Please tell me:
What nutrients a dog needs that it can readily obtain from fruit or veg, that isn't available in meat, bones and organs?

I don't believe everything I read. Indeed I did alot of reading and research before deciding to go raw at all and then into which method was the best.

Billinghurst's diet is IMO much to high in bone, leaving dogs constipated... then rather than balancing bone with organ and meat as it would be echoed in the wild he proceeded to add veg and fruit (most of which would never be found in the stomach contents of prey; not that the stomach contents is rarely consumed) in order to have a laxative effect and produce more normal stools.

On the occasional days where my dogs get some cooked veg left over from our plates, you can see that there is more bulk of waste the next day, often the bits of veg in the waste.

Billinghurst wrote his books a along while back... and if you weren't feeding veg no wonder you had constispation.
I never had a problem, but I am not billinghursty either, I have read them all and then came up with a diet that suited myself and my research.
If I were to recommend any reading it would be Wendy Vollhard.

It is all very well people saying 'in the wild this' and 'in the wild that' but the fact remains that dogs are not wild, the classification 'familiaris' means just that - domesticated. And with that they came to feed on our scraps.
I am one of these in betweeners - dogs are NOT wild ---99.999999999999% of domesticated dogs for generations have been fed scraps and NOT had to catch their own dinner. Feeding Meat only can be dangerous, but some animals can survive on it. On the other hand feeding lots of veg will reduce the lifespan too as it takes alot of work for the system.
We natural feeders have a headache don't we!?!?!

I've never had a problem with the dogs becoming constipated and never stated I did. I know people that have been feeding many dogs this way for 30+ years and their dogs have been doing wonderfully on it. I see no reason to go to the expense and effort of buying and pureeing/steaming veg when my dogs simply don't need it. Sure the occasional scraps get thrown their way; but not as a ness part of their diet.

Evie: you said :" On the occasional days where my dogs get some cooked veg left over from our plates, you can see that there is more bulk of waste the next day, often the bits of veg in the waste".

Exactly Evie, that is the whole point. The veg MUST be pureed in a smoothie maker (preferably), or at worst a liquidiser, else the dog won't be able to digest them, even cooked veg.

The most important thing that dogs need and must get from veg is fibre - both soluble and insoluble. Dogs fed veg free diets are VERY prone to diseases involving the failure of food to be absorbed, pancreatic disease and other pancreatic problems such as sugar diabetes and pancreatitis.

There are also all vitamin requirements to be found in veg - with the exception of vitamin B12 of course, and it has to be said veg is also low in thiamin and choline. To my knowledge, dogs are not going to obtain vit C in sufficient quantity in bones and meat alone. I know that supplements can be fed, but that is never as good as getting vitamin and mineral requirement from a natural diet.

And Elvie, whoever said about steaming veg? We must not steam veg for our dogs, they must have it raw. There is little effort in pureeing veg in a smoothie maker, and even less expense. I cannot understand why you are so intractable on this point. It won't hurt the dog to feed veg, all you are doing is wasting a tiny bit of money and a bit of effort.

To my mind, it is not worth the risk. I know yourself, Lara and others have all told us how well their dogs do on a veg free diet, that's great. I know countless humans who never seem to eat a piece of fruit or any veg, some of them even look healthy, slim, spot free. But one day, their poor diet will catch up with them - maybe they won't ever know it, they will live out their natural span of 3 score years and 100 with no-one any the wiser - but how much longer could they have lived had they eaten their 5 a day?

I just would not want to take the risk if it were me.

Jess: dogs (aka domesticated wolves) have only been domesticated for the blink of an eye in evolutionary terms - around 100 thousand years I believe. This is absolutely no way, no how, long enough to be able to change something so important as diet. Which is why you and I are good little BARF'ers, or at least I will be when I get another dog.

Indeed, feeding too much veg is bad, the dog's digestive system is only geared up to digest a small amount of herbivore stomach content (or in our case pureed veg!)

As you say, the trials and tribulations of being a BARFer

I really feel that I@m going round in circles repeating myself on this thread anothers on here.

A dogs digestive system remains the same as the wolves. It is designed for quick digestion, smooth walled intestines which are short, highly acidic stomach etc which meat etc needs. Not the slow digestive process that veg needs, ie: teeth and jaws that can chew, saliva enzymes, long winding intestines to take the time to extract the goodness from veg. The correct enzymes to extract the goodness from the veg.

The veg you are feeding IS NOT the same as found in stomach contents of prey; which is often not eaten anyway.

So long as it's not taking up a major part of your dogs diet it's not going to do harm. But I don't see the point in bothering.

I feel that the points I've made here in the past, along with references given aren't being rea and taken on board. I don't think there is much else I can say on the matter.

I feel that many people have had it ingrained in them from a human point of view that fruit and veg are an important part of the diet that they translate this into feeding for dogs as well. But that wouldn't be species appropraiate feeding, would it?

Evie: I too am getting frustrated - not with you pesonally, because I always enjoy having a good debate - but with your recalcitrance!! In your own words, you say "I don't see the point in bothering" - when you agree that "So long as it's not taking up a major part of your dogs diet it's not going to do harm". I personally didn't want to play fast and loose with my dog's health, so if only "just to be on the safe side", I fed veg.

A dog's digestive system is, of course, EXACTLY the same as a wolf's, as you correctly say, because they are EXACTLY the same species - despite the fact that a lot of people still think dogs are a sub species of wolves, a theory now disproved in 1993 leading to the reclassification of dogs and wolves as being the same species.

Indeed, you are also right that wolves cannot digest vegetables easily, they do not have the enzyme, cellulase, to do so. Hence the reason why they have to eat - not on a regular basis, not even at every kill would every wolf get to eat the stomach contents - predigested vegetable matter found in the stomach of a herbivore. A herbivore does, of course, have the ability to digest cellulose.

I extracted this quote from a scientific journal :

"Wolves feed mainly but not exclusively on flesh, eg deer, caribou, moose, beaver, hares, domestic livestock and plant material. The carnassial teeth shear flesh; crushing molars process vegetable food".

It says it all. That to me is as clear as the nose on my face.

Again, you are right, the pureed veg that BARFers feed to their dogs, is not the same as that found in prey. However, it is impracticable to ask us to go out and regularly catch herbivorous prey for our dogs, remove the stomach contents and feed to them. What we can do is to obtain green raw tripe including stomach contents from a friendly abbatoir and feed this to our dogs, but again, it is not everyone who knows a friendly abbatoir - in any case, my dog would not touch tripe, however hungry he was. The next best thing is to break down the cellular walls of the veg using a smoothie maker, so that our dogs can extract at least some of the goodies - and most importantly, the fibre, fibre that cannot be obtained from meat and bones.

We are most definitely not being anthropomorphic. Our nutritional reqirements, as omnivores with a strong leaning towards herbivores, are different from our dogs', who are omnivores with a virtually 100% leaning towards carnivores. 5 a day would be bad for them, whereas it is extremely good for us. I for one am extremely hard to indoctrinate, I am not particularly intelligent, but I am an independent thinker and I look to nature the whole time for answers.

Nature is telling me that our dogs need a small amount of vegetable matter in their diet - so does Shaun Ellis, the wolfman, who confirmed to my husband at one of his lectures that wolves do indeed eat the stomach contents of their prey.

Interesting read, I always thought cooked veg was equivelent to pureeing - Totters off to buy a veggie blender!!

Good girl - :smt038 :smt038 cooked veg are virtually useless for a dog, as all the vits and most of the minerals will be destroyed in the cooking.

Everyone has differing views depending on what they have read. Evie you said that you occasionally give veg, even if it is once a month that is still giving it. Most dogs without any form of veg at all will have health problems.

''To my knowledge, dogs are not going to obtain vit C in sufficient quantity in bones and meat alone''

????????????????? Dogs produce their own vit C.


Will folk stop comparing dogs to wolves, it's ridiculous. They were domesticated 15,000 as far as we are aware. Mutations occur within one generation, and the fact that dogs CAN survive on a veg only diet suggests, really, that they can digest veg matter. Otherwise they would starve.