Hi Lanegirl,
I'm not saying that a home-formulated all raw diet cannot be nutritionally complete, just that there are a lot of hidden pitfalls that many people may be unaware of. The biggest being there supplements.
Any dietary supplement purchased at health food stores is not a regulated product. You only have the companies word that the product contains what they say it contains. Unless you are paying to have your supplements analyzed you don't really know what you are adding to your dogs diet.
This can be avoided by obtaining individual feed grade vitamins and minerals, however most people will lack the equipment needed to accurately weigh out the correct quantity of the trace minerals and some vitamins.
With proper attention to detail a diet made at home would probably be better than store bought, but I wonder how often people are concerned with nutritional excess, not just deficiencies, from these diets.

There are a lot of resources out there written by animal nutritionists on the formulation of home made raw diets. I have been feeding my dogs this way for years and am a firm believer in it.

I personally don't feed pork but not for the safety reasons. I can get venison,beef, turkey and chicken for much cheaper. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

I look at feeding my dogs like I do feeding my family. We don't eat a 100% complete and balanced diet every meal......we eat a variety of different foods that are species appropriate for us. Same for the dogs.

There is a lot of good information out there with recipes for feeding your dogs and cats a raw diet that is easy to prepare. It's the people who make up their own diets with no research about the animals requirments who get into trouble.

Chad, I have to say to you....read what you wrote about purchasing supplements from a health food store.

"Any dietary supplement purchased at health food stores is not a regulated product. You only have the companies word that the product contains what they say it contains. Unless you are paying to have your supplements analyzed you don't really know what you are adding to your dogs diet."

I will say the same thing about commercial dog food!!! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

I am going to back up Cindy here. I find thinking that Chad Stahl PHD probably works for a dog food company or a veterinary pharmaceutical company.

His arguments against all-natural diets are consistent with the kind of malarkey that companies throw at pet owners to try and scare them into feeding commercial garbage to their dogs or to convince people to vaccinate their animals every year.

As far as the comments about supplements not being what their labels claim, my advice would be to stick with a brand name. I will guarantee you that if these people did not sell what they claimed they were selling the pharmaceutical company would be on them like sting on YOU KNOW WHAT. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" />

Here is my last note on raw diets,

Commercial dog food is regulated by the Food and Drug Administration. That is not to say that things don't end up in this food that shouldn't, but when this happens the company faces financial and legal ramifications.

My comment on nutritional supplements was just to draw attention to the fact that someone could grind-up cardboard and sell it at the local health food store as a dietary supplement and claim that it builds strong bones. This industry is completely "buyer beware"

Another point to remember is the qualifications of the "animal nutritionists" who do recommend these diets. They are a lot like some of the M.D.'s who come out with diet books. Just because someone takes a few classes on nutrition does not make them an expert. If you can find peer-reviewed research published by these nutritionists in this field I would be very surprised.

If on the other hand, you contact anyone of a number of fine animal nutritionists at accredited Universities around the country and they put together a raw diet that they think is nutrionally complete and healthy for the dog, I would absolutely agree that that would be a better diet.

Chad,

You wrote
"Commercial dog food is regulated by the Food and Drug Administration. That is not to say that things don't end up in this food that shouldn't, but when this happens the company faces financial and legal ramifications."

I may be wrong but I do not believe that.
Commercial dog food is regulated by the AAFCO. (which stands for Association of Animal Feed Control) They set the "standards" used to measure nutritional value in pet foods. Very low standards indeed. Every really research what meat meal is? It could be your neighbors euthanized poodle or Persian cat. But all they care about is the % numbers they put on the label. An old shoe and crank case oil shows nutritional adequacy when analyzed by the AAFCO.

If there is a pet food regulated by the FDA please give me the name of it. I'd like to check it out.

Chad, I notice you are a biologist. Perhaps you could share with us your qualifications as an animal nutritionist. I'm not trying to be snarky; I just want to know if your professional knowledge and training bears directly on this subject or if you're coming at it, as most of us on this board, as an "amateur," that is, one who does it for the love of it, albeit with a perhaps more scientific background.

Billinghurst, perhaps the best-known raw food proponent, bases his recommendations on many years of experience as a vet and BARF feeder. His book isn't particularly well written (he desperately needs a good editor), but it covered virtually all the major questions I had. And certainly Ed's advocacy of BARF, given his experience raising dogs, has to count for a lot--it does for me. For that matter, my trainer prefers it too, esp. green tripe, and he's been raising dogs for about 25 years.

I am certainly pleased by my dog's response to BARF: he has even more energy now (and he has always been high drive), and his dental health is superior. His coat is looking somewhat better, too, and his stools are now firm and dark, and less voluminous. I am fairly certain that much of this improvement is due to eliminating grains from his diet, plus the addition of the fats and other nutrients from chicken necks and backs, and all the goodies in green tripe.

And frankly, most of the BARF approach just seems like common sense to me. Dogs certainly didn't evolve to eat large quantities of grain, so why feed it to them? (I should note, however, that I'm somewhat biased here, since I myself am somewhat wheat intolerant). They did evolve to eat bones, and the offal of ruminants. So green tripe, other offal, chicken backs, ostrich necks, veggies, fruit, and some supplements (brewer's yeast--no reaction so far, kelp, some C and E, etc.) are what I'm using. I'll try pork tails as long as I can be assured it's domestic.

Hi Dave,
I received my M.S. and Ph.D. in Animal Science from an Ivy league University. My concentration for my M.S. research was improving the bioavailability of Ca, P, and trace minerals from plant sources for monogastric animals. My fields of concentration for my Ph.D. were nutritional biochemistry and microbiology. I did not conduct any of my research on dogs.
As far as nutritional adequacy of raw diets: it is completely possible to formulate an exceptional diet for dogs in this manner. My concern is that most people do not fully appreciate some of the risks involved, and are often given misleading or incorrect information on this topic. In quickly glances through some of the posts I noticed someone was told that dogs don't deal well with the Ca in dairy products, that is completely false. Many adult dogs do not produce the enzyme needed to digest lactose (the sugar in milk) and as a result suffer some gastrointestinal distress as a result. If dogs receive a source of lactose in their diet from weaning, they will continue to produce the enzymes necesssary to digest it, and will have no problems with it. Additionally many dairy products contain virtually no lactose. Cheeses produced by bacterial fermentation, these would be most aged cheeses, contain virtually indetectable levels of lactose. Cheeses made by acid coagulation of milk (feta, most american cheeses) will retain lactose, but it will still be much lower than in milk. There have also been reports of allergies to several of the major milk proteins, which cause a variety of symptoms that are unpleasant for both the dog and owner.

Another point to consider in purchasing, animal by-products (tripe, certain organ meat, etc) If you are not buying this as food grade these are some of the same things sent to rendering plants, however they will not be heat treated to destroy microorganisms.

As a side note, you can find out about regulatory action that the FDA has taken agianst pet food companies under the freedom of information act. By submitting a request to the government, they will provide you with all the documentation they have on the topic - as with almost everything else I believe there is a charge for this service.

Other nasty things that can end up in a raw diet that wouldn't in high heat treated diets:
-certain antibiotic residues
-certain drugs used in off-label fashions
-a myriad of microorganisms (while the dog's gut is capable of preventing most of these from causing a problem, they will cause a thickening of the intestinal wall which can reduce nutrient absorption and feed efficiency)

The raw diet issue has two very opinionated camps -

1- those for it (of which I am one)
2- those against it (the bad guys :-) )

The un-educated pet owner will always have a hard time trying to figure out what is what. My advice would be to listen to those with experience and not those with book learned knowledge.

It's easy to toss out figures and names, it's quite another thing to go out and breed dogs for 25 years and watch the results.

The arguments from those that talk against all-natural diets is to quote the extreme and stupid (i.e see what happens when you feed your dog meat that is going to a rendering company. An all-natural diet should be un-cooked human grade ingredients. Dog's are not humans - their system can deal with un-cooked food quite well.


A word of serious caution - be weary of the comments of people who tell you that commercial dog food is better than a human grade all-natural diet with supplements. These people either have a lot to learn about raising dogs or they are brain washed from the pet food industry.


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