May have been different when I was a kid on the farm but those dogs got a lot of cookies from us kids plus table leftover. Now and then some meat when we butcher.
First dog Sport, a lassie, that live for many years and finally could not move anymore so dad took care of it (it was old). Then a couple of German Shepherds with one ran over by a neighbor and the other shot by a neighbor.
Finally a gray and silver one which was to be a 1/2 German and 1/2 wolf that finally after many years got cancer and so dad again took care of it (those days they did it on their own and the last one was hard on dad). And then no more dogs.
Not sure over those 30 years or so if that handful of dogs every suffer from bad food but to my knowledge they were just fine. If they did they were expected to live through it.
Hell us kids back then were not taken in with just any problems. I think it was a week of my brother complaining they finally took him in to fix his broken arm after he fell off the B JD. DB
Hah! Yep, reminds me of when I was a kid, too. In those days dogs were fed only table scraps and leftovers, rarely vaccinated as there was no veterinarians within a couple hundred miles, almost no pure bred dogs, etc. A dog or cat got sick or injured and it was generally 12 gauge paper shell time. No speying or neutering but the natural reproduction of dogs and cats ensured ample replacement for lack of veterinary care and relatively short lifespans back then. Cats would regularly have kittens and the usual thing was to drown them in a laundry tub of water with another tub on top to hold them under water till it was all over. Some would euthanize them in a cardboard box, stand back and drill the box with a load of number 6’s! A sort of farmyard firing squad.
Now there is a veterinary clinic on every street corner, but back then people did what they had to do. Heck dB, even reminiscing this stuff nowadays is liable to result in someone burning your house down! Or get you tossed in the slammer! LOL
Heck, I’m so old I even remember when processed dog food, later cat food first came out. People said “What? Who would spend hard earned money for something like that?”
I love my dog and would defend her to the death, but when I walk into some of,the space age pet stores I still have to shake my head sometimes.