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Why raw makes so much dang sense- and commercial diets are just weird.

161K views 58 replies 32 participants last post by  socal_sarah  
#1 ·
If you feed kibble, and are offended at the fact that I think it makes absolutely no sense, please.... just close this thread now, and be on your merry way. If you can appreciate some logical, sound thinking... read on.

Variety is key- in ANY kind of diet. We all know this. It's common sense. One food, day in and day out, over the course of time- no good for anyone. Processed or not.

When a raw fed dog eats chicken, it looks something like this:
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When a kibble fed dog eats chicken, it's something like this:
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When a raw fed dog gets beef, their meal might look like:
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Oh, yay! Kibble fed dog is done with chicken! Time to rotate in BEEF!
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#3 ·
My dogs love fish. When a raw fed dog eats fish, they might get something like:
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Alright! Kibble dog is done with chicken AND beef! Lucky dog! Time for Fish!!
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Lamb time, for raw dog!
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This kibble fed dog has a sensitive tummy, and my vet convinced me that he's allergic to chicken, so now he has to have all lamb. You can see how different it is from all the "other" kibbles.
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#5 ·
Mmmm, Duck. Raw dog loves duck. The bones are so easy to nom nom nom. Kinda like chicken bones. But better. Mmmmm, duck!
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Kibble dog also loves duck. Hoorahhh for variety!
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Wow! Mom found a hunter that needed to clean out his freezer of last year's kills! I get RABBIT! I are happy raw dog.
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Woo hoo, sale at the dog food store! Dad sprung for rabbit! And I almost thought he was a cheap ol' sucker. Only $70 a bag for rabbit. mmm.
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#6 ·
Mmm, raw dog loves venison. So... gamey!
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Kibble dog likes how.... crunchy... venison is. mmm.
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Alright, alright. I'll be done.
I just think it irks me that people are like: "You feed WHAT?! raw meat?! that's so weird! Haven't you heard of DOG FOOD!?"
Yeah, buddy, I'M the weird one.
have you even SEEN what your dog eats.

Merry Christmas everyone, kibble fed dogs and all.



**I'm sure SOMEONE will take offense to this. Wouldn't be DFC if they didn't.:biggrin: Take it in all good fun, folks.
 
#13 ·
Totally. Awesome. Post. :biggrin::biggrin:
I loved it....and it is so true! Methinks if I were a dog, I'd want to be a raw fed dog!!!!!
 
#14 ·
Nice post and in my view, a very relevant point.
I must admit that when I fed kibble, I would switch the brands and proteins at every meal. Part of the reason was that I would always think gosh, how boring to have the same food day in and day out - even though my vet told me that dogs don't care about that sort of thing. Maybe he's right and I am humanising them to a certain point, but now it makes my heart happy to see my pup sniffing the air and checking out what meat she's getting for dinner each night.
 
#16 ·
Part of the reason was that I would always think gosh, how boring to have the same food day in and day out - even though my vet told me that dogs don't care about that sort of thing. Maybe he's right and I am humanising them to a certain point, but now it makes my heart happy to see my pup sniffing the air and checking out what meat she's getting for dinner each night.
I used to do the same thing--switching kibble for variety. Frankly my dog seemed to think it all smelled the same. :rolleyes:

Hard to believe dogs don't care about their food. When I see Bailey leaping all over the place and her whiskers quivering when we haul out the chicken back or leg quarter, it's obvious she cares about what she's eating and gets soooo excited to have fresh, raw food. She doesn't even sniff in the pantry anymore where the "doomnuggets" were stored. With those impressive smelling abilities, a dog's gotta love raw more than anything else. :biggrin:

It does make one's heart happy to see those happy air sniffs and total focus on chomping their meal.

Great post--pictures do say a thousand words!

Amy J-K
&
Bailey T. Dog
 
#17 · (Edited)
I've so far helped about 7 people I know personally switch to raw (one or two more who i just told about randomly in a grocery store and they e-mailed me months later to thank me), and two more who are going to switch very soon. For some people, it's like a light goes on in their head and it just clicks. Others take a lot of time or I don't even bother. I'm going to try to get my friend who is a Nutro rep to switch her lab to raw because she is now broke and having a hard time affording Nutro ($30/15 lbs bag) for her pup who is shedding like crazy anyway.

I did the math and it would cost her maybe $25/month to feed her lab raw, heck I'll help her out with that cost if she wants, that's a great cause IMHO!

However, she has always been a very hard person to sell on raw. She gave her last dog some raw when it was dying from a brain tumor, but immediately went back to kibble after that dog passed away :frown: but she just said that she would keep an open mind about it and maybe try it out after she runs out of kibble so yay!

Maybe it will make sense to her too after she does it for a month and realizes how much more natural it is!
 
#19 ·
If you would like to make a post in the kibble section about why kibble makes so much sense, and raw is silly- go for it. No one will take it down, as long as you keep it in a light hearted manner, and don't get nasty.
That's where you have a difficult time: the not getting nasty part.

I'm not sure which thread of yours got taken down, but threads are only removed if someone breaks actual rules, generally spam type posts, or blatant attacks on other members. The science is in nature, and what we see every day. Sorry. Prey Model Raw is not an industry, though I suspect it will be someday, so there aren't corporations like Hills and Purna to fund studies to back it up. You have those big industries on your dside to dish out the funds.
All I know, is WHOLE foods are better than PROCESSED for any creature. Human, or otherwise. Taking chicken, and feeding it in its natural form will maintain the integrity of the nutrients more than processing into something else.
High quality kibbles are often times referred to as "fast food" nutrients for dogs. I feel this is a tad bit inaccurate. However, I feel an appropriate example is a fresh chicken breast, and a breaded chicken nugget in the freezer aisle. Both start with a chicken breast. One is left to maintain its dignity, and one has "extras" thrown in that while not necessarily harmful (that's a matter of opinion!) also aren't needed at all. Add a few preservatives, and you have yourself a processed chicken nugget! Tasty little breaded suckers, but we'd all probably be better off sitting down to a whole chicken breast.
 
#24 ·
I'm confused, and I don't mean to be rude, but you've posted in a couple of threads now about how your dog is fed brown rice and that is not a raw diet, at least not in the sense that people here use the word. Raw feeding IS all about the meat. Plenty of people here feed their dogs ONLY raw meat, bones, and organs- myself included- with no digestive problems.
 
#30 ·
I'm not sure that age is necessarily a factor here, but well, qualifications or lack thereof sure are. I took my daughter (9) to the nature center the other day. There we viewed a bear skull, a cat skull, a coyote skull and a deer skull. She knows the difference between carnivores, omnivores, and herbivores. If an animal has neither the teeth nor the digestive system to deal with plant matter it isn't an herbivore. Or an omnivore for that matter. Oh, and when I first started out I fed my dog brown rice. It went out the same way it went in.
 
#34 ·
I was doing some online reading earlier today, this link in particular...(The Dog Food Project - Grain Free Dog Foods) ...and "the question" hit me...(not related to the link)
If raw feeding is "so bad" for our dogs... then riddle me this....
Then why are dog food companies working so hard to create a grain free kibble...then use as a sales pitch "main ingredient is chicken, veal, venison, salmon, lamb, bison...whatever.. and mimic a raw diet as closely as possible???

I also find it ironic that after the main protein is labeled (Meat of some sort) that a list of vitamins, "essential nutrients"...ect...ect...ect. are listed in the ingredients. While I think that some of the ingredient's are beneficial to K9 growth/development....I can only assume that the reason their added is because they are cooked out during the process...binding...ect.

In regards to needing carbs... CoCo get's an occasional carrot (she likes them, and it gives her something to chew for a bit) ...not because I feel she needs carbs...and definitely not because protein needs a "binder" to be digested by a K9 with a digestive/stomach enzyme PH of 0-2., respectively.
As stated...that carrot comes out the same way it went in...chewed up, and un-digested. This was one of the "test's" I did before switching to a raw diet...and the more I read...theory "tested"...the more raw made sense. Could not have made a better decision to switch.

I read somewhere where wolves have been seen eating bark, leaves, fruit, ect...in the wild... my answer to that...
I've seen deer eat bark off of a tree too... (I know their herbivores)...still atypical behavior for them...and I have watched deer in the wild for 30 years.
One winter I watched a little doe eat bark like it was a fresh apple....doubt she made it through the winter.
In both scenario's...bark was not their choice of food...it's what was available at that time...and they were hungry (starving) enough to eat it.
 
#37 ·
I dont want to bash raw because I havent tried it but as a RVT and having a bachelors in animal science I cant say I am conviced of its benefits. The first thing that comes to mind is salmonella, not to mention other nasties that hide in raw meat. It has been argued that the reason humans have evolved from cavemen to modern man is due in part of our ability to "cook" meat, as raw meat can be once again, filled with not so friendly parasites and bacteria. What passes for USDA grade meats in scary now a days, I did a stint as a technician on a USDA inspected farm in central california once and OMG, the way these animals are kept and the gigantic growths and infections on them was disgusting. But thats a whole separate thread in itself... from all my learning and research (acutal university (UCD) research, not just googling crap and declaring myself an expert) dogs are omnivores, they have been domesticated and are no longer carbon copies of wolves. If they were straight carnivores they wouldnt molars for mashing up leaves, plants. Cats are an excellent example of domesticated carnivores.. do a dental prophy on one sometime to see why. I am all for more meat in dogs diet, heck my dogs routinely catch and eat whole squirrels and they love it, but to say a dog should ONLY be on raw meat (which I know many of you arent) is just plain crazy.
 
#38 ·
I am all for more meat in dogs diet, heck my dogs routinely catch and eat whole squirrels and they love it, but to say a dog should ONLY be on raw meat (which I know many of you arent) is just plain crazy.
Why is that crazy? What evidence do you have that nutrients are missing from a diet of meat, bone, and organs? I would be interested to know what your education and individual research has shown you about canine nutrition
 
#39 ·
It was part of my senior project at UC Davis for my companion animal concentration. The thing with feeding just meat only is that it causes the kidneys to work in overtime, this can lead to stones and routinely passing large amount of ketones. Also, uncooked bones can cause splintering (think laceration of intestines) and obstruction - had to monitor a gastrotomy on a dog who was fed raw bones two weeks ago. Of course not every dog will develop this, but it does put dogs at higher risk. But to each his own.
 
#40 ·
Other way around. Kidneys work less with raw food. Think whole fresh foods instead of processed food. Less stress on the kidneys. And as far as that dog, he might have not been able to digest them because his stomach wasn't ready for rough bones. Which is why you start with chicken. In fact I believe if you would look up the amount of dogs that were switched to raw and helped by raw with their kidneys you might be amazed.