Feeding & Nutrition

I spent thirty quid on a bag of venison before I knew what game smelled like to him. The pet shop had a display, the packet said novel protein, and I was tired of the same brown biscuits staring up from his bowl. Otis is a spaniel. He is built to find things and point at them. I forget that sometimes, because he mostly points at the fridge.

The first evening I tipped the venison kibble into his dish he froze. Not the usual snuffle-and-shove. He stood over the bowl and breathed it in like it was a clue. Then he ate, slowly, lifting his head between mouthfuls to check I was still there. That was new. He never checks during dinner. Dinner is the one thing he trusts me with completely.

I started reading. Turns out the novel protein thing is real for dogs with itchy skin or sore stomachs, dogs who have eaten chicken and beef every day of their lives and quietly built a low-grade grudge against both. Otis had been chewing his flank raw through one long winter. The vet called it allergies. The bag called it dinner. I figured it was worth a try before we went down the steroid road again.

Three weeks in, the flank was calmer. Not perfect. He still finds a bare patch when the pollen spikes. But the raw ring of red had faded to a faint map of where it used to be. The venison cost more than the biscuits, no question. I worked out it came to about sixty pence a meal, which is less than the coffee I throw away most mornings.

What I didn't expect was the change in how he eats. He used to gulp, then hover, then gulp again, as if someone might take it. With the venison he slows down. I think the smell does something to the hunter in him, the part that remembers finding food was once the whole job. He savours now. I watch a spaniel savour and feel I have learned something I should have known.

I am not saying venison is a cure. I am saying it moved the needle and it cost me less than I feared. The first time I opened the new bag the whole flat smelled of it, and he appeared from the bedroom at a trot, which he never does for the old brand. That alone told me something had shifted in his body's memory.

The bag is nearly empty again. I have already ordered the next one. Otis heard the delivery van today and met it at the gate, which is not like him at all. He stood there wagging at a cardboard box like it owed him a favour. Maybe it does.

If your dog scratches the same corner raw every spring, ask the vet about a novel protein before you reach for the spray. And maybe, just maybe, let the bowl smell like something worth slowing down for. The hunter is still in there. He just needs a reason to show up at dinner.

The butcher at the market asked what I was feeding, and when I said venison he nodded like he had seen it before. He told me the working dogs round here get game in the winter, same reason, the coat and the joints. I liked hearing it from a man with mud on his boots more than from the packet.

There is a part of me that feels silly spending this much on dog food when beans would do. Then Otis rolls over and shows me the flank that is no longer raw, and the silly feeling goes. The money went somewhere real. You can see it on him.

I have started telling people at the park, the ones whose dogs scratch themselves raw in the spring. Not as advice, as a story. The ones who listen come back a month later with a different dog. The ones who don't, well, the scratching continues. I can only tell the tale.

I took a photo of the empty venison bag the other day and sent it to my sister, who feeds her lab the supermarket own brand and swears by it. She sent back a photo of a shiny coat and a shrug. Fair. Different dogs, different answers. The point was never that venison is magic. The point was that I stopped guessing and started watching.

Otis is eleven now. The hunter in him shows mostly at dinner and on the beach, where he still points at gulls like they might flush. The venison just reminds him, and reminds me, that under the sofa spaniel is an animal with a job he remembers. Feeding him like that feels less like a purchase and more like a small respect.