Yup, that's about the size of it. I must admit, in the nicest possible way, I found your post amusing. Don't take that the wrong way, it's just that from my point of view (having raw fed umpteen thousands of raw meals over the years to a lot of dogs) it's really very strange/amusing that someone could actually be SCARED to do it lol

But that's not your fault. Unfortunately society has been well conditioned by pet food manufacturers and even a lot of vets (who, coincidentally are 'educated' by those manufacturers and then receive hearty commission for selling their foods).

Look at it this way: Dogs have been with us for thousands if not more years. Commercial food has been with us barely 100 years. How on earth did dogs manage to make it this far before someone finally gave us the "only food" (commercial) suitable to keep them alive? It's smoke and mirrors, and it's a bloody good earner for them!

At the end of the day you're only feeding mince, not even whole raw meaty bones. Your dog has more chance of being electrocuted by lightning sent forth from the pope's fingertips than anything bad happening from eating turkey mince. Don't panic!

It's also worth remembering that whilst wild canids are meat-eaters by design, the domestic dog Canis familiaris has evolved some differences. It seems to have adapted to living near humans off their rubbish and later in domestication by developing a longer gut in proportion to its size than wolves. This enables it to properly digest other foods they would have gained access to by living alongside humans, such as left-over cooked cereals and cooked meats. They're omnivores, like humans.

lol, no offence taken. What's perfectly normal to one person is often a little nerve inducing to another. And as we both basically said, you hear so much about what's best for dogs and combine that with the info drummed in about raw food I can understand myself being a little nervous. Still, I'll get over it lol.

Once again, thanks for all the help and advice, I'm sure my dogs, along with myself thank you for it.

On what do you base those assertions? What differences are you talking about?

The literature is abundantly clear that dogs (Canis lupus familiaris, btw - The Smithsonian reclassified them and also labels them as carnivores just like their immediate relative the Grey Wolf) are identical to grey wolves with exception of only .2% of mDNA (mitochondrial DNA, not the 'big' DNA). Those minute variances account for coat, size and temperamental differences, nothing more.



I have never seen any evidence that the domestic dog has a digestive system any different from its ancestors, unless you count assertions from pet food manufacturers which is hardly evidence. You may also find Myths About Raw: Are dogs omnivores? interesting, which cites further literature and discusses the matter in more depth.

EDIT: Just in case you didn't take the extra time to look around the Myths About Raw site, here are a couple more links directly related to this discussion:
Myths About Raw: Are dogs too far removed from wolves to be fed raw food?
Myths About Raw: Have dogs adapted to cooked diets?

Quite right. I too remember reading and hearing all the scare stories, wondering if I was doing the right thing, and hovering incredibly nervously over my dogs at the time in case they should suddenly turn blue and require emergency surgery!

Well done for taking the first step, do let us know how you get on. As always, you know where I am if you have any concerns or questions. ATB.