Yesterday I took my dog to the vet. I don't want to get into the reason for that, it isn't relevant to my question.

The vet asked me what we feed him, and I told him, raw meat. (Currently he gets 1/2 Natures Variety http://www.naturesvariety.com/content.lasso?page=1308&-session=naturesvariety:43AA30231dfb625570vmX3F61FC4 and 1/2 Honest Kitchen http://leerburg.com/honestkitchen.htm)

The vet freely shared his opinion of feeding raw meat, he said "I think that's stupid." I told him the breeder I bought Hans from feeds raw, that I've talked to a number of people who do, and a number of people who don't. He told me he objects to raw for two reasons. First, raw meat has bacteria and parasites, and if we are giving our dog raw meat we are exposing ourselves to those things. Second, dogs started living longer when they started getting fed kibble. He elaborated on both of these, but what I related here is the meat of his argument.

My argument back to the vet is that everything I have heard about feeding raw diets is anecdotal. I haven't seen any scientific studies that are either pro or con. I guess he hasn't either, because he wasn't able to quote from any. We kept the discussion on a very civil level, and he said he would look for studies, and if he found any he would share them with me in two weeks when we bring Hans back. In his discussion of the kibbles, he told me to very carefully read the labels, and while his clinic sells what he referred to as high quality kibbles, he honestly told me the only information he has about them comes from the company that sells them.

OK, long story short. I know there is a lot of anecdotal evidence about the benefits of a raw diet. I know this board has many devotees who swear by it. The breeder I bought Hans from feeds raw, has great looking and healthy dogs, and is very successful. But I would really like to know if there are any scientific studies on the pros and cons of feeding raw. Does anyone know, and if so, can you point me to them?

Hi Rich,
If you click on Search and type raw diet in to the search bar and then go down and click newer than 1 year it comes up with 8 pages of discussion. I am sure if you put newer than X amount of years you will get even more...

P.S. I feed raw and have been for a couple months now, my dogs look, act and smell better and I am not out cleaning up kennels everyday....

Yes, there is a study that was done in Germany (?) on cats. It was not kibble vs. raw but on cooked vs. raw. I believe the scientist's name was Kissinger. Anyway, he noted that cats fed cooked meat did not thrive, had shorter life spans, and had sick and sometimes malformed kittens. The raw-fed cats thrived.

Also, you could look into what performance dogs (like sled dogs) are fed. Kibble hasn't been around that long and sled dogs in the north were always fed seal meat, caribou meat, and fish; they were expected to run for several hours a day. I can't speak to their longevity though.

As far as I know, Kissinger's study was the only really scientific study done on cooked vs. raw. I don't know if there are any on kibble. Hope this helps.

That was informative to me, I had heard of this study about endurance and the feeding for sled competition dogs and it was a great eye opener on using raw meat.

Hi Rich. We've had that conversation with our vet too - with only a slightly different outcome.

Our vet also mentioned the "lack" of scientific studies on raw feeding v. anectodal evidence from people who just do it. The issue I see (and our vet acknowledged) with purely scentific, tightly controlled studies, according to "the book" is that somebody must pay for it.

The pet food companies have no motivation to fund studies about raw feeding - they don't profit from that. The people food processors (chicken and other common protein sources with raw feeding) aren't all that motivated either - they are already making their money from people food sales. And their "by-products" are already going into pet food, so technically, they are using the whole animal already. Pay me here, or pay me there.

That's why the "lack of scientific studies" argument on a variety of topics beyond this one doesn't hold water with me. People rarely fund true scientific studies, under accepted scientific procedures, without financial motivation for doing so. (and then, they want to influence the result of such "studies" - just ask my cousin, the agricultural chemist, what sort of pressures SHE has gone through over the years for studies to "turn out" a "certain way"....)

I personally believe what is before my own eyes. Better coats, better teeth, better smells (on many levels including cough*farts*cough). Less vet visits (your vet is probably not going to point THAT benefit out!) etc.

While my own vet won't advocate a raw diet due to "lack of sceintific studies" - he's at least honest enough not to REFUTE the possibility that raw feeding is better. He mentioned to us "anecdotally" that "many" clients are now feeding raw, and he has seen far more improvement in the dog health - WAY more than anything he could point to that is negative.

My dogs eat lots of disgusting things ranging from poop (theirs, and from other animals), squirrels, moles, mice, and an occassional possum. You can't convince me that raw chicken from the meat counter is more "dangerous" to me than the stuff my dogs eat regularly anyway. And given enough time and space (and thankfully, my dogs have lots of both) - ANY dog (IMO) will eat what's available out there. It's fun to catch, it's natural instinct to catch and eat it, etc.

Bottom line - the whole "scientific study" question ALWAYS bothers me because you have to follow the money. So I would never rely purely on a "scientific study" especially when the money trail doesn't work out for that.

Beth

One of my best friends is almost done with vet school and has interned at my local vet hospital for two years. I've gotten to be friendly with many of them and I asked many of the vets about why they don't advocate raw feeding and all of them had pretty much the same answer:

When done exactly right, raw feeing is best.

HOWEVER:

When done wrong, it can have devestating effects on an animal, much worse than kibble.

AND:

Most people will do it wrong, so they hedge their bets and go with what is most likely going to keep the dog from being ill.


I can actually see their point. Many unfortunate things have been done with good intentions. Most people, sadly, won't put the effort or the time into researching and creating an excellent diet for their dogs. And if those people did a slipshod attempt at raw and just fed them nothing but hamburger all day and night...the dog would have been better off on a good kibble.

Of course, not all vets feel this way. Some think that the almighty kibble dollar is the best and that raw is evil and they don't know why except that they were told that by the...gasp!...kibble companies!!

there's a lot of sled dogs around here. the ones i know of boil the meat. they get stuff from the slaughterhouse that isn't fit for human consumption, so they have to boil it.

beth, great points about how much credence to put in "scientific studies." ask any science reporter how much they trust these studies; everyone knows that science is paid for and there are conflicts of interest.

if you have doubts about raw feeding, but still want to try it, there really isn't any proof out there that can satisfy a critical mind. the best proof is to try it for a limited amount of time. find a good mentor and let them guide you up the very steep learning curve at the beginning.

i committed to putting my dog on raw for two months, and this let me find out

1. how it affected his health
2. how much it cost
3. how difficult/time consuming it would be.

at the end of only two weeks, i knew i would never go back. a dog that had visited the vet twice a week the entire time i'd owned him suddenly never needed to go any more. his vet actually called after about a month saying she just wanted to find out how he was! lol.

btw, she was vehemently opposed to raw feeding. i wonder why? it certainly was very bad for her bottom line.

i know of one vet clinic that has started selling billinghurst's raw diet to clients, to offset the loss of income because so many of their clients' pets had switched to raw, and they didn't need to see the vet more often than their annual physical. if you can't beat 'em, join 'em!

Along with what Beth said about "scientific studies", I believe scientific studies are bogus anyway....because studies done for humans and their food consumption change yearly to every 5 years, constantly creating new trends and fads on what we as humans should and should not eat - it's quite tiring to keep up with these unscientific "scientific" studies. Example: first it was "eat the whole egg, full of protein", to "only part of the egg is good for you, only eat the egg whites", back to "eat the whole egg cause both parts work together and the whites cancel out the 'ill' effects (ha!) of the yolk". There's a lot more effort into "scientific studies" put into human food consumption than will ever be put into food for dogs. I go with what I see in front of me, a shiny coated strong healthy 6 month old pup, who unlike my son's Maltese puppy (who he ended up putting on kibble instead of raw), loves his food.

In 1925, a medical mission was run from (I believe) Anchorage to Nome during a diphtheria epidemic by sled dogs taking medicine to combat the disease. These sled dogs ran 100 miles or more a day!!! In cold freezing temps, blizzard conditions at times. I don't know what they were fed, but I don't think kibbles were around then. There may have been other types of prepackaged dog foods and it would be interesting to find out what they were fed daily and during that trip. Perhaps meats and fish, perhaps cooked or frozen raw.

 Quote: amber morgan

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When done exactly right, raw feeing is best.

HOWEVER:

When done wrong, it can have devestating effects on an animal, much worse than kibble.

True.

And the "wrong" thing, from what I have read and heard, is feeding a diet of all muscle meat and no bones. This is a nutritional disaster for a dog. The phosphorous-calcium ratio, that all-important factor of canine nutrition, is basically nothing more complicated than the proportion of bone to muscle and organ meat in the kill that a wild canid would eat in prey-ideal conditions.

So while doing raw wrong is indeed a disaster (if the most common failing is the "wrong" part), doing it right is pretty simple with a little reading and care. The idea is to duplicate what the dog would eat on his own... what he has evolved to eat.

Dogs have not evolved to digest grains, and they don't have the digestive equipment to do it on a regular basis.

MHO is that the pancreatic stress of trying to produce the unnatural quantity of enzymes needed to extract protein from grains instead of meat is a big factor in immune system problems, including allergies, and probably organ derangement that predisposes the animal to cancer.

But I agree that good kibble that is not grain-heavy would be far preferable (IMO) to feeding a raw diet that was as terribly askew as a 100% muscle meat diet.