I am hoping to start feeding my pup a raw diet so dont disagree with you in that you know exactly what ur feeding and being beter than most if not all commercial foods in that nothing is added to it. But think you are being slightly harsh it is person preferance what people decide to feed their dogs, Tan is a new DW and I think it would be a shame if she was put off of DW because she has been critised for not feeding raw, lots of people feed commercial foods on dogweb and have happy healthy dogs.
Dont want to cause offence and as I said do agree with you but feel it was slightly harsh

lol, i know that's my fault, being too harsh. I get a bit frustrated and forget we all have to start somewhere. For the record sorry for being harsh, but I did say ''without sounding too mean'' !!

My frustration lies with the large companies that spend millions (I ain't joking either, 2001 Pedigree chum 11 million on advertising alone) on convincing us that their food is the best for our dogs. When really you might as well feed the bag it comes in for all the nutritional value it contains! No wonder we are all brainwashed why they are allowed to lie to us like this, claiming false things. RRRRRRUUHGHHH.

My Gosh, people get quite passionate about food around here!
Have you come across this article, which came up on a Google search for raw food diets
http://www.burns-pet-nutrition.co.uk...ohnBurns03.pdf
Seems pretty well argued, and concludes by saying that raw food is ok, but isn't the only way.
I'll maybe add the occasional bit of raw to the normal complete food, and try and get the best of both worlds - I'm sure that's a red rag to a bull for the purists though

FWIW, I think Jess's post was a little on the harsh side too.

I choose to raw feed but I am not a food fascist by any means. I'm a great believer in feeding whatever suits your dog, your lifestyle and your pocket

Millions of dogs live perfectly happy, healthy lives on the commercially available diets (even the rubbish ones, in many cases). If for any reason i couldn't go on feeding raw, there are several completes that I would happily switch to.

Hi All,

I've always cooked for my dogs, chicken, rice, pasta, etc. etc.

I've never believed in tinned food (sorry to those who do).

I want to ask, why do such a lot of dog owners feed their dogs raw food ?

What is so different about it ?

Surely the cooking of food, especially meat, helps to keep bacteria to a minimum ?

Please don't think I'm getting at anyone or anything, I'm just interested, as we wouldn't dream of eating most foods raw ourselves, would we ?

Kind regards

Radar

I guess it's whatever suits your lifestyle!
Sometimes we have salad, other times I cook from raw... and then there's the temptation of the chill counter at Tescos and chuck it in the microwave!

Dogs are designed to eat raw meat and bones. Bacteria doesn't affect them like it would in humans as a dog's digestive system is different. Inevitably, cooking destroys some of the nutrients.

In the wild, dogs would not have access to carbohydrate rich foods (like pasta/rice) and, as such, there is no real place for them in a balanced canine diet. They simply don't need them like humans do. Most veg etc. would be obtained from the stomach of prey and partially digested as dogs cannot break down veg themselves (which is why those of us who raw feed pulp the veg first).

Basically, raw feeding is about trying to create as natural a diet as possible, close to what dogs ate in the thousands of years before commercial diets were available.

Thank you for your explanation Shaynlola,

Kind regards

Radar

But surely the domestic dog has evolved from its wild ancestor?
I guess for thousands of years they've been sharing mankind's food and not hunting.

To quote from an article I found ' There are practical reasons why the diet of the wild dog is not automatically suitable for the domestic dog. The modern dog and its lifestyle bear no similarity whatever to the wild dog. We provide shelter in heated houses, they do not have to forage or compete for food, they eat every day, and they have little exercise compared to a wild dog.

Many dogs have dietary sensitivity which means that they need a highly digestible diet, low in protein and low in fat. I can’t see how that could be achieved with a BARF diet.

Modern farm livestock is reared in such a way that the fat content, even in “lean” meat is very high. So a diet high in meat will inevitably be high in fat too.'

According to Dr Billinghurst dogs cannot digest carbohydrate. In reality, the dog has very sophisticated, sensitive and efficient mechanisms for breaking down carbohydrate and ensuring its absorption. This could not have evolved if carbohydrate was detrimental.'

It doesn't affect me as raw feeding doesn't suit my lifestyle, but I guess it's not a black & white issue.
(by the way, the article was at http://www.burns-pet-nutrition.co.uk..._Food_Diet.htm)

I see a lot of healthy looking dogs around who have done well on a whole range of feeding systems - maybe we're guilty of imposing our own prejudices onto them (Gosh, that's a bit deep this time in the morning )

Time to go to work I reckon

We freeze all our raw food and take it out the day before to defrost so there is only ever two dog meals in the fridge at a go.
As all the meat we feed is fit for human consumption it is no different to any other meat we have in the fridge.
I don't really like handling raw meat - its the smell, yuk - but well worth the effort as it has made a great difference to our dog since he started on the raw diet.