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Is kibble enough? con't
There is no doubt that home-cooked food offers your pet the best possible nutrition. However dietary supplements will be required. You should seek the advice from a nutritional consultant to learn more about this. Click Here if you would like to contact me for nutritional advice.

Commercial foods contain recommended daily amounts of vitamins and minerals. These amounts are based on the minimum dietary requirements before deficiency symptoms occur. To the other extreme there is an "optimum" daily allowance. The absence of adequate levels of vitamins and minerals in some commercial foods may necessitate the addition of nutritional supplementation.

Some breeds that have slow metabolisms may also require supplementation because the food volume consumed is lower then that which is recommended for their body weight. For example;

A 120 pound Rottweiler that eats 5 cups of kibble per day is not going to get the same nutrients as an 75 pound Dobermann that is eats 6 cups per day.
With busy working lifestyles Home-cooking for some people is not realistic. Simply just getting dinner together for their family is a chore enough, let alone cooking for the dog. In this case I recommend adding a portion of home-cooked food to a high quality kibble. To avoid additional supplements, the cooked food (which I will refer to as "stew") should not be more then 25% of the dogís over-all portion.

The food that is given to your dog should not be table scraps. If you prepare a stew that has been formulated just for them, it can be store in the fridge. This way you will only have to cook for your dog once or twice a week. Recipes are available in various books and through animal dietary consultants.

If you are in doubt about the positive effects of homemade food for your pets, just ask an elder who had pets before commercial kibble became so popular.
It was good enough then, why would we think that it would not be good enough today? In many European countries cook food and raw meet is still fed to family companions. Additionally more and more veterinarians are realizing the positive effects of offering raw and whole foods to you pets.

Kids and Dobermanns
If you have children and are considering a Dobermann for a family pet, I feel you have made a suitable choice. If you have not researched the breed and do not have a full understanding about the Dobermanns characteristics, click here.
Bringing a puppy into a home with small children requires preparation. I strongly recommend that you prepare a ëtime-outí spot for the puppy. Crates offer a perfect place for a puppy to go to rest. I highly recommend them for assisting you in housebreaking as well.

A new 8-week-old pup requires 16-18 hours of sleep per day. Children have a tendency to over-run the puppies because they want to play with them. A puppy that does not get proper sleep will suffer fatigue, and possibly even weight loss. It will be the parents job to set-out the rules from the very first day.

The most important area to monitor will involve personal boundaries. Your puppy will learn to respect those boundaries. However, the children will also have to respect the pupís personal space. Small children pose the biggest challenge in this area. They may do things to the pup that are extremely unfair like poking pencils in their eyes, pulling their ears, jumping on them or riding them like a horsy. This is one reason why kids cannot be left unattended with dogs!

For easy reference I have divided this section into 3 categories;
Section one Setting boundaries for your children
Section two The puppy's boundaries
Section three Your role as a parent - Getting along, discipline, and training.
Setting boundaries for your children
Puppies love to play with kids and usually get very excited to be with them. The problem is that they will play until they have pushed themselves to exhaustion. If a puppy has fallen asleep in the middle of the floor because it has tired itself out, then it has pushed itself too far. Putting the puppy away for a nap is the same as when we put a child down for a nap. We do not wait until the child has passes-out on the floor. Rather we watch them and put them down for naps when we see its necessary.
If the puppy is sleeping you children must leave them be. This is extremely important!