Dr. Becker.

How's the pup doing? Any pictures?

"HRT (hormone replacement therapy) is difficult for pets, as it was for women 40 years ago, because the hormone then (and now, for pets) are not bio-identical.

What I have done and continue to do is hormone assays (a blood test that checks a dog's natural hormone levels) and supplement with glandulars or plant derived hormones, where needed. This has proven to be the best option thus far, and I know other holistic vets that do the same. But I put together a custom protocol for dogs. My Rottweiler was only deficient in estrogen, her progesterone was normal, so I supplemented with a yam-derived estrogen, rechecked her estrogen 4 months later; it was picture perfect, so I maintained her on this dose for years (which cured her urinary leakage from lack of sex hormones). As she aged I adjusted her dose, according to her blood results, until she was totally off of supplemental support at the age of 16. Likewise, my ancient Boston terrier became clearly testosterone deficient last year. I checked his levels, they were almost 0. He's on Standard Process Symplex M (a testosterone support glandular) doing much better.

My advice in 30 seconds or less would be: providing human hormone replacement has proven to be a bad idea if you're not a human. Providing plant based hormones can be helpful if the protocol is specific for your pet's hormonal needs. There is no general supplement that should be supplied to all spayed and neutered pets. Providing what's not needed is equally as harmful."

Hi Kiersten - well, here's his shelter photo:
http://www.petharbor.com/pet.asp?uaid=HMCO.A064227

Sadly, my sister changed her mind and decided to not adopt him after all because adding a puppy to her already hectic life (she has an energetic 3 yr old human boy) was going to be too challenging.

I've met the pup & he's really great. Last of his litter left too. I'm seriously considering going & adopting him myself tomorrow morning, though with 3 other dogs already, I'm really not looking to add another.

Final update - he got adopted by a family with kids before I got back over there, so I guess it wasn't meant to be. Sounds like he got a decent home though, so I'm really glad about that.

That's good news, Matt!