hi aj thats very intresting and iused to feed my dog raw but burns and nater diet and orijen compinies that steam cook at low temps and that are holistic have conviced me not to feed raw and that steam cooked is probly better than raw kills germs and is only cooked for about 4 or 5 mins so its half raw anyway like rare human steak i c it ( i no nater diet cook for only 5 mins and orijen) not sure on burns but i am sure they dont cook for that long. so my qustion is whats wrong with hoilistic foods

Cooking changes protein molecules in food (their shape for one, burgers that blow up with air in the middle when cooked is a good example) light cooking won't totally destroy them but will alter the proteins. Cooking also removes some essential vitamins, natural acids, and changes the actual composition of the meat. If you do cook all your dogs food then you are probably going to have to add the vits and mins lost with the cooking process in the way of supplements.

Dogs guts are shorter and their stomach acid is stronger than ours is, they're designed to eat raw food in the form of carcasses (either killed by themselves or scavenged from), their digestive system isn't any different from that of a wolf or a wild dog in africa or a dingo so it's set up to easily digest raw meat, they also process the 'germs' better than we do. Salmonella, e-coli, can also be found on kitchen sinks, fridges, the floor, back garden etc; most people forget this and only think that it is on raw meats.

Mars petcare this year had to recall in the USA Pedigree Complete Nutrition Small Crunchy Bites dog food on August 8th 2008 (Pet Food Recall issued by Pedigree: Salmonella a Risk with Complete Nutrition Small Crunchy Bites) there was also a recall of several different pet foods last year as one of the grain products was the cause of the problem.

Of course commercial dog food manufacturers will 'try' to convince people that their food is the best thing to give to your dog, they are a business they want to make a profit. Adverts will show happy healthy dogs (these dogs may or may not be fed on the food advertised), one example - Burns have a page dedicated as to why you shouldn't feed a dog raw food (I'll put a link in once I've found it again) but are now promoting a mixer to feed your dog with a raw diet, if the company can make you think that you 'need' this product then you are more likly to buy it so this new mixer is designed to make people who feed raw think - I 'need' to add this to my dogs diet otherwise it's missing out on something - think about the adverts and then about how you buy the product. There are no adverts on TV for raw feeding, canned food has only been around for (in the UK) the 1930's (I'll check for the exact date)or so and that was chappie (mars bought them out) so what were dogs fed before commercial food was available?

Oh LANDYwoods, not LADYwoods...lol no wonder i couldnt find anything !!

Is a shame about the price as i have no space for a freezer in my home and i doubt i can afford any pro-longed amount of feeding raw....its just going to have to be a treat everynow and again

Just been on the LANDYwoods website......thats a hell of a lot cheaper than i expected. For a big bone of Lamb at my local butchers is £9.99. A whole chicken from these guys is only £3.50 !!! Thats still about £20 a week minimum. Pain in the ass this money buissness. The whole idea about getting a dog in the first place was to give me something to do, something to focus on that doesnt cost money !! Its only the damn walking thats free. GF's gonna have a field day with the "i told you so's" when i run outta money for Daisy's food withing a few weeks....maybe we can teach Daisy to hunt...i think next door own Rabbits *evil laugh*

ALSO from the Landywoods website...

CEREALS: (CHO = Carbohydrate = Long Term Energy)
Wholebake Original; Others: Rice; Barley; Oats; Some rye; small anmnts of wheatgerm, buckwheat, cous-mus. Always use the wholegrain (brown/wholegrain) rather than white, polished products. They are far more nubitious.

I thought the entire idea of RAW feeding was to rid the dogs system of these dreadded cerials ?

Hello - I have two JRT's. I will have to do bones seperately but they seem anxious after to try and find them because they are taking hours and hours to eat them so i put them away. There seems to be tension between them. I gave them marrow bones. I don't know what animal they came from as the butcher went and got it from the back. Perhaps they will get quicker as they get used to chewing them?
They are enjoying pet mince and wings. Thought we might try lamb and white fish soon. The frozen value bag of fish.

Lamb is probably my lots favourite meat, only Jayjay will eat white fish.

My lot spend hours munching on bones in the garden some days, it depends on what bones they have, chicken carcasses are gone in minutes, beef bones occupy them for hours, lamb bones come somewhere in the middle.

Are they actually being aggresive towards each other or just guarding? I'd be tempted to say leave them to it and let them sort it out but only you can tell whether that's going to be a good idea or not.

So did I but some people feed these whole grain mixers alongside raw meat. Not sure what they think they are benefitting from feeding them but it's better than just feeding death biscuits I suppose! D

Yes we had that idea but they are standing like bulls on their back legs and showing all their teeth and it goes on and on. My kids have learnt to leap out the way fast! George is a very polite gentle dog but he is trying to do the man of the house act and Milly is doing what woman do best - be bossy. I would have thought they would have sorted it out, today they have had no bones and peace has reigned. I will try again if you think i should.

Just fed Daisy her first raw meal. Sadly was nothing epic, just a few drumsticks. I let her have the first one and she was quite timid about the whole thing. But i think thats just cos we been training her hard not to eat stuff she see's on the floor. After i started playing about with it and poking it infront of her hyperactive nose, she soon decided it was worth a chew. She grabbed it off me and made a B-Line for my room (furthest away from kitchen). I called her back and made her sit (not having her getting all possesive over it). But then once she really got into it she just bit down hard in the middle and started to swallow the whole thing as it was bent in half

"NO Daisy"

From then on i cut the meat off of the bone and fed it to her myself.

So question, as she is a lab, and by the sounds a truly tipical one. Are chicken drumsticks going to be totally off the menu ? I felt the edges of those bones once she snapped them and they were sharp.

We gave her a big joint of beef a while ago and she was good with that, she took most of the night grinding away at it. There were one or two times where she bit off a huge bit and started to try and get it all in her mouth but i grabbed it before it had a chance to disappear but with these chicken drum-sticks, she was wasting no time getting it down her.

Secondly, i know dogs are much better at dealing with salmonella. But now that she has it all over her face, is hand feeding her treats going to cover my hands in it, and then my face and my girlfriends and my bed and my food ect ect ect ? She does still do alot of licking.

Try her with wings! She will take time to get used to what needs to be done before swallowing. Meg was the same, she tried to swallow things before they were chewed up enough and choked them back up, trial and error, she got the jist soon enough.

Can she not catch? All I can say is I've got four dogs and two cats being fed raw and not had any outbreaks of any illness. Salmonella is already everywhere anyway! Do a google search on Salmonella and you will see it's very overhyped, if I remember correctly there are thousands of strains of Salmonella, most are harmless and the ones that can be fatal represent something like 0.2% of all Salmonella in the UK.

hi i no that dog food companies want me to buy them but i dont fool for all of them only about 3 which are orijen burns and nater diet which i like cas it has lambs tripe in it. only good qulity holistic i have one dog 10 yr old chi jack cross and she was one pedigree which battersa told me to feed her six years ago then i found out pedigree was rubbish and did raw now i feed mainly burns tinned lamb rice and veg with chicken fish rice veg biscuits burns ones and nature diet and orijen somtims as i like to change her food eg burns dont have tripe nater diet do nater diet dont have eggs orijen dose so we rotate it so gets goodness from all of them.