This subject interests me but I doubt I'll ever go down that route as I have too many dogs and not enough freezer space or time. Having said that I will occasionally feed chicken wings, tripe and always have raw marrow bones in the freezer, also some of the dogs will catch and eat rabbits and the odd squirrel so I suppose they like the raw diet!

How do you get the balance right when feeding puppies, I would worry I'd get it wrong and end up with joint problems.

The puppies are the same as an adult dog. The thing about raw is that if you get it wrong one day (feed too much bone) you can fix it at the next meal.. I think with Raw, people (I included) over think things and make it more complicated than it needs to be.. but I guess thats what makes some people put off feeding it..

It's intereting that dogs become dingoes not wolves.

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I have spent tons of time researching dog feeding... Commercially prepared, RAW, home cooked, I have yet to find anything that has convinced me to switch my dogs off of extremely high quality dog foods. I got into it once, on another forum with a "RAW Snob" and told her that if she could prove to me it was better, I would feed raw... She couldn't and I don't... That being said, My dogs get a little of everything. I feed 5 or 6 different types of dry food, 2 different types of canned, I feed raw chicken legs/wings, Ox tails and Beef/Pork ribs for dental health, Sardines, fish oil, all sorts of fruit and veggies and cooked eggs.

My dogs are of a healthy weight, they have good teeth (Excluding Boo and Zoe. Boo due to 6.5 years eating who knows what, and Zoe having puppies too young and likely not getting the proper nutrition) They have firm Poo, they are active and have great muscle tone.

I avoid foods with rendered meat, I avoid foods with too much grain/starch, I avoid foods with the carcinogenic fish preservative (cant remember off-hand what it's called) and I avoid foods made by large corporations.

In this way, I believe my dogs get the best nutrition they possibly could, and are as healthy as can be. I will continue feeding them this way, as it works. I dont believe in feeding the same thing day after day, as I believe alot of food intolerances are caused by only eating one thing. I guess I'm an everything feeder, and it works for us.

I'd 2nd that. Good diet is inclusive not exclusive.

My dogs also eat pretty much anything and everything, just like me!

Mine even catch their own, as part of a balanced diet.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sandyme...57620638255787
Skinned and gutted to maximise storage then frozen for a week or so to destroy worm cysts, fed raw with a cup of complete alternate days. Other days, complete with cooked veg along with appropriate table scraps. Extra fat, not much on game meat, as cod liver oil each eve plus veg oil if not much fatty scraps available.

Great post

And now a potentially stupid question - why do I keep seeing it referred to as RAW feeding? It's not an acronym like BARF is it? Or is it?

Yep mine regularly have various game etc off the shoots - pheasant, hare, rabbit, pigeon etc No skinning or gutting, they get the whole lot

Your pictures are great btw - as a random aside I'm getting a Nikon D90 for my Xmas so good to know it takes fab pics in low light

I have no pics so far of them on a shoot, only one I have is of Copper as a pup practising his retrieves with a crow, good reminder to get camera out of a weekend!!!!