Dr Harvey's UPDATE.

I just started Yukki on the raw food diet that is sold at pet health food stores. I have read a lot in the past two weeks about this type of diet being so much healthier for our babites than commercial kibble. You might want to investigate that type of diet, too. I bought the BARF brand to start with as it is supposed to be a complete diet. It has literally everything in it, including ground flax, veggies and fruits. Yukki used to be a very finicky eater and now paws at me at dinner time letting me know he wants to eat. He seems happier and has so much more energy in just the short time he has been eating it.

I did see Dr. Harveys and inquired about it. They said that was a great way for people who wanted to go to homecook for their babies but didn't necessarily have the time or know how to prepare a well balaned diet. As I am sure you already know, all you have to do is soak it, add your own protein and oil. I have heard salmon oil or sardine oil is the best for them but alternating your protein as well as oil is best. You can also get the oils at a health food pet store. A great book to read about dog care is called "Scared Poopless". It is written by Jan Rasmusen who had done a lot of research on all aspects of dog care, including nutrition. There are two great chapters on nutrition and diet. She does not mention Dr. Harvey's but she does talk some about a raw diet. Good luck. Sounds like you have very lucky babies whose mommy loves them dearly!!!

This is my first puppy and I have been just going crazy about her diet, I can't decide, change my mind, Come up with a plan then by next day its a different plan.... I may be clinically insane now!!!!!!

I wanted to do raw, Stella and chewy's but am worried about the contamination, we are always kissing her and she's a puppy so she has a ton of toys she has in her mouth! Home cooking sounds best but after research and research I still don't think I get it... I don't think I will know how to balance it out properly ( I have a cook, so I don't do much cooking of my own). So what's left is kibble or Dr Harvey's type dog food and I def want to do Dr Harvey's daily!

So where are the folks using Dr Harvey's everyday?!?? How are your dogs doing? and the other questions I asked etc etc...........


There isn't a holistic vet around where I am and my vets don't know much about nutrition.

I plan on doing a bile acid test/blood work next week before the changing to food, then again 6 months..But would love a 2010 update from daily users. Thank you!

I feed the Dr. Harvey's as well and I have been mixing the proteins as suggested.

Here is how I do it...

I mix the 3 scoops, 8 oz of water (which did you know is really only supposed to be 7.5 oz of water?) and 6 oz of protein. Then I add in the oil. Usually I add one capsule of Dr. Harvey's Health and Shine OR Extra Virgin Olive Oil.

As for the proteins, I rotate them. If you would like my list, let me know and I can get it for you.

This mixture usually lasts Toby about three days. I weight his food out each time I feed him. He gets. 2.3 oz of food (twice daily).

Also, a little tip...when I cook his beef, chicken or whatever other protein that needs to cooked, I cook/boil it and use that water to add to the food so whatever proteins were cooked out end back up in the food.

Hope that helps some. BTW, Toby LOVES this food!

I've been feeding Dr. Harvey's for 2 years now. I rotate chicken, ground turkey, ground lamb, and recently added in ground bison. Besides the oils and enzyme probio supp, chia seeds, and some of Honest Kitchen's Invigor supp. which I add into his DH mix, he gets a customized supplement from a nutrionist based on annual bloodwork. From what I understood about the DH was that there aren't vitamins added to the mix, but that they are getting what they need from the whole foods already in the mix. What I can tell you is that I had a family member who wanted to try the DH and I asked his nutritionist during one of our consults about people who do the Dr. Harvey's without doing what we do with the specialized supplement, and if they should add some sort of vitamin supplement to it, and he said yes.

Other things- if you haven't given her the cottage cheese/yogurt before, I would introduce that first to make sure she can handle it so if she can't, you're not wondering later if she gets an upset tummy-less things to weed out.
I cook his chicken in the coconut oil or olive oil bc he seems to like it better sauteed than boiled, but for the ground meats I don't cook them in anything bc they cook in their grease which I have to drain off and then pat, so I just reheat them in the oil. Do what makes sense to you, but go easy on the coconut oil at first too.
Those directions about amounts on the bag don't make sense, I just cook 1 scoop of mix and a few days worth of meat, put them in separate containers and mix them together for each meal. That's what's easiest for me. The nutritionist couldn't even tell me how much I should be giving him, only recommended percentages, so it was just trial at first to see how much he would eat, if he maintained his weight, ect... I think you'll find it's a surprisingly small amount of food though-I did.

EDITED to add more.

I'm sorry, I don't think I was clear about the vitamins in Dr. Harvey's.

This is just my opinion. Everyone has to make their own choices. When you use Dr. Harvey's you are using a whole food supplement, not a vitamin mix.

Most nutritionists haven't actually tested Dr. Harvey's food to register the vitamin/mineral content/ nutritional data. Because the vitamins/minerals contained in the food are from herbs/veggies, rather than a synthetic vitamin mix, nutritionists just don't trust that it is nutritionally balanced. I can understand where they are coming from. However, anecdotal evidence from pet owners suggests that it is. It's up to the individual pet owners to decide.

Dr Harvey claims that the pre-mix products make up a complete whole food nutritional supplement. I spoke with him last year, and he told me that most people do not add additional vitamin/mineral supplements to his pre-mixes, (if their dogs are healthy to begin with.) He said that their dogs do just fine. Some add probiotics/enzymes.

It's really a matter of personal choice whether to add an additional vitamin supplement or not. I think a lot of animal/human nutritionists are concerned about having a balanced vitamin mix added to food, when in most cases just eating the right mix of food itself is fine. It is the quality of the PROTEIN is what matters the most. Buy the best-quality meats/fish/chicken that you possibly can afford. Organ meats, which most people shy away from, are extremely nutritious. And they are less expensive than lean cuts of meat.

I use Animal Essentials Herbal Vitamins and Animal Essentials Calcium (which are whole food supplements,) when I home cook from scratch. I've been using it for almost 2 years, and Nikki's doing fine. I probably don't need to use the herbal vitamins, but I do it because I can't always afford the best food. Calcium is a necessity, though, and I personally like using Omega 3 oils.

(After years of using multi vitamins and herbal supplements myself, I have backed off most of them, and instead, started eating properly. The doctor said that the only thing I was low on was Vitamin D, and that is mostly because I don't go out in the sun enough.)

IMO, if we are generally healthy, there are enough vitamins and minerals in good quality meats/poultry/eggs/fish, veggies and fruits, to sustain our health, and our dog's health without overdoing supplements. But, you have to seek out and eat good quality food.

The reason why commercial dog foods have a vitamin/mineral mix added to their food is that the quality of the proteins are very poor, and their high-heat food processing methods remove vitamins/minerals, so a supplement must be added back in to make the food nutritionally complete.

Remember, this is just my own personal opinion, and everyone has to make their own decisions.

Every dog is different. When I put my 2 on the Canine Health, I added the AE Multi-Vitamin one day and then alternated the next with AE's Green Alternative. I had blood work done 3 months later and Zoe's phospherous level was low. Jett's was fine. So the small amount of calcium in the AE's Multi-Vitamin was more then she needed...even though it was given only every other day. There is calcium added in the Veg-to-Bowl and there are vitamins and minerals added in the Canine Health. I stopped adding all supplements except for AE's Probiotics with Digestive Enzymes and the Oils and 3 months later both Zoe and Jett's levels were perfect. I imagine as my Zoe is beginning to enter her 'senior years'...still think that's weird that age 6 she's entered her senior years, Malts live to be 14 plus years old for pete's sake...I may need to add some calcium as they tend to need more as puppies and seniors. For Callie, I'm adding cottage cheese or plain yogurt as Dr. H recommends for additional calcium.

Zoe & Jett have been on Dr. H for 2 1/2 years now. I was told by Callie's breeder to transition her very slowly from what she had been on to Dr. H because all of hers tend to have a sensitive tummy. She also told me Callie is a very picky eater and just nibbles a few pieces of kibble at a time all day long. Well....I started out half and half (which isn't very slow) and only did that for 2 days and she's totally on Dr. H with no tummy upsets at all. None of my fosters had any trouble transitioning either and I just fed them Dr. H from the get go. And my little nibbler Callie is now eating with GUSTO and doing dances like her big brother and sister do when I'm preparing their meals. lol