What Is a Raw Diet?

There are a number of different raw diets out there that you can feed your dog. Here are the most common:

• Pre-Made Raw Diets - These are raw diets that you can buy already prepared. They come in a number of varieties such as chicken, lamb, rabbit, beef, pork, etc. Some have vegetables mixed in and some don't. Some have bones ground in with the meat, and some don't. Here are a couple pre-made raw food companies:
  

Healthy Pet Products Beef Complete
Bravo! Raw Diets
Omas Pride
Nature's Variety

While these pre-made diets are convenient, they tend to be expensive if you're feeding a large dog or multiple dogs. Because they're ground, these diets also don't provide the dental benefit dogs receive from eating raw meaty bones.

• BARF - BARF stands for "bones and raw food." When you follow this diet, you feed your dog a combination of raw meat, meaty bones, raw fruits and vegetables, and some dairy products. Some people also feed grain, although that's not really needed.

• Prey-Model - The prey-model of raw feeding tries to mimic what a wolf would naturally eat in the wild. The more complete the animal, the better. For example, many people feeding prey-model will give a dog a rabbit with hair and everything. It is possible to feed a prey-model diet without going to this extreme however. The point is to feed your dog just meat and bones, with a great variety in the meat.

With all three of these options, it's important to feed a variety of food. For example, it's not good to feed your dog just chicken. Feeding only one type of meat will not provide your dog with the nutrition it needs.

Now that you understand the basic differences in the raw diets, we'll move on to portion sizes in our next blog entry.

Raw Holistic Dog Feeding on Oprah

I'm not sure if ya'll saw it, but today Oprah had a whole show on dogs. :) She had a segment on with her vet who is a holistic vet, and he discussed what dogs should actually be eating. I was pretty skeptical when she intro'd the segment, but I was pleasantly surprised when her vet recommended feeding raw as the best dog diet. The second best was home-cooking. (The worst was #7 - dry kibble from the grocery store...)

Here's what the Oprah site says about this segment...

Link to Oprah page...

Dr. Marty Goldstein, author of The Nature of Animal Healing, is an expert on holistic pet medicine and the veterinarian caring for Oprah's dog Sophie, who is suffering from kidney failure. Based on Dr. Marty's advice, Oprah says she now feeds her dogs a mixed diet of chicken, beef, lamb, brown rice, potatoes and carrots.

Dr. Marty says most people feed their dogs diets that go against their animal nature. He says a dog that eats only dry food is like a person who eats nothing but carbs!

Dr. Marty says the best thing for a dog to eat is raw meat. Dr. Marty says his own dog, Danny, ate this diet and lived to be 19! "Danny lived on fresh cooked meat and brown rice and carrots, peas, lamb, potatoes. You know, real food. What did they eat in nature? They ate real food."

To get Dr. Marty's advice on what to feed your pet, visit www.drmarty.com.

And here's some great information from Dr. Marty's website:
http://www.drmarty.com/feeding.htm

Aim for the Ideal

Diet decisions are not a matter of right or wrong. If you understand what is ideal, you can then create a feeding program that will help move your pet closer to the healthiest diet options. In general, the more real food your dogs and cats eat, the healthier they will be.

The chart below outlines how our feeding choices for our pets (companion carnivores) can affect their health. The closer to the upper level choices, the better the chance for optimal health. You will likely be in the middle ranges most of the time. That is fine, as long as you always press toward the ideal.

Ideal - Healthiest
1. Hunted, raw prey (not realistic in modern society)

2. Fresh raw meats, bones, organ meats with very small amounts of fresh vegetables. Include a well-rounded vitamin/mineral mix and omega 3 essential fatty acids (salmon oil). You can prepare your own raw diet using meat/bone pieces and parts, or you can use pre-prepared ground products such as Bravo! and Nature’s Variety.

3. Fresh cooked meats, calcium, organ meat, with very small amounts of fresh vegetables. Include a vitamin/mineral mix, and omega 3 essential fatty acids (salmon oil). There are several books on the market that help you create your own home-cooked diet. It’s best to follow the recipes in these books.

4. Ultra Premium commercial canned foods and augmented with some fresh, raw foods. Canned foods, which are lower in carbohydrates, are much better for your pet than dry kibble. Some of the brands I like are Nature’s Variety, Merrick, and Evanger’s. These products are mostly meat, are usually grain-free, and very low in carbohydrates. The meat they use is human quality and they do not use by-products or chemical preservatives.

5. As in #4 above, but adding fresh cooked foods

6. Ultra Premium canned commercial foods WITHOUT fresh raw or cooked foods added

7. Super Premium canned foods are very much like the brands above, but they use more grains. They still use good quality meats and don't contain by-products. Brand examples: Blue Buffalo, Innova, Pet Promise.

8. Super Premium grain-free dry food (kibble) like Instinct by Nature’s Variety
Premium canned foods. These brands use substantially less meat. Water is often the number 1 ingredient (in the Ultra Premium brands meat is the number one ingredient), they use meat by-products (poor quality waste parts) and they usually contain significant amounts of grains and chemical preservatives. Often, if all the grains are added together, they would equal or exceed the meat. The meat quality is OK, but just barely.

9. Super Premium kibble like Innova, Prairie, Canidae, and Timberwolf
Grocery store brands – canned or dry. These contain very little meat, are made with substantial amounts of meat by-products, and primarily consist of grain and grain by-products. The rendered meat used in these products came from condemned animals, ie – animals that were deemed unfit for human consumption. These products normally contain artificial colors, flavors and chemical preservatives.

Worst - Unhealthy

The Purpose of This Blog

The purpose of this blog is to help other people who would like to feed your dog raw foods. I want to provide a supportive environment where you can learn the benefits of raw, how to feed raw foods, and all the stuff in between!

I have just started feeding my dogs raw myself. I started April 3, 2007. I want to share with you what I learn, the mistakes I make, the resources I find, and the success stories that are sure to follow.

Please feel free to leave comments about your own raw-feeding experiences. We're all constantly learning, and this is a benefit to us all - and to our beloved dogs!

Raw Diets are Healthy for Dogs

I'm sure most of you are aware of the horrible scandal going on right now in the pet food industry. Dog food, cat food, and dog treats are being recalled right and left due to deadly amounts of contaminants in these products.

What is a concerned owner to do?

There are a few options:

• Continue feeding what you're currently feeding and hope for the best.
• Change foods if your food of choice is on the recalled list. Of course, this begs the question - is my dog food next on the list? Will my best friend be stricken with a deadly illness before the pet food manufacturer decides that it will cost less to recall than to not?
• Change over to a home cooked dog food diet.
• Change over to a raw diet - either a BARF diet or a prey-model diet.

This blog is dedicated to the raw diet - both the BARF diet (Bones and Raw Food) and the prey model. Honestly though, we tends towards the prey-model diet.