[yuffie]

ok so when i started researching dog nutrition and looking for reviews on the top notch dog food orijen, there were a couple people complaining that their dogs had high creatine levels when tested at the vets. i was under the impression that too much creatine (comes from animal protein) can cause kidney damage and worried that only higher activity dogs would benefit from it and may cause adverse effects to lower energy dogs. well it looks like there's plenty of creatine in the raw diets because of all the protein. it doesn't seem like this causes a problem in wild dogs or wolves, in fact the website i linked at the bottom seems to praise creatine in meat. my question is if there is concern in high protein diets for dogs who are low energy or couch potatoes? or does it matter at all? i don't know if the extra creatine in the sedentary animals becomes a problem over time, since I'm sure in the wild wolves do a lot more exercise than the average house dog.
here's an interesting link i found: Creatine and Dogs
creatine supplementation is used by a lot of body-builders and it looks like some people unfortunately give it to their illegal fighting dogs

 

[yuffie]

actually i read it wrong, it looks like the body kinda self stores the creatine depending on the activity level, so more sedentary dogs store less creatine. in fact, another website said active racing greyhounds have a very high level creatine level compared to other dogs. its another good reason to give dogs meat. i guess the people who said their dogs had high creatine levels at the vet blaming orijen dog food maybe their dogs had kidney problems?

 

[RawFedDogs]

One thing about the web page you linked to is that it sells creatine supplements. You can't trust anything someone says about a product they sell. Of course they are going to tell you how good it is. It's called marketing.

Your next misconception is that a prey model raw diet is high protein. Actually it's only about 20% protein which isn't high at all. Most kibbles have higher protein levels although much of it is plant based protein.

There are a lot of things that can go wrong in the body of a sedentary animal. High levels of creatine may or may not be one of them. My 10yo Great Dane, Abby, recently had blood work done and her creatine levels were right in the middle of the normal range. She's been raw fed for 8 years.

 

[yuffie]

ok thanks for the info, that helps clear some things up. i didn't realize raw fed were that low on protein. i was worried when people said their low activity dogs were having trouble on high protein diets (although it was always kibble). i was thinking of starting yuffie on one, but we are about to go on a road trip for the next couple of weeks, so i will probably start when we get back so i can better watch how she does on it and not cause any problems at other people's homes.

 

[littlebiscuit]

20% ? really. Maybe I'm doin something wrong, but when I look at a prey model diet it seems a liitle higher than 20 %. Granted I am VERY new at this raw feeding thing, but I am in fact quite a meathead myself, so I have some pretty good ideas on nutrient breakdowns in food. And when I look at a whole chicken leg for example, it seems only about 20-30 % weight in bone, the rest in meat and skin/fat. of course those fat calories are more dense than the lean meat.....soo.....I would still say that meal comes out to be roughly 40 % protein. But then you have organs and turkey necks/wings that throw that protein down a little more.....hmm....doesn't seem as high in protein as I originally thought. Rock on!!!!

 

[RawFedDogs]

Drumsticks are 33% bone and the meat is about 75% water. Then there is the skin and fat. That leaves around 20% protein (actually 19.27% protein). http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/cgi-bin/list_nut_edit.pl

 

[bumblegoat]

You can't really compare a dry food to a wet food (like raw) without removing the water content. You have to compare them on a dry matter basis. If you do that I'm sure a raw diet has more protein than any dry food. Of course it does depend on how much fat there is on the meat you feed, more fat, less protein, obviously.

So a PMR diet IS high in protein (and fat).

 

[RawFedDogs]

You can't really compare a dry food to a wet food (like raw) without removing the water content.

Certainly you can. You compare on as "as fed" basis. Thats the only true measurement. The REALLY important measurement is the volume of protein. For example if you feed a pound of raw meat that is 20% protein, you are feeding 0.2lbs of protein. The amount of water makes no difference. It's still 0.2 lbs of protein. If you feed a pound of kibble that is 25% protein, you are feeding 0.25lbs of protein. Again, the amount of water makes no difference. It's still 0.25lbs protein.

So PMR IS relatively low protein diet and the amount of water and/or fat is irrelevent. Many people often unintentionally muddy the waters by trying to remove moisture that has no bearing on the situation. You just have to think about it logically and compare apples to apples.

 

[STPFAN]

Everyones gotta remember that you can't compare protein from kibble and protein from raw meat. The moisture contents are totally different and void all the natural enzymes that are contained in raw meat from the kibble! All this will affect the digestablity of the protein by the body!