I have a three-month-old GSD pup that I want to put on BARF. I wanted to do this since before he even arrived, however although I know that dogs are built to resist bacteria like salmonella, I don't know if they can transmit the bacteria to people. I try to socialize my pup with people every chance I get, and I don't want him to pass on salmonella to a small child by licking their face.

Is this a possibility? If so, how do you deal with it? Right now the pup is on Innova, which seems head and shoulders above other kibbles, and I occasionally give him boiled egg with the shells and carrots/apple, but I know that nothing beats a raw diet and I want to start him on it ASAP. If anyone could explain this to me I'd appreciate it alot.

I haven't gone to the Barf diet for the same reason. I started my dogs on the Barf diet a year ago. But they would carry around the chicken wings and hold them with there front paws as they eat them. The dogs also lick my face and I couldn't see how that could be ok.

I would like a good explanation as to how this could be safe. All I've heard is that people feed BARF and hadn't had a problem with it. I never hear any good explanations of why.

My dogs and pups have been fed this diet for over 8 yrs. and I have never had any problems or issues with it being transmitted to me or others (including children).

However, I do feed my meat all ground. (chicken necks and backs included) so they do not carry anything around the house.

Many people think that it is chewing on the bones that keeps the teeth clean but in reality it is not. When dogs are fed a raw diet, their body produces an enzyme/liquid etc that comes up into the mouth. This is what keeps the teeth clean and our dogs able to eat someone 'rotting'food and not have problems in the system. Therefore I would assume that once your dog has eaten and making sure that there is no 'food' hanging around the mouth there should be no concerns.

It might also interest you to know that recently there was an article in the Vancouver Sun regarding as study that was done to 'prove' that having animals in the house made children more suseptable to allergies and other problems. Instead the study showed that children that grew up on farms or grew up with animals in the house had FEWER problems with allergies and asmtha.

It runs along the same premise as the studies and concerns about using too much anti bacterial products. We do this thinking that we are helping but in reality they are saying that it is causing more problems. Our bodies are not building up a natural resistance to bacterias as they are not being exposed to them.

Having said that one should always use common sense and take necessary precautions with children.

I tried to go back and edit my post to add this but was unable to.

Forgot to mention that the enzyme that the dog has in its mouth is very strong and kills the bacteria etc.