My question: Do you supplement your dog's diet with enzymes? I've read LB's articles about raw food diet and also have a book about it.

But nothing covers enzyme supplements. I've read in an other article that dogs need them, because they can digest properly only when they recieve them with their meals, but often not sufficiently.

Additionally they should recieve them also about two hours after their meals, as this helps for varios other important functions of their metabolism. If given only with the meals they are used up completly for digestive purposes.

I feed my dogs raw food diet, including mainly meat - bigger amount muscle and smaller amount organic - , also whole eggs, raw bones and certain veggies and fruits. So they do recieve enzymes.

But the author writes, a carnivore should primarily be given enzyme supplements coming from animals. Although they naturally eat vegetables, which they get from the stomach of their herbivore prey, it is different because it is already predigested.

It sounds logic to me, but I don't really know.

Christina, I know this is the second time in a few days that you have posted this question. No one else has answered, so I'd like to provide just a little information, with the understanding that I am not a nutritional expert, and I am not a raw feeder.

Please read this article:

http://www.dogsnaturallymagazine.com/enzymes-and-your-dog/

You are right that enzymes are crucial for the digestive process in dogs -- and most other mammals, I'm sure. Nature has made provisions that we all get these substances in sufficient amounts if we eat a balanced, species-appropriate diet. Enzymes are also produced naturally in the pancreas. The raw diet you describe sounds more than sufficient to me. After all, wild canids do not suffer from enzyme deficiencies, eating the raw and natural diet that is found in their environment.

My understanding is that enzymes are destroyed by the heat used in processing dry and canned dog foods. So I suppose it is those people who should be a little more concerned about supplementing with enzymes. I'll be honest. I feed dry and canned food (as well as a variety of fresh add-ons), and I do not add an enzyme supplement.

I hope others with experience with raw feeding, in particular, will chime in here, but in the meantime, this is just my two cents, based on information I have learned over the years from various books, internet sites, and talking to others about dog nutrition.

P.S. Are you asking because one or more of your dogs is showing symptoms of a digestive issue or some other health problem?

Hi, Cheri. I'm very thankful for your answer. In fact I didn't want to post it twice here and bother our members with it. It happened because I thought I had posted it on the wrong spot. so I put it again under "health", but it occurred here again.

I've become a rawfeeder because I learned to mistrust all those kibble or canned products with all their stabilizers, colorants, meats of ill, antibiotic fed and even euthanized animals. Cooked, processed, including grains which dogs absolutely don't need. They burden their digestion (dependant on quantity of course) or are even harmful especially when cooked (wolfs, dogs, cats- as far as I know - don't cook). Of course there are serios firms who don't sell such a cheep mixture. But difficult to distinguish them from others.

Yes dogs eat also grass or fruits they find, they provide them with minerals, vitamins, antioxidants. but as I read only the predigested things from preys are the useful source for producing enough enzymes. This part confused me as well as the timing of when to give it to them, as they need them not only for digestion.

They need it for Immune function, hormon production, against inflammation, fpr removal of toxins etc,, as the article describes which you posted. Thanks for this one, it matches almost exactly with the one I had read.

Thanks again! Until now my dogs are healthy, but I want tp prepare things in advance.

As Cheri says, many enzymes naturally present in raw (and maybe very lightly-cooked) foods are partially or completely destroyed by the prolonged cooking of kibble and canned foods. This is my opinion, anyway.

I've fed raw for many years (and also The Honest Kitchen freeze-dried and some canned foods). I've always been careful about sources, trying always for small pasture-raising outfits with humanely raised and slaughtered animals. I don't trust preground meats, with their bacteria-laden surfaces folded inward where colonizing is rapid. (I have lots of problems with factory-farmed meat.)

All that said, my opinion is that the food I've fed my dogs for years retains most of its natural enzymes.



Just want to add that I believe that nowadays it's quite possible to feed a good diet without feeding raw.

I'm fully of your opinion, Connie. I also have made best experiences with raw food. Preground meats i don't use, for the reasons you're mentioning. But pasture-raising outfits I don't know how to get here. Nothing is declared here, we don't know how the slaughter animals are kept. Those which are sold by private people are not controled. The animals may live free, but whether the meat contains parasites is in such cases not at all controlled.

We know that a dog with a healthy immune system can deal much better with different parasites than humans, So we think what is controlled for human consumption is still the best choice for our dogs here. The parasite factor is almost negligible. To be on the safe side we also deep freeze meat and fish, as most parasites are killed like this. There are exceptions though.

But as I mentioned above all this doesn't explain if one should give the dogs enzyme supplements. Even if we give them the best food we can it remains the fact that their immune system has not changed within the so many thousands of years they live with humans and they can't produce their enzymes or at least not sufficiently.

Maybe I'm too concerned about all this, may be I'm just a victim of a certain fear politic made to make people buy more than is necessary. One never knows what is true. That's why I wanted to know how experienced and responsible people deal with this.

Thanks for your answer, Connie. Yes I also believe a diet of kibble or canned food can be healthy. But unfortunately we cannot look into it.