I am going to be getting a new pup this spring and was wondering what the consensus is on the raw food diet? I currently feed Eukanuba to my 6 year old dog. I was considering feeding a raw diet to my new pup. If this has already been posted, forgive me for rehashing an old topic. What are your thoughts?? Thanks for your input in advance.
Raw Diet ???
james durfee
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I am a very progressive and open minded person but I challenge you on that. I can pretty much guaranty you that more dogs, puppies especially, have been harmed by it than helped. Given the dramatic improvement in dry diets, raw feeding has no advantage.
So, share the research.
The raw feeders have an amazing talent for misinformation, I am not saying this applies to you. The MYTH I love the most is that raw meat is more digestible than cooked meat, when there is available science showing that cooked meat is actually more digestible. The other MYTH is the "Evolutionary Myth" and this has been debunked several times by genetic studies that dogs are not wolves and did in fact evolve on a mix of cooked meat and cooked grains.
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I couldn't handle that. To each his own!!!!!
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That is the main reason we haven't done it, although we do a little mixing in. I have never traveled with children, though, and it doesn't look like fun. Folks take more stuff to go to Chuck E Cheeze than I take duck hunting, so we will stick to traveling with dogs--dogs in their holes, food in the storage place.PITA? Have you ever traveled with children? ...
Perhaps if I had two cooler trays?
What do you do when traveling, Tony?
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I would not feed raw to a puppy because of the uncertainty of the amount of minerals being consumed that could lead to poor joint formation. JMO. Main reason is the inability of young pups to self regulate calcium ...once the kidneys are well developed they excrete any excess consumed.
If you want something better, it could be achieved by following DR Pitcairn's book, Complete Guide to Natural Health for dogs and cats.
If you want something better, it could be achieved by following DR Pitcairn's book, Complete Guide to Natural Health for dogs and cats.
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Whole foods are healthier for all living creatures versus processed food. Kibble is for convenience, as most all processed foods are. We all eat them, but more whole foods are better. If you have the time and money to feed your dog a well-balanced whole foods diet (cooked or raw), more power to you. It takes some research and planning, but it is no rocket surgery. I don't value raw over cooked whole foods, however, as there seems to be no physiological basis for that idea. We supplement a moderate-high quality kibble with raw and cooked foods.
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My only experience w/ raw diet being fed to dogs are from friends. One pup who was raw fed from a nice litter several years ago ended up w/ horrible conformation (wasn't like that when he was 8 wks when I eval'd the litter either!) and Grade 3 elbows. All the other pups who were OFAd passed.
Another friend had bought a pup from me back in 1999. I always have recommended Euk LBP for my pups the first 12-14 mos. Her boy (fed as recommended) came back Exc hips, Normal elbows. She bought another lab from a raw feeder and continued feeding per that breeder's guidance, and she failed Elbows w/ a Grade 3 w/ that girl. Convinced it was not hereditary, she bred that girl to my boy, and kept 2 puppies, fed raw... you guessed it, they BOTH failed elbows but had Exc hips...
I make it a point that if someone is dead set on feeding raw from the beginning that my healthy warranty is null and void. I've had no failures on OFAs where dogs were fed Euk LBP as pups (15 yrs now), and they grow so much more uniform now.
Another friend had bought a pup from me back in 1999. I always have recommended Euk LBP for my pups the first 12-14 mos. Her boy (fed as recommended) came back Exc hips, Normal elbows. She bought another lab from a raw feeder and continued feeding per that breeder's guidance, and she failed Elbows w/ a Grade 3 w/ that girl. Convinced it was not hereditary, she bred that girl to my boy, and kept 2 puppies, fed raw... you guessed it, they BOTH failed elbows but had Exc hips...
I make it a point that if someone is dead set on feeding raw from the beginning that my healthy warranty is null and void. I've had no failures on OFAs where dogs were fed Euk LBP as pups (15 yrs now), and they grow so much more uniform now.
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Huge myth!
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When I don't take my travel trailer I simply bring a cooler. I have my ground beef heart, tongue and cheek meat in five pound baggies, my whole heart and tongue in baggies, chicken, probably cans of sardines, veggies, etc all in a cooler. No different than packing up your favorite Canadian beer for the weekend.
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The rational for feeding raw diets is primarily based on ideas about the evolution of dogs and the supposed benefits of un-processed over processed food.
However, I cannot for the life of me find any solid "scientific evidence" of the benefits of raw diets. Lots of anecdotal evidence. Lots of evidence of risks.
Here are two reviews of the literature both indicating no evidence.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3003575/
http://cms.abvma.ca/uploads/Raw-Food-Diets-fact-sheet.pdf
If somebody has evidence post it up!
However, I cannot for the life of me find any solid "scientific evidence" of the benefits of raw diets. Lots of anecdotal evidence. Lots of evidence of risks.
Here are two reviews of the literature both indicating no evidence.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3003575/
http://cms.abvma.ca/uploads/Raw-Food-Diets-fact-sheet.pdf
If somebody has evidence post it up!
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The article you posted is published in a journal funded by feed companies. It is not exactly objective.
Here's a crazy one, processed foods are giving us cancer: http://dx.doi.org/10.14202/vetworld.2013.632-639
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Hi Dennis, first and foremost: Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays or whatever denomination you so choose to honor (that's the American spelling of honor.
. As you may or may not know, I have been feeding RAW for about two years. Besides reading OnLine magazine cover-to-cover I have immersed myself with countless books and web articles on feeding RAW. Moreover, I have seen the noticeable difference in my dogs when on a RAW diet. I currently have a 7 and 14 year old at home. When I fed kibble, I always fed the highest quality of kibble. But, a kibble diet still doesn't compare to feeding RAW. No way; no how ... With all due respect. Feeding kibble is easy, convenient and cost effective (as a general rule). I believe kibble has only been around for about 60 years. I wonder how sporting dogs survived prior? The domestication of dog occurred about 14,000 years ago but a new theory proposes about 100,000 years ago. One of the links you provided spoke about salmonella. There is so much crap written about this it's unbelievable. A dog's gut is super acidic but it isn't designed for grains. I'm need to end this here as my wife is calling me for dinner. Hopefully, mine is cooked... TZ
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My grandfather raised and trained hunting dogs (Llewellen setters) and took out hunting parties in the Washington DC area in the early 1900's. Wish I had known him to ask about the dogs, but he died long before I was born. My mother told stories about him cooking a large kettle of dog food outside over an open fire every weekend, because my grandmother wouldn't allow him to cook that stuff in the house. I never thought to ask what was in it, sure wish I had. Apparently there was no commercial dog food then, or it was too expensive.
We fed Jake raw when he was young. We'll never know if the chronic IBS he developed was because of something about the raw diet or in spite of it, but he sure didn't tolerate it well. Oddly enough, he has grade II rand grade III elbows too, although they don't seem to bother him.
We fed Jake raw when he was young. We'll never know if the chronic IBS he developed was because of something about the raw diet or in spite of it, but he sure didn't tolerate it well. Oddly enough, he has grade II rand grade III elbows too, although they don't seem to bother him.
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I have been feeding raw for over 13 years. I've raised not only puppies, but litters of puppies on raw. I currently feed and travel with 5 raw fed retrievers. It takes up a bit more space but it's not that difficult to manage and it is certainly no more expensive than the higher quality kibble. I've helped many people transition their pets, dogs and cats, young and old, some with health issues looking for a more natural diet. There are plenty of reports on the internet to both support and discredit raw feeding, so I'm not going to argue back and forth. Feeding raw was a choice I made years ago which helped my then 7 yo who was quite sick, live to be 14. Yes, I do credit his longevity to the change in diet as his issues were directly related to digestion. I chose to continue with raw moving forward and have never looked back. I have had many dogs over the years and not one has been fed kibble. I am not arguing raw vs kibble, I am simply saying raw is very safe and very doable. To the OP, If you'd like to chat about options feeding raw, please PM me. I'd be happy to share whatever information I can.
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Well I expressly cited these two because they were based on multiple peer-reviewed scientific journals. Look at the citations they used.
So again the challenge is provide scientific evidence not just anecdotal evidence -- "my dogs did better"
PS. I am not saying YOU should not feed RAW. I want YOU to provide scientific evidence I should change. Some of you know I am a retired research scientist and prone to consider the null hypothesis.
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Dennis: As an active research scientist, sadly many in our very research community don't even consider the null hypothesis anymore! It's the thing we hope we can refute otherwise we have no money
The poor null hypothesis, I appreciate you.
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You want the scientists to prove that real food is superior to kibble, but I believe you have it backwards---I believe that the feed companies should have to prove that kibble is superior or equivalent to real food. In some ways they have, in other ways they haven't. While we don't know for sure what food dogs have eaten since their domestication, we do know that they can survive well on diverse diets. We find dogs all over the globe, some are fed maize meal and very little meat by their humans yet seem to do ok, while others survive ok as pure scavengers. The thing these dogs have in common is that they are eating minimally processed food.
We know that dogs eating kibble are getting a minimally balanced diet, while, according to the references in the article you cited, many feeding raw or home made diets do not know what they are doing. Dogs eating raw have exposure to salmonella toxins, and there are case reports in which dogs became ill from it. But we also have many dogs becoming ill from toxins and manufacturing errors in kibble.
Meanwhile we don't know much about the long term effects of feeding kibble. There are other aspects of health to consider---obesity and periodontal disease, for example.
Do I think you need to feed raw? No, I think kibble is ok (that's what mine eat), but I think if someone had the time, interest and background in nutrition to feed their dog real food, that the dog will likely be healthier. The feed companies have not proven otherwise.
I can site many references about similar arguments in human nutrition. For years the researchers and journals funded by the infant formula companies published article after article concluding that breastmilk was not superior to substitutes, and any research showing otherwise was vigorously challenged by the formula companies. Nowadays, more research is based on the null hypothesis that breastmilk is better for most infants, and the research produced by the formula companies is more about showing that it does no harm. This is an area of nutrition that overlaps with my own field of expertise, in which I have a PhD. As far as dogs go, which I know much less about but among whom many of the same principles of health apply, I have found a few things along similar lines. Here are a few review pieces that I have looked at:
Here is one on diet and periodontal disease in dogs: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1751-0813.1994.tb00905.x/abstract
Here is one on the pros and cons of raw by two experts, the first expert concludes that many of the cons of raw would go away if the food were cooked: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/vnj.12174/full
Here is a rather balanced (IMHO) piece by a DVM on the debate: http://dogglehq.com/documents/cave2011.pdf
Here is a student paper on raw---it has lots of references: http://www.ukrmb.co.uk/images/Research Paper - Raw Diet v Kibble Diet .pdf
Here's one on canine obesity: http://www.vetsonline.com/publicati...hives/n-40-26/determining-fact-from-fiction-diet-and-canine-obesity-issues.html
And then there's the one on cancer I already cited. Of course, these are side stories to the standard guidelines established by the NRC and AAFCO.
I don't have an agenda, i am not promoting one food over another. The topic of dog nutrition interests me.
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Yes I would settle for either to be demonstrated-a little bit "chicken or egg first" debate. Basically, I am relying on qualified nutritionists, some of who I know and respect, formulating a kibble diet that is good for performance dogs. In using PPP, I see satisfactory performance and observe most of my top competition doing the same. Nobody blowing our socks off with RAW.
I'd settle for a null hypothesis: "There are no differences in nutritional and performance benefits of kibble(eg PPP) and RAW".
I couldn't open all your references. The one by Cave did attempt to be balanced, I also believe. Bottom-line-couldn't recommend RAW. The UK student had an agenda! The others high-lighted specific issues that can be somewhat avoided with management.
I too, don't have an agenda except to always consider what is best for my dogs. I just haven't been exposed to non-anecdotal evidence that I should change. If I was for some reason a RAW feeder, I would likely say the same thing. It's like the now fruitless debate elsewhere on RTF re Dr. Tim's and PPP. Endless circle.
My dog is better than your dog!
Cheers
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The raw feeding crowd had always relied upon the "evolutionary argument", meaning dogs and wolves were so closely related that a raw diet was the only thing they should eat. A few years back the esteemed Uppsala University did a study that proved this was totally incorrect and that dogs have a very different genetic make-up and in fact carbohydrates and cooked meat and grain was their ancestral diet.
http://www.nature.com/news/dog-s-dinner-was-key-to-domestication-1.12280
There is more proof that kibble is more closely related to what dogs ate than prey.
When it comes to cooked versus raw protein, there is no question cooked protein is more digestible than raw protein because heat unbundles the protein molecule. In eggs for example, raw egg protein is about 25% digestible while cooked egg is over 90% digestible.
Human evolution really advanced quickly when people learned to cook food because it was more digestible.
http://www.nature.com/news/dog-s-dinner-was-key-to-domestication-1.12280
There is more proof that kibble is more closely related to what dogs ate than prey.
When it comes to cooked versus raw protein, there is no question cooked protein is more digestible than raw protein because heat unbundles the protein molecule. In eggs for example, raw egg protein is about 25% digestible while cooked egg is over 90% digestible.
Human evolution really advanced quickly when people learned to cook food because it was more digestible.
I'm curious, did the study indicate which one of the pack dogs did the cooking??
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Good one!! This study validated the "village dog hypothesis" meaning that certain members of the wolf pack were social enough to visit early human settlements and scavenge for food or receive food directly from people. This also coincided with when humans began growing food and cooking food.I'm curious, did the study indicate which one of the pack dogs did the cooking??
So basically, this is what many scientists believed all along.
That study is a great read, so poke around for it. There is a huge difference between dogs and wolves.
That being said, all the wolves currently in re-population programs by law must eat dry dog food. Yes by law, so even wolves can do well on dry dog food.
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