What do you feed wild animals? Not dogloaf
Once a week, I overhear someone in the butcher shop inquiring about a custom blend for their dog. Eventually my butcher gave in and started producing a mix just for dog owners: 90 per cent beef and lamb scraps with 10 per cent offal; heart, liver, lung and kidneys.
One of the butchers, Jerry Kokorudz, goes further and makes his own, including ground chicken necks, garlic powder (to replace flea/tick medication), eggshells, cod liver oil, sweet potatoes, collards and beets.
“I think about cooking up a patty and eating it every time I make it,” he says, though he serves it raw.
“For me, it’s the only way to go,” he testifies. “Her coat’s impeccable, glossy. If it’s really sunny you can’t even look at her. You need sunglasses.” I get it. People love their pets. But what about the other jillion animals in Toronto?
When I was planning a trip to the Toronto Wildlife Centre, I’d intended to feed the animals gefatke, a mashup of gefilte fish and latkes, concocted by my colleague Michele Henry.
The problem is, wild animals are not Jewish. They eat raw fish, not poached with horseradish. They will always take bugs or mice over fried potatoes. The centre’s director, Nathalie Karvonen, takes care of animals who have been hit by cars, poisoned by environmental toxins, shot by pellets and arrows, attacked by cats (a huge problem for birds), caught in fishing lines, orphaned or had their heads stuck in McFlurry lids. There is no way she is going to let me feed them gefatkes.
On the morning I visit, the facility houses 10 big brown bats, a silverhaired bat, a northern cardinal, four eastern cottontail rabbits, four coyotes, two mourning doves, a long-tailed duck, a peregrine falcon, a house finch, three red foxes, two Canada geese, a red-breasted grosbeak, two herring gulls, two ringbilled gulls, two red-tailed hawks, a mallard, a merlin, two mice (one domestic, one house), two Virginia opossums, a barred owl, four northern saw-whet owls, 29 rock pigeons, seven raccoons, an American robin, two brown snakes, a garter snake, a sparrow, 24 eastern grey squirrels, one red squirrel, two mute swans, a grey-cheeked thrush, two painted turtles, 10 snapping turtles and a blue-headed vireo.
When I visited a monkey sanctuary, I fed sushi to a marmoset. Because monkeys are primates and can digest nearly anything. But these are wild animals with specific diets that put a heavy demand on the organization’s $1.2-million operating budget (entirely donor supported).
“Live insects, we order by the tens of thousands,” says Karvonen. “Frozen mice by the hundreds.”
But why feed these animals? They’re not our pets. Because they are our neighbours. They were here when we moved in and it’s our fault that they’re in trouble. During migration season, birds constantly fly into our tall buildings.
“The worst day ever,” says Karvonen, “we admitted over 180 birds.” And those are survivors.
The centre’s annual budget is a pretty tiny cost to take care of this many critters.
The caramel corn I’ve made goes to the volunteers (there are about 27 staff members and more than 300 volunteers) while I watch Karvonen feed the animals, the ones who will eat in front of me.
Charlie, a big brown bat (each one has a chart, same as a hospital patient, though most are here too briefly to get names), isn’t injured, but was found in a home at a time of year when it’s too cold to release him outside.
“If you have animals that come in the fall, that normally migrate or hibernate, and they’re perfectly fine to go by December, they’re here till the spring. Because we can’t release bats in December.”
Despite the species name, Charlie weighs 19 grams and is no bigger than a Bounty candy bar. A handful of mealworms are dropped into his cage from above. He pounces on the juiciest worm, slurping it like so much ramen as the living noodle makes a crunching sound under Charlie’s jaws.
On the other side of the room, a northern saw whet owl peeks at us through the bars of its cage, a heaving chest the only sign that it isn’t a statue.
In a room for aquatic birds, a duck turns into a laser-guided fish eater the moment that a lunch of minnows is dropped into his swimming pool. Karvonen tries to avoid live bait. But some carnivorous patients will only eat living animals. “If you try to give a dead fish to a loon, they’re like, don’t even go there.”
Karvonen serves waterfowl pellets, cracked corn and spinach to a swan, whose chart says he was found on the side of the road, his beak covered in blood. He shifts back and forth, puffing up to appear larger and won’t eat while we’re watching.
Hot Dog the turtle is an easier to please diner. The snapping turtle, too gentle to snap, was rescued from a basement apartment where he was kept in a bathtub and fed wieners. Now he has his own room and kiddie pool. He gobbles his fish, ignores the spinach and plays with a sugar pumpkin, smacking it around with his snout.
I’m pretty sure he’d eat the gefatke. But it’s not healthy for him.
Karvonen doesn’t know how old Hot Dog is. But judging from his size (like a lawn mower), she estimates 20 years.
“They can live to be 40 years or longer. Most people want to buy them when they’re teeny things and have them in a bowl with a plastic palm tree.” There’s another room filled entirely with these miniature snapping turtles.
“And then after five years they get bored and they want to dump them. I’d love to see the sale of those completely abolished. There are a ton of them that are homeless.”
Why do people get inappropriate pets for the kids when dogs are so outstanding and easy to feed?
At home, I’m hankering to try the butcher’s dog mix. I blend a couple pounds with sweet potatoes, spinach and eggs and bake it like a meat loaf.
Dexter, my neighbour’s dog, leaps up on me the moment he smells the dogloaf. He licks the plate clean.
I have to eat fast to compete with Dexter.
Other than needing a little salt, dog food is pretty good.
Dogloaf
All advice for making your own dog food is contradictory (raw or cooked, oats or no oats). Most agree that crushed eggshells are good and it’s common to add cod liver oil for a more balanced diet.
3 Star Tested 1 bunch spinach, chopped 2 tsp (10 mL) vegetable oil 1/2 sweet potato, diced with skin on 2 lb. (900g) ground meat mix (lamb, offal) 2 eggs In a pan on medium heat, use half of olive oil to sauté spinach, covered, for 1 minute. Transfer to paper towel to absorb excess moisture.
In a large mixing bowl, combine sweet potato, spinach, meat and eggs. Preheat oven to 350F/180C. Rub baking dish with remaining oil. Pack with meat loaf mix. Cover and bake until both meat and sweet potatoes are cooked through, about 50 minutes. Makes 1 serving for a hungry dog, infinite servings for a human who doesn’t like dog food. Email mintz.corey@gmail.com and follow @coreymintz on Twitter and instagram.com/coreymintz.