raw food diet - Page 2

Hi Domenic, Congratulations on taking the first step to a RAW diet. Here is a link to just one of the sites offering a "point by point" rebuttal to the myths you have read on that "blue dog" site: http://rawfed.com/myths/rebuttal.html

Sue, the bottom line for me is this: it is a fact that dogs DO sometimes die from eating raw, meaty bones. You may argue that they were fed the 'wrong type' of bone, or that this happens rarely. I don't care. One dead dog is one dog too many, ESPECIALLY IF IT'S MY DOG! My pup is a very heavy chewer. I have a friend who had to have three broken teeth removed from one of her dogs as a result of chewing on bones, and she feeds only the safest type of bone, and supervises her dogs carefully. Hey, who needs that type of expense? Not me! What might be safe for one dog is not safe for another. Most dogs will not take apart a black kong, which are made of very hard rubber. Mine will demolish one in a couple of hours, if given the chance. I don't want to risk her doing the same thing to a bone, and winding up with an intestinal blockage or perforation. The site you linked talks about the importance of ancecdotal information. Well, I've accumulated enough of my own anecdotal information, just from people and dogs I know personally to have made my own decision. And that's WITHOUT reading the anecdotal accounts on the Blue Dog site from people who have lost their pets due to feeding raw. I'll say it again: ONE DEAD DOG IS ONE TOO MANY.

That's fine, not everyone will agree with either side, especially not you or me! The best thing to come about from what happened with the dog food scandal from China is now people are very aware of how important it is to feed real quality, whether it's RAW or KIBBLE !!! More and more people are getting away from feeding kibble full of corn and grains, and that's a really good thing, I'm sure we agree on that.

I will wager that, in terms of statistics, more dogs have died from eating commercial kibbles than from from eating raw.

So, show me the dog with its gut torn apart by the Killer Kibble, and you might have a point, Louise. I will agree that poor quality food can contribute to diseases, poor health and early death, but many dogs DO live long lives on cheap dog kibble. If they die, how do you prove the food caused it? Dogs killed by eating bones are easy to identify by an autopsy. But where kibble or other types of commercial food are concerned, it's much harder to show the damage. I'm sure even in the case of outright toxic substances as happened with the melamine contamination, many cases were just dismissed for lack of proof. The animal had been buried or cremated already, before the news broke, or it was elderly and the death was attributed to kidney failure from old age. As someone said elsewhere, only scientific research over a period of many years can really prove who's correct in this debate. Without hard-core facts and figures, all we have is anecdotal evidence. Mind you, when my friend tells me about her $1,500 bill for dentistry on her bone-chewing dog, that's pretty compelling anecdotal evidence...

I've had dogs fracture teeth from schutzhund injuries and fence-running--requiring several root canals. I've also had dogs on high-quality commercial diets suffer bloat. Bottom line--no broken teeth or bloat on raw. Frankly, I think that dogs who learn to properly and methodically chew raw, meaty bones as young pups are going to have stronger teeth and are less likely to become "heavy chewers". If folks (such as Domenic) are attracted the concept of a raw diet but are reluctant to feed bones, they may feed a balanced freeze-dried diet or a dehydrated raw diet such as The Honest Kitchen (which measures up to AAFCO standards, BTW).

I think that everyone that owns a dog or cat should look at all there options. There are some great dry foods out there and if you have the time and the stomach raw is also (IMO) great. I have raised puppies on raw as well as switched older dogs to it with no problems. I have to be honest, I spent more money and time at the vet when my dogs ate dry. I had skin problems, ear problems, diarrhea, vomiting. All totally random and according to the vet no apparent reason. The vet I go to now knows that i feed raw and the only thing he has to say about it is to make sure they are chewing the bones well. It only takes one problem to make someone think twice about the way the do things, I my case it was tons of expensive vet bills and about 10 different brands of dry to realize it was not working for me. Good luck

just feed your dogs raw and then look in their eyes, trust me u will be satisfied.

"I've had dogs fracture teeth from schutzhund injuries and fence-running--requiring several root canals. I've also had dogs on high-quality commercial diets suffer bloat. Bottom line--no broken teeth or bloat on raw" I will add that I had one dog,raised on raw from puppyhood, develop severe HD (one of the raw books makes a claim concerning raw and HD) and also break an adult canine while on raw. I had a second dog develop severe perianal fistulas on same diet. He is however, allergic to chicken we now find out. Doing well since he went back on a kibble diet. I researched and fed a very balanced raw diet. But I did go back to kibble after the problems, and after thinking my two most recent kibble fed dogs lived 15 and 14 years, respectively. I am still not real strong opinion either way but have not seen otherwise a big difference between the two diets and my dogs.

The theory of evolution I'm not buying. Native American dogs fed domestic foods. LOL What would that entail? Inerds, feet, heads, bones? The throw away portions the Indians didn't want themselves. Still raw. Bottom line is their jaws and heads are smaller because they are a smaller candid, just like I coyote or fox but still a candid. As far as our own domestic dogs are concerned, have we already forgotten it hasn't been hundreds or thousands of years since kibble came to be? How can our dogs be "adjusted" to it internally? That statement makes me think that maybe I have evolved to survive on McDonalds and I probably couldn't handle food from the health food store. Your right, one dead dog is one dog too many and how many hundreds of dogs died in the kibble crisis?