Re: Epilepsy-dogs DO eat fish

[Guest guest]

What exactly do you mean since dogs do not eat fish???

As one that grew up in Alaska, & has also lived in Norway, I first

hand know for a FACT that fish have been a staple of the canine diet

for eons in northern hemisphere climes around the world. To this

very day fish are still dried & put up to be fed to the dogs over

the winter as their primary source of calories. And loose dogs will

do their own fishing in the rivers/streams. (Rather an amusing

sight.)

Have you ever been to the south seas? Dogs abandoned upon the more

out of the way islands, by yachters & the sort, also gladly eat fish

& what ever else they can. On a couple of these islands catching

fish & crabs is pretty well all there is-period! It is called

survival.

In the 80's I also lived in Afrika & can assure you dogs there too

ate fish! Dogs can & will eat whatever they can, especially when

left to their own accord for meals.

Your statement highly reminds me of the pronouncement by an American

doctor, on a horse message board last winter, stating that horses do

not naturally eat papayas. She obviously had never spent time in

the Second or Third World! Even the well taken care of horses would

wander to the papaya tree if given the opportunity to.

(BTW, yes, I have seen dogs eat papaya too. Of their own free will,

eating the fruit dropped from trees.)

*back to lurkdom for me*

VACHE

[Guest guest]

On 9/27/06, vache920 <vache920@...> wrote:

> What exactly do you mean since dogs do not eat fish???

Well I certainly didn't mean dogs *won't* eat fish. I think what I

had in mind is that the evolutionary diet of a dog is not fish-based.

Maybe I'm wrong. I guess the relevant question is -- do wolves eat

fish? And as I ask, I realize that I don't know whether or not wolves

eat fish.

My thought was that there is no reason a dog should have a very high

need for PUFA and low need for vitamin A unless they are obligate fish

eaters and they are perhaps leaving behind the livers.

Chris

--

The Truth About Cholesterol

Find Out What Your Doctor Isn't Telling You:

http://www.cholesterol-and-health.com

[Guest guest]

On 9/27/06, Masterjohn <chrismasterjohn@...> wrote:

> On 9/27/06, vache920 <vache920@...> wrote:

> > > What exactly do you mean since dogs do not eat fish???

>

> > I realize that I don't know whether or not wolves

> > eat fish. Chris

Hi, Chris...

Not only fish, but also berries, and grasshoppers according to a site my

10-yo was looking at the other day. http://www.wolfweb.com/diet.html

Speaking of wolves, they've " recovered " in their populations so incredibly

well in Montana, Utah, Idaho, and Wyoming, that US Fish & Wildlife wants to

declassify them from " endangered " . It's being held up by a Wyoming law that

lists wolves as a " predator " , allowing them to be hunted anytime, anywhere,

without limit.

http://www.fws.gov/news/NewsReleases/showNews.cfm?newsId=2B76CC08-65BF-03E7-2F39\

DB75431B7319

Sharon

[Guest guest]

My dogs and cats relish a nice juicy grasshopper. Bit of trivia; in

many parts of the world people eat them as well, do you know they

turn pink when cooked, like shrimp? Evidently the taste isn't as

good, though. I've been half tempted to get the kids to catch one

so I can cook it just to see it turn pink, but that's still kind of

gross!

> > > > What exactly do you mean since dogs do not eat fish???

> >

> > > I realize that I don't know whether or not wolves

> > > eat fish. Chris

>

> Hi, Chris...

> Not only fish, but also berries, and grasshoppers according to a

site my

> 10-yo was looking at the other day.

http://www.wolfweb.com/diet.html

> Speaking of wolves, they've " recovered " in their populations so

incredibly

> well in Montana, Utah, Idaho, and Wyoming, that US Fish & Wildlife

wants to

> declassify them from " endangered " . It's being held up by a Wyoming

law that

> lists wolves as a " predator " , allowing them to be hunted anytime,

anywhere,

> without limit.

> http://www.fws.gov/news/NewsReleases/showNews.cfm?newsId=2B76CC08-

65BF-03E7-2F39DB75431B7319

> Sharon

>

>

>

[Guest guest]

>On 9/27/06, vache920 <vache920@...> wrote:

>> What exactly do you mean since dogs do not eat fish???

>

>Well I certainly didn't mean dogs *won't* eat fish. I think what I

>had in mind is that the evolutionary diet of a dog is not fish-based.

>Maybe I'm wrong. I guess the relevant question is -- do wolves eat

>fish? And as I ask, I realize that I don't know whether or not wolves

>eat fish.

To pinpoint it even further, the question is, do *gray* wolves eat fish,

since dogs are domesticated *gray* wolves. Some wolves do eat fish as

someone else posted, but the diet of the gray wolf is typically large

ungulates (deer, elk, moose, etc.) with a lesser percent being beaver. They

occassionally catch a hare. This was their preferred evolutionaly diet,

AFAIk.

Having said that, it's not known how long dogs have been domesticated, with

guestimates ranging between 10,000 and 100,000 ya, so, if some coastal

dwellers domesticated wovles 100,000 ya, it seems plausible that some breeds

might be adapted to a high fish diet. Not sure if that means they'd do well

on it outside the context of an arctic enviroment, or if that even makes a

difference.

In regards to Lana's dog, it's moot since she's got a terrier, bred to hunt

rats, I believe.

Suze

[Guest guest]

ABSOLUTELY wolves eat fish!!! Not only when the salmon are very easy

pickings during the spawning season, but they will also hunt other

type fish in streams too during other times of the year!

VACHE

Maybe I'm wrong. I guess the relevant question is -- do wolves eat

fish? And as I ask, I realize that I don't know whether or not wolves

eat fish.

> Chris

[Guest guest]

Sharon's child is quite correct with what they found on the web.

Wolves, foxes & coyotes do regulary eat (when available) fish,

berries, insects, herbs...

I live on a race horse farm in Florida now, & when looking at the

fox 'droppings' (scat) it is quite easy to see they have been eating

things containing a lot of seeds. Appears to be blackberries to me.

Ever have a fish pond? It is not just the racoons, storks & herons

that raid it. The foxes & coyotes do too. Sorry, no wolves directly

in this area, though I am sure they would partake of an easy meal if

they had safe oppoutunity too.

VACHE

--- In , " Sharon son " Not only

fish, but also berries, and grasshoppers according to a site my

10-yo was looking at the other day. http://www.wolfweb.com/diet.html

[Guest guest]

I beg to differ with you, in that during the months of salmon

spawning any wolves within access of spawning streams will gorge

upon the salmon. The spawn takes place at the PERFECT time for the

cycle of nature, with the abundance of fish & high fat of the salmon

immensely helping to build up the very necessary extra winter stores

of fat upon wolves, bears, badgers, wolverines, & also assorted

birds...

'Coastal' has nothing to do with this at all & neither does Arctic.

Salmon run literal hundreds of miles up rivers to spawning streams.

Take a look at the Yukon River as an example. Do you think the

wolves of the Columbia River basin in in the Pacific North West

totally ignored easy food in the form of salmon? Do you think they

never fished for trout? Back when Indiana still had wolves at

large, do you think they too ignored fish in streams, along with

crawdads?

And why would any of this be limited to grey wolves? I think it

would be quite safe to say the red wolves of Florida, in their day,

regularly hunted streams for fish.

VACHE

Some wolves do eat fish as someone else

posted, but the diet of the gray wolf is typically large ungulates

(deer, elk, moose, etc.) with a lesser percent being beaver. They

occassionally catch a hare. This was their preferred evolutionaly

diet, AFAIk.

Suze

[Guest guest]

Ugh, top posting. To make this easier to follow, I removed my original quote

from the bottom and posted it to the top so everything's chronological.

> Some wolves do eat fish as someone else

>posted, but the diet of the gray wolf is typically large ungulates

>(deer, elk, moose, etc.) with a lesser percent being beaver. They

>occassionally catch a hare. This was their preferred evolutionaly

>diet, AFAIk.

>

>Suze

>I beg to differ with you, in that during the months of salmon

>spawning any wolves within access of spawning streams will gorge

>upon the salmon. The spawn takes place at the PERFECT time for the

>cycle of nature, with the abundance of fish & high fat of the salmon

>immensely helping to build up the very necessary extra winter stores

>of fat upon wolves, bears, badgers, wolverines, & also assorted

>birds...

Do you happen to know by systematic observation, what *grey* wolves eat over

the course of time in the wild in areas where there is no, or limited, human

encroachment, or you are guessing based on what you know of the habits of

other subspecies of wolves?

My information about the dietary habits of wolves (which I should've

qualified in my previous post) comes from Mech, who is probably the

most respected wolf biologist in the world and has studied wolves for over

well over 20 years and has probably published more about their behavior and

ecology than any other human being. (see his extensive biography here:

http://www.davemech.org/biography.html) I don't meant o appeal to authority

in stating this, but rather to provide a citation from a source with

extensive experience with and knowledge of the habits of wild wolves.

In one of his books on wovles titled " The Wolf: Ecology and Behavior of an

Endangered Species " he writes in the section " Prey Species " :

" It seems logical that the wolf would prey mainly on large animals, because

of its size, its habit of traveling in packs, and its ability to consume and

digest great quantities of food in short periods. Predators that feed

consistetly on small animals usually are much smaller, and they hunt alone.

Many studies of wolf food habits support this conclusion. In the seven most

complete investigations of the contents of large numbers of wolf droppings,

animals the size of beaver or larger composed from 59 to 96% of the food

items (Table 19). In all but one of these studies, animals larger than

beavers comprised from 59 to 88% of the items. The prey most represented

were: white-tailed deer, mule deer, moose, caribou, elk, Dall sheep, bighorn

sheep, and beaver. " (pp. 172-73).

There is no mention of salmon or any other fish as far as I remember or saw

in re-scanning this information now. This does not mean I'm arguing that

grey wolves or any other wolves don't eat salmon or other fish, it only

means that the evidence so far shows that large ungulates make up the

majority of the prey species, which is what I stated in the email you begged

to differ from.

Since gray wolves are the largest wolf species (or one of the largest) it's

reasonable to deduce that they especially relied on large prey as they are

built to hunt such prey. And as Mech said, their social order is built

around large prey hunting - they hunt in packs. Typically, predators who

rely on small game as a foundation of their diet do not hunt or live in

packs. That, coupled with the information that their scat most often

contains remains of large ungulate, argues against fish being a significant

source of calories in the dog's ancestral diet.

Again, this is not to say that wolves never eat fish or that they didn't

take advantage of salmon runs, but it suggests that, unless any given dog

belongs to a very ancient breed that had fish as a foundation of their diet,

that perhaps Lana should consider giving her Jack Terrier the high

vitamin CLO as opposed to the high PUFA CLO (relative to vitamin content).

>'Coastal' has nothing to do with this at all & neither does Arctic.

>Salmon run literal hundreds of miles up rivers to spawning streams.

>Take a look at the Yukon River as an example. Do you think the

>wolves of the Columbia River basin in in the Pacific North West

>totally ignored easy food in the form of salmon? Do you think they

>never fished for trout? Back when Indiana still had wolves at

>large, do you think they too ignored fish in streams, along with

>crawdads?

How long is the salmon run? One month? Longer? Unlike this seasonal food,

caribou were available year round to arctic wolves.

>

>And why would any of this be limited to grey wolves? I think it

>would be quite safe to say the red wolves of Florida, in their day,

>regularly hunted streams for fish.

Our discussion was limited to grey wolves because that's the species dogs

belong to.

Suze

[Guest guest]

YES SUZE AS A MATTER OF FACT, YES, I DO, from systematic observation.

My (real, not nick) name can be found in AK F & W publications, thank

you very much. As for as no or limited human encroachment, you ARE

kidding right?! Just where on Earth do you propose such a mythical

place to exist? No need to bother to reply, for as said, I am bored

with this, & simply shan't be reading.

Oh, & no I did NOT miss your point. I simply abhored the

broadbrushed statement I orignally replied to.

VACHE

Do you happen to know by systematic observation, what *grey* wolves

eat over the course of time in the wild in areas where there is no, or

limited, human encroachment, or you are guessing based on what you

know of the habits of other subspecies of wolves?

[Guest guest]

>

>YES SUZE AS A MATTER OF FACT, YES, I DO, from systematic observation.

>My (real, not nick) name can be found in AK F & W publications, thank

>you very much.

Well that's really swell, but it doesn't further our knowledge of the

subject of whether or not dogs/grey wolves have eaten fish in significant

enough quantities and for long enough to have developed either a need for a

higher PUFA amount than a red meat based diet would provide or whether they

have adequate defenses against the negative consequences of consuming too

much PUFA, since you haven't provided your real name or the citation or the

relevant info in the publication you allude to.

As for as no or limited human encroachment, you ARE

>kidding right?! Just where on Earth do you propose such a mythical

>place to exist?

You apparently missed my point, because that WAS my point. If you've

observed *grey* wolves any time recently, as you suggest you have. it is

very unlikely to be in a place where human encroachment hasn't affected

their dietary choices, which affects its relevance as to what prey species

wolves have evolved on.

Having said that, Mech did indeed observe wolves in a very remote area of

the planet without human inhabitants over a ten year period - namely the

arctic wolf of the high Arctic. They had only four prey species available

according to Mech in " The Arctic Wolf: Ten Years with the Pack " , and none of

them were fish, even though they were surrounded by water. Rather he names

musk oxen as the wolves primary prey, and the other prey available were

caribou, arctic hare, and lemmings. IIRC, the wolves also hunted the

caribou and hare. Also, arctic wolves, like dogs, are a subspecies of grey

wolves, as you probably know.

No need to bother to reply, for as said, I am bored

>with this, & simply shan't be reading.

Alternatively, you could just put your hands over your ears and go

" LALALALALALA " .

Suze