Raw Meat Diet For Dogs

Is there any truth in this? I want to start feeding raw asap but I'm feeling a little overwhelmed now....

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Wow, I must be doing something wrong, according to James O'Heare PhD my dogs should have bloody diarrhoea and be unwell, with possibly a shiny coat. Well they do have a shiny coat, Tau's has the distinct aroma of fox poo unfortunately, but apart from that, they are very healthy and certainly not malnourished.

Nothing to sell apart from his own theory and possibly a book or two if you google, trust me, buy from me sort of thing. Everyone's entitled to their own opinion of course, the raw diet doesn't suit every dog and/or owner, but done right it is a good nutritious diet, done wrong, it's about as good as feeding your dog Bakers.

You are always going to get people who are vehemently for or against something, I think I can guess which category Mr O'Heare falls into

I have read some of the site but as far as I can see it is just an opinion and there is a lot there that I know from personal experience to be completely wrong. I have done a lot of research on raw feeding and there are plenty of sites like this around, but for every one of them there are many more that sing the praises of the practice.

At the end of the day you have to do as much research as you can, take a balanced view and make your mind own mind up. There are however, two hard and fast rules that you must follow implicitly. Firstly, whether it is for or against, remember that just because something is written on the internet, it isn't automatically true. Yes you should read people opinions and their experiences, but just bear in mind that that is all they are, opinions.

Secondly, never trust anyone who says they have a PhD and writes about 'healthful' ingredients.

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Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people look bright until you hear them speak

Actually pleased you found that site (Second Chance Ranch) while doing research. It is one I like to point out to people considering raw even though I feed the prey model raw diet (no vegetables other than scraps and not calculated into menus). It certainly made me think when I found it prior to starting raw.

There are several rebuttals out there. One being:
Rebuttal to Second Chance Ranch It's 5 pages long.

Certainly the Testimonies gave me pause for thought. However whilst doing additional research on raw feeding sites I realized something. It didn't matter if it was a simple dog food forum or specific raw feeding forum, most of the problems encountered feeding raw were people who made mistakes by doing things too fast when introducing different meat sources or were overfeeding. It became obvious a lot of people anti raw having tried it didn't actually know that much about it so it's no suprize that it didn't work for them. Not once did I find an issue where a dog had died from feeding raw. I believe one person on this forum had an issue and if I can find out where mentioned I'll ask them to post here. If my dog died due to raw feeding I would make sure, in all these forums I would post about the dangers. Wouldn't you or quite a few others?

Lets look at some other statistics:

According to one dog insurance company (VPI) dogs are:

• Twice as likely to develop leukemia than humans.
• Four times more likely to suffer from breast cancer.
• Eight times more likely to develop bone cancer.
• An incredible thirty-five times more at risk for developing skin cancer.

Mouth cancer is the forth leading cause of cancer in dogs. Although some of these cancers could be attributed to environment and even going out in the sun when it comes to skin cancer, could food be one source bearing in mind some of the additives are known to be cancer causing agents ?

I will also point out Dangers of a raw food diet As there are quite a few comments regarding the shedding of bacteria (although it did get sidetracked a bit).

I will not add more in this post other than say congratulations on doing research. It is important. If you don't decide to raw feed simply ensure you learn about the ingredients of dog food and the way the ingredient lists can mislead. Then choose what you feel is the best food for your dog.

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Dont want to appear as devils advocate but has Raw\BARF ever been scientifically proven to be better health wise than feeding wet\kibble ?

And no im not anti raw just curious

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Dog food Wilsons recommends
Wet Food
http://www.zooplus.co.uk/shop/dogs/w...nis_menu/48148
http://www.zooplus.co.uk/shop/dogs/w...ic_menu/103104
http://www.zooplus.co.uk/shop/dogs/w...gourmet/212869
http://www.lilyskitchen.co.uk/
Kibble
http://www.zooplus.co.uk/shop/dogs/dry_dog_food/acana
http://www.zooplus.co.uk/shop/dogs/d...ukullus/161924

Simple answer is no. You have to ask though who would fund the scientific research... the dog food companies? You could reverse the question. Has wet/kibble been proven to be better for dogs health wise? That report could easily be funded by these multimillion companies but to my knowledge do not exist.

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No, but then it hasn't been disproven either as far as I'm aware. The vast majority of research done for feeding your dog, is funded by dog food companies, who are obviously in it for their own gain.

What you can do is look at individual ingredients within different diets, and they have information about what effect they have been proven to give, whether that's a negative or positive benefit to the consumer. Everything you read about *positive* feeding, is as fresh as possible, the only time that differs for us humans is where you're talking about raw meat like chicken, where we are at risk from things like salmonella etc. Dogs don't have that problem, so freshest state for them, is raw.

There's only one food I know of where cooking increases the nutritional value, and that's tomatoes, I don't know if anyone can highlight any more? But then again, the cooking process although it increases one benefit, which is lycopene from memory, probably decreases other benefits which are lost in the cooking process.

I have recently switched to a raw diet after thinking about it for quite a while. Although this site obviously worries me when reading (what is considered) danger of a raw diet I'm glad I did read it so I can find out more about these claims.

I had read alot in praise of a raw diet but not too many negative articles so it just makes me research this a bit more. So far I have not read anything that makes me change my opinion of switching to raw. The only thing I still worry about is one of my dogs is a greedy boy so I have concerns that he will choke on a bone but then again i've read about dogs choking on all sorts

I've had very mixed opinions from vets in the past, some completely aghast I feed raw chicken, others think it's absolutely fine and don't mind, as long as you do your research, and that's the crux of it. A lot of people read about it, and start off on the wrong foot, dog ends up ill or injured, and it gives raw feeding bad press. This is why I always say to use chicken/turkey bones, not the drumsticks where the bones are denser and more brittle, and to supervise feeding until they've learnt to deal with it. Dogs will choke themselves on any food given half a chance, so it's about managing how you feed whatever it is you feed them.

Nothing, nothing absolutely nothing, will make me feed my dogs anything but raw prey model diet. I would rather not own a dog at all than feed it that kibble $hite.

I dont need scientific research to tell me my dogs are healthy inside and out (touches wood!) and I am ever hopeful that each generation I breed will get healthier and healthier - time will tell!

I am quite extreme though, if I could, I would live in the middle of nowhere, totally self-sufficient and completely removed from the rat-race.

I believe completely in the power of Nature.

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Fere libenter hormines id quod volunt credunt