Quote:
Originally Posted by smeagle
I have two of my dogs on a raw diet and I couldn't be happier with how they are thriving on it.
However I get quite annoyed by comments like the above - that feeding raw is the ONLY way to have a healthy happy dog. What a load of bullocks! My dogs ate super premium dried food for years and they did well on it, just not as well as they now do on a raw diet.
Not every dog can eat a raw diet. I have an elderly dog here who I did change over to BARF but she has a lot of allergies and can't stomach red meat and a variety of other raw foods. She did worse on a raw diet than she did on dried food. So I feed her a combination of raw chicken and Artemis dried food and she is now back to being a healthy happy dog, as her allergies are being managed.
There are also a variety of medical conditions that create intolerance to raw foods, while I always recommend a raw diet, it is not suitable to every dog.
Sometimes I think raw feeders are doing themselves a disservice by being so gung ho about their diet, I LOVE feeding raw but there are many dogs out there who thrive on good quality dried food too.
Now to the thread at hand - we can't get Orijen in my country as it was pulled from the shelves due to the irridation issue, so I feed Artemis to one of my dogs which I am very happy with. I recommend Eagle Pack Holistic too.
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With reference to what you said in your first paragraph i couldn't agree more. There is a yahoogroup who are totally and dangerously [in my view] fanatical about feeding raw meaty bone diet. Ten/fifteen years ago the recommendation was meat and biscuit and raw marrow bone once a week to clean teeth. I agree with this. Due to our house it is not practical to give a raw meaty bone due to the size of the kitchen. If i had a nice big conservatory with easy clean tiles i would probably go down that route.
My greyhound had been fed on a cheaper dry complete and due to the longer digestion time it was giving her problems in old age. Once on meat and biscuit problems went.
There is good dry complete but i am concerned about the long term effects of contained preservatives. When the ingredients say 55% rice etc - how can that possibly have as much nutrient as meat-biscuit [ 2 parts - 1 part]. I can go to the gas stove and cook up a recipe rice 55% etc.
I don't trust the manufacturers that's all.