Lorgair Grain-Free Diet ^© 

recommended by Lorgair Golden Retrievers

(from the www.lorgair.com website)

“In our work in veterinary medicine, we found that dogs and cats suffer from chronic subclinical scurvy during most of their lives and benefit from ascorbate supplementation. In the larger breeds of dogs, hip dysplasia, long regarded as a genetic defect, is merely due to a chronic insufficiency of ascorbate.” Dr Stone

Table of Contents

The Decade Long Quest & Journey to Reducing HD in Large Breed Dogs

First Vitamin C HD Study Results 2007 - 2008

Second Vitamin C HD Study Results 2009 - 2012

Hip X-Rays for the dogs in the Second HD Study of 8 dogs

The End of the Journey Lessons Learned

Articles appearing in New Zealand Dog World

Raw Feeding Tips

Lorgair Puppy Diets

Additional Research Articles, Book, and Links

The Decade Long Quest & Journey to Reducing HD in Large Breed Dogs

As a breeder, I look for ways to better the health and soundness of the dogs I breed.  In 2002, I recommended to my puppy owners a good quality kibble food available at that time.  3 of the 8 puppies from the 2002 litter were hip scored and the average score was 18.67.  The BVA average hip score for Golden Retrievers at that time was 18 so it would appear that my average was in the line with the BVA average.  The UK, NZ, and AU scoring is from 0 to 106 (each hip can score between 0 to 53) -- the lower the score the better.   On the surface, the average would look to be fine, but my concern was in the range of the scores -- 8 to 25.  There was no consistency in the scores.

The BVA 5-year mean average between 2007 and 2011 was 14.   During this same 5 year period, Sept 2007 - May 2012, my mean average score for 16 puppies in two studies was 6.31.  Mean score averages can be deceptive and one really needs to look at the range of scores to see if consistency is being achieved.  This has been achieved in my second study from 2009 - 2012 with a total score range of 1 to 7.

Amount of Vitamin C	Puppies Mean Average	Total Hip Score Range	Parents Mean Average	No of puppies scored
No Vitamin C	11.70	2 - 31	13.78	23
Neo-Life Vitamin C 230 mg - 450 mg	10.33	3 - 18	7.66	6
Neo-Life Vitamin C 900 mg	3.38	1 - 7	10.38	8

Chronic Subclinical Scurvy:  Dr Belfield had this to say back in 1982 -  "Stress is the scourge of both man and dog.  Stress undermines resistance to disease and germs in part by depleting the body's stores of water-soluble vitamins, namely vitamin C and the B complex group."  (Stress can be both physical and/or emotional)   "For the size of the German Shepherd, Great Dane, Saint Bernard, and other large dogs, canine liver production of vitamin C is paltry.  This poor production, along with the nonstop stress, results in chronic subclinical scurvy.  The animal may not lapse into terminal scurvy but he will often become ill with some of the symptoms.  Hypertrophic osteodystrophy (HOD) ... is one example.  And so is hip dysplasia.   Both conditions are related to deficient vitamin C and poor collagen."

"The big-breed pup has an extraordinary need for large amounts of vitamin C.  The vitamin is needed in laying down the collagen.  He needs strong ligaments and tendons to hold bones and a heavy muscle mass in place.  He gets no vitamin C in his food.  If his liver doesn't produce enough, the animal is at risk, and from the worldwide incidence of hip dysplasia, it seems obvious that the liver of the domesticated dog is not up to the task."  Pages 190-191 How To Have A Healthier Dog, The Benefits of Vitamins and Minerals for Your Dog's Life Cycles.

The Introduction of Neo-Life Vitamin C.  For a variety of reasons, a 2006 litter of puppies from Kerry produced 3 clinically dysplastic puppies (1 hip only in two of the cases) and sent me back to researching the subject of hip dysplasia yet again - how to prevent it from happening.  These three dysplastic puppies had been a total shock as Kerry is 3 points lower than her mother and was mated to a sire that had been reducing the hip scores in my puppies.  Kerry's mother, Nikita with a total hip score of 23 was mated in 2004 and 2005 to the same sire as Kerry with the sire's hip score being a total 13, and had resulted in 3 puppies scored with totals of 6; 9; and 18.  The sire's other litter to a dam with a total hip score of 12 mated in 2004 had resulted in total scores of 3; 3; 7; and 11.  From the 2006 litter, only one of the three clinically dysplastic puppies was officially hip scored and her score was 5:26 = 31.  It seems pretty obvious that one hip was injured or came away from the socket from jumping up and landing on one leg because the ligaments and tendons are not strong enough to hold the hip socket in place and the fluid then leaks out and no fluid to replace it set up the scenario for HD - a scenario that Dr Belfield states is often associated with hip dysplasia.

 In September 2007, I undertook a mini-study of 7 + 1 puppies raised on the step-down and/or raw diets.  The diets trailed were with and without the Neo-Life Threshold (Sustained) Vitamin C in different dosages to see what the results might be.   After this study, I took onboard what Dr Belfield says about using Vitamin C -- which types of Vitamin C work to form good hips and the fact that it needs to be given in large enough dosages to be effective.  The results of this first study were mixed.  Two puppies x-rayed at 16 weeks and again at a year old showed marked improvement on 450 mg of Neo-Life Vitamin C.  Another puppy x-rayed at 16 weeks and again a year old showed little if any improvement on 230 mg Neo-Life Vitamin C.  A fourth puppy x-rayed at 8 months and kept on 230 mg Vitamin C showed no improvement.  A puppy reared on home-cooked and bones with lots of running and swimming scored well with no supplements.  A puppy kept on the Neo-Life Vitamin C to 6 months of age, scored OK, but not as well as the ones kept on the Neo-Life Vitamin C until they were scored.  A seventh puppy was reared on the Puppy BARF diet to 7 months and then on Canidae kibble with no Neo-Life Vitamin C and she scored second highest.   The results were encouraging, but I wasn't satisfied with the lack of consistency in the results as 7 months later an 8th puppy from Kerry's second 2008 litter reared on 450 mg of the Neo-Life Vitamin C scored a total 18.  There were no clinically dysplastic puppies in this litter, but I wasn't satisfied.

These results led me into a second study of 8 dogs from 2009 to 2012.  In this second study, all the puppies were fed 900 mg daily of Neo-Life Threshold Vitamin C plus Dr Kruger Healthy Joint formula.  This diet appears to return great results no matter what the activity or stress level or the amount of ascorbic acid these dogs produced on their own under the normal conditions that large breed puppies are faced with daily.  The 900 mg returned acceptable results on a puppy under extreme stress conditions reared in the Red Zone of Christchurch where the seismic activity is the highest.  This puppy has felt thousands of earthquakes starting with the first big one in Christchurch in September 2010 - 9 days before the puppies were born.  Every time the liquefaction occurred, she was put in a boarding kennel until cleanup was completed.  Her stress levels have been far beyond any normal levels that most puppies experience.  A separate study of puppies under extreme stress circumstances would need to be conducted to determine if increasing the amount of Neo-Life Vitamin C would be of benefit under extreme stress circumstances.  However, the greatest joy has been the scores returned from Kerry's third and final litter.  4 of the 5 puppies were scored with total results of 2, 5, 5, and 7 -- fully demonstrating that insufficient ascorbic acid in the dog's system is the cause of inconsistency in hip score results, not hereditary.  This is my dual purpose line of very active dogs and they needed the additional ascorbic acid in a large enough daily dosage to return consistent and low hip scores -- meaning their hips were well formed and will lead to a lower probability of hip dysplasia later in life.  It also means the puppies are easier to train when they are not suffering from joint problems.

Hip X-Rays for the dogs in the Second HD Study of 8 dogs
Angus:  0:1 = 1	Sunny:  1:1 = 2
Pablo:  1:1 = 2	Ticketty-Boo:  2:3 = 5
Winky:  1:1 = 2	Amy:  2:1 = 3
Brandees: 3:4 = 7	Viking:  3:2 = 5
Skye:  3:3=6  This puppy was reared under extreme stress conditions in the Red Zone of Christchurch experiencing thousands of quakes over a 20-month period and frequently boarded whilst the liquefaction was cleaned up. Skye was x-rayed and scored to see if puppies reared in extreme stress conditions need more than 900 mg Vit C daily.  Judging from the results, the 900 mg returned acceptable results.

What has become evident is that active large breed dogs whose adult weight will be between 25 kg and 35 kg need 900 mg daily of Neo-Life Threshold (Sustained) Vitamin C to at least 18 months of age to produce consistently good hip results.   For extreme stress conditions such as active/frequent game retrieval, Husky sled driving, or emotional stress like frequent and ongoing earthquakes, may require larger dosages of Vitamin C.  The 900 mg of Neo-Life Threshold Vitamin C is 85% less than the amount of sodium ascorbate that Dr Belfield used in his studies.

The difference using Neo-Life Vitamin C:

Studies by Dr Belfield and another scientific study done in Southern California, found that pure ascorbic acid (like you use in canning) and calcium ascorbate are both “duds” and “a waste of time and money” – and not adequate sources of vitamin C.  Ester-C contains calcium that is not good for the joints and can lead to the formation of crystals and stones in the dogs. 

I had pretty much come to the conclusion back in 2006 that the GNDL Vitamin C was special and powerful from my own use of it.  Belfield makes his own vitamin C formulas from sodium ascorbate, but the vitamin C levels are too high to import into NZ.

After years of using the Neo-Life Vitamin C products, for both the dogs and personally, it is clear that Neo-Life has an extremely high absorption rate into the body cells.  The Neo-Life Vitamin C formulas are molecularly-natural made from fruits and vegetables and produced without any chemicals.  100 mg of the Neo-C (All-C) is the equivalent of eating 4 small oranges.  900 mg of Neo-Life Threshold Vitamin C is the equivalent of eating 36 small oranges.  People who's stomach are not able to tolerate normal Vitamin C, report that they have no problems with the Neo-Life Vitamin C and are amazed at how fast it eliminates colds and flu.  Because Vitamin C is water soluble and doesn't stay in the body, it can be taken to bowel tolerance level.  The benefit for the dogs is that it synthesis' into collagen needed for the joints, ligaments, and muscle tissue extremely well. 

The final study proved that using 900 mg daily of the Neo-Life Threshold Vitamin C, the dogs only needed 15% of the amount Dr Belfield recommends be used to return great results.  900 mg of Neo-Life Threshold Vitamin C is 85% less than what Dr Belfield recommends to achieve the same results with sodium ascorbate given at 6,000 mg daily.  Vitamin C is water soluble and other types of Vitamin C go through the body in 2 hours.  Neo-Life Vitamin C formulas stay in the body longer than other types of Vitamin C -- 4 to 8 hours.

Although Neo-Life products are not available in stores, they can be sourced through distributors in over 60 countries world-wide. If you have an interest in becoming a Neo-Life Distributor, I can sign you up as a distributor and save you 25% on Neo-Life orders, drop Sy an email at sy@lorgair.com.  To buy the Neo-Life within New Zealand  go to www.lapdog.co.nz .  If you would prefer to purchase the products at retail price and live outside New Zealand, send me an email and I will provide the name(s) of a distributor in your country. 

The Dr Kruger products can be sourced from www.drkruger.com (US and Canada), www.lapdog.co.nz (Within NZ).  Note of clarity - the Neo-Life powder Vit C is no longer available.  The Neo-C is the same All C and Threshold Vit C is the same as Sustained Release Vit C.  Check the level of mg per tablet as they will vary in different parts of the world according to country regulations.  An update article on this subject ran in the April 2011 NZ Dog World.

¹  Wendell 0. Belfield, D.V.M. and Irwin Stone, P.C.A., Megascorbic Prophylaxis and Megascorbic Therapy: A New Orthomolecular Modality in Veterinary Medicine, Journal of the International Academy of Preventive Medicine, 1975

 

TABLE I: DAILY PRODUCTION OF ASCORBATE IN ANIMALS
	Animal Ascorbate Production Milligrams/Kg Body Wgt / per day
Snake	10
Tortoise	7
Mouse	275
Rabbit	226
Goat	190
Rat	150
Dog	40
Cat	40
Monkeys, Apes, Man	0

The End of the Journey Lessons Learned

Having come to the end of quest and journey, what strikes me most after a decade of piecing the puzzle together is how brain-washed we are by dog food manufacturers and veterinarians to believe what just isn't true.  The false assumptions and statements delayed my achieving the end results by years and my one regret is that I wish I had read Dr Belfield's book back in 2002.  The false statements include:

• "100% complete and balanced nutrition."  This statement printed on almost every bag of commercial dog food is untrue because the heat process destroys all water based vitamins (B complex and C) and many other nutrients in the food.  To remedy this, synthetic nutrients are sprayed on the food at the end of the process.  Synthetic nutrients do not synthesis in the body the same as natural nutrients.  Further more, the extrusion process used to process dry dog foods cooked at high temperatures causes the protein to bind to the carbohydrates in grain-based foods thus making it difficult for the dog to digest the protein in the food.²  This has left our canine friends very devoid of essential nutrients.  Further more, 98% of the commercial dry dog foods on the worldwide market contain 40% to 50% grain.  Dogs do not have enzymes to digest grain and therefore are at a greater risk of Bt genetically modified DNA fractioning into their blood stream and eventually killing them due to high toxin levels from pesticides that they can no longer rid from their bodies.

• "High protein foods will cause growth spurts in large breed dogs"   Having been concerned about this in the beginning, I now know that it is not true.  What is true is that dogs need to be fed appropriate amounts of food and their exercise needs to be in proportion to the food they are receiving.  Dogs fed too much food - no matter what the protein content and not exercised enough to utilise the calorie content will have growing spurts.  The growing spurts off-balances the puppy structural frame and puts more weight on one part of the puppy thus causing an increase risk of dysplasia -- be it hip or elbow.

• "Hip Dysplasia is hereditary."    Dr Belfield stated that HD was not hereditary back in the early 1980s and everyone thought he was nuts.  However, his case for stating this is very sound and what is hereditary is the individual dog's ability to manufacture its own ascorbic acid.  Some dogs are better at this than others.  Those that are better, have lower incidents of hip dysplasia.  Those that are not good at producing their own ascorbic acid and are very active, have high incidents of HD.  In a study of 104 dogs "the scale of vitamin C levels in their blood measured from .02 milligrams up to .84 milligrams for each 100 cubic centimetres of blood.  That's a 42-fold difference."  Belfield - How To Have A Healthier Dog, pages 52 - 53.  The problem is that we don't test for how much vitamin C a puppy manufactures and so it is not until between 8-months and 18-months when we discover that a particular puppy was not producing enough vitamin C and ends up with hip dysplasia.  Stress and high activity exercise both use large amounts of ascorbic acid.  So the ascorbic acid issue is two-fold -- 1/  how much each puppy produces naturally in its liver and 2/ the individual stress and/or activity level of each puppy.  Most breeders and vets cannot get their heads around this issue.  It does go along way to explaining why after 3 decades of x-raying hips and elbows and encouraging breeders to only breed from low scoring dogs, that no remarkable progress has been made in lowering the incidence of hip dysplasia.  It also goes a long way to explain why a puppy from one litter can have a hip score of 4 and another have a hip score of 77 !!  One only needs to look at the diet fed to each of the puppies.  This is a true example from a breeder of German Shepherds here in NZ -- the puppy with the 4 was kept on Neo-Life Vitamin C, the puppy that scored 77 was not.  This is not a one-off example.   Read the article on Hip Dysplasia Stats - What are They Really Telling Us? and you will discover  the anomalies in the scores of over 4,000 Golden Retriever off-spring and that the scores are not what one would expect.  Proving that the parents have no bearing on the hip scores of their off-spring except for the level of ascorbic acid production passed on to their off-spring.

²  Effects of extrusion processing on nutrients in dry pet food; Quang D Tran, Wouter H Hendriks, and Antonius FB van der Poel, Animal Nutrition Group, Department of Animal Sciences, Wageningen University, Marijkeweg 40, NL-6709 PG Wageningen, The Netherlands,  Human and Animal Physiology Group, Biology Faculty, Vinh University; 182 Le Duan street, Vinh, Vietnam;  J Sci Food Agric 88:1487–1493 (2008)

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