Malnutrition doesn't necessarily mean starvation in the sense of the word that most of us would think. An animal or human can be malnourished despite receiving a more than adequate amount of food in terms of quantity.

The word 'mal' comes from the French language meaning 'bad' or 'harmful' and one only has to think of the photographs of third world children with distended bellies to appreciate what effect an inadequate diet has on young people. Endless bowls of rice do not a healthy diet make.

How often too I have seen litters of pot bellied pups, coats staring and skinny stick legs protruding from their bloated bodies. This is not always due to heavy worm burden and the chances are that these pups will have been fed on a cheap cereal based diet severely lacking in the animal protein that dogs, puppies especially, need to maintain optimum health.

I know that dogs are the world's greatest survivors when it comes to diet and for centuries farm dogs have got by on table scraps and the odd bones, no doubt finding the odd rotting carcass of rabbit or even fallen stock to supplement their meagre rations.

Different breed types have also evolved to cope with vastly varied foods with the desert dogs such as Salukis existing on diets of pitta bread and dates and the occasional bowl of camel's milk, no doubt a vital supplement for nursing bitches and pups. These dogs seldom saw more than a morsel of meat in their lives, flesh being not only in very short supply but subject to strict religious constraints as well.

Inuit dogs, in contrast, survived more or less on seal blubber, the high calorific content of this fatty diet being eminently suitable for their work in cold climates.

However, these extreme dog diets do beg the question of lifespan and I wonder for how many years animals thus fed could survive and work in optimum health compared to an animal that obtains its food from purely natural sources - the wolf for example.

I remember seeing footage of a wolf family in Alaska and I was amazed to see that the pack leader was 13-years-old and still capable of running down and catching an Arctic hare.

Nowadays in our modern westernised society we are beset by commercial propaganda and sales pitches urging us to eat this or that ready meal or to feed our dogs on the latest complete extruded and purpose made dog food.

I wrote about feeding raw meat and bones last year but I neglected to really get into the question of malnutrition and I don't think I quoted a case where the wrong sort of diet was preventing wound healing quite dramatically in a particular dog.

Some years ago I took on a lurcher, age unknown, which was suffering badly from open sores on her legs, the type of kennel sores you would see in a dog that has spent much of it's life lying on hard surfaces. Her coat was in a very poor condition, dull and lifeless, and her claws were brittle and overgrown, cracked and peeling. All in all not a happy dog at all!

It was obvious from the outset that this lurcher had never seen fresh meat in her life for when I place a bowl of fresh beef mince and tripe in front of her she sniffed at it suspiciously, not knowing what to make of this strange food. On the other hand she wolfed down a handful of cheap and (not so) cheerful complete food (bought in desperation just to get her eating) with great enthusiasm! It took me a week to wean her on to fresh meat and bones, gradually mixing more and more meat into the complete food.

Within three weeks the sores on her legs had virtually healed with little intervention on my part, despite this lurcher's preference for lying on concrete whenever possible, though the weather was warm so I could understand her wish to lie on a cool surface.

Just as noticeable as the healing sores was the difference in her coat. Although this took a little longer to improve, within a couple of months she sported a lustrous and shining jacket, replacing the former dull and moth eaten 'teddy bear' appearance. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that once you know what you are looking for it is easy to spot a badly nourished dog by its coat alone as you just don't get really good coat quality from cheap manufactured food.

I will admit that the so-called 'premium' quality commercial meat based foods are a far cry from the basic £5 a bag rubbish that is touted as a 'complete' dog food. These premium dog foods contain animal fat too, which is far more use to a dog than the vegetable oil which makes up the fat content in the cheaper brands. 

Let's get back to puppies for these wee things need the best we can give them if they are to grow up strong and with a body that will serve both us as owners and the dog itself well over a lifetime of work in the field.

Raw meat is the best food for growing puppies. It's what nature intended them to eat along with small amounts of minced vegetables and crunchable bones such as chicken wings and carcasses with breast of lamb once they have their adult teeth.

Stay away from big splintery leg bones as these are weight bearing structures, far denser and harder in composition and even a dog's stomach acid struggles to digest these.

Tripe, preferably unwashed, is also good in small quantities though nowadays difficult to obtain in its natural state, and I've never yet found a dog that didn't love the stuff. It is good for putting on weight though not high enough in protein as an only food stuff, particularly for growing puppies.

The trick is to think dog, not human, when you feed your canines. Their nutritional needs differ from ours in many ways and their digestive systems aren't designed to cope with masses of starchy cereals. Cereals might fill a dogs belly but they do little more than that. Even pet dogs do better if they are well nourished, even though their energy expenditure might be less than a working dog's, and it really pains me to see a litter of puppies huddled over a bowl of porridge!

Now, if I was breeding rabbits I might be correct in offering them a bowl of oats - but dogs?

Used with kind permission of The Countryman's Weekly.