Cheap meat for fresh fed dog owners

dahat

Found lambs liver for 75 cents in iceland this morning plus the chicken i put up earlier on.
Also i found two rabbits in the freezer i forgot i had!......lovely jubbly!!

Draupnir

puddles22 wrote: »

the pup has fair plumped up since getting her back from the kennels and thanks everybody for all the advice, once more problem though and it is such an inconvienence more than anything, snce moving to the barf diet she has to get up to poo at least twice in the middle of the night , she always slept right through before , is this just her body adjusting to the change in diet cause it is a right pain in the ass having to get up at 4 and 6 in the morning

I'd say give her some time to get adjusted, our pup hasn't had an issue sleeping through the nice since we changed.

What time do you do your last meal? Perhaps make it slightly earlier so she can go before bedtime?

puddles22

last meal is around 7 usually

Ronnie Beck

takes them two or three weeks to adjust. Just stick at it. I give my dogs one meal a day in the morning after their walk. they have a nap then so its well digested and there not holding anything in at night and they have plenty of energy for the day. Take it easy on the bones for the fitst few weeks too. Found that too many gave them the runs.

recedite

A question for those people feeding chicken drumsticks to their dog;
I heard that chicken bones should not be fed to dogs because of a danger they would splinter when chewed, and injure the dog's stomach?
What I do is put them in a pressure cooker for 20 minutes, then feed them as soft versions. Maybe less nutritious though?

ISDW

recedite wrote: »

A question for those people feeding chicken drumsticks to their dog;
I heard that chicken bones should not be fed to dogs because of a danger they would splinter when chewed, and injure the dog's stomach?
What I do is put them in a pressure cooker for 20 minutes, then feed them as soft versions. Maybe less nutritious though?

No, no, no, no, no. The danger of chicken bones is when they are cooked and soft, please don't feed your dog cooked chicken bones EVER.

recedite

ISDW wrote: »

The danger of chicken bones is when they are cooked and soft

Why?

DogsFirst

ISDW wrote: »

recedite wrote: »

A question for those people feeding chicken drumsticks to their dog;
I heard that chicken bones should not be fed to dogs because of a danger they would splinter when chewed, and injure the dog's stomach?
What I do is put them in a pressure cooker for 20 minutes, then feed them as soft versions. Maybe less nutritious though?

No, no, no, no, no. The danger of chicken bones is when they are cooked and soft, please don't feed your dog cooked chicken bones EVER.

+1 X 100. Cooking destroys the collagen (the soft stuff) and leaves you with material that resists gut break down, causing rupture and impaction. Dogs eat and need fresh bones.

Vince32

+1 on the not cooking bones,

But it seems the more I read on the subject of raw feeding the more opinions there are to consider, and while not everything you read on the internets is factual, fictional or absolute hogwash, one thing rings home that I always keep in mind when considering a new argument on the topic.

Dogs, for many hundreds or thousands of years, have hunted, killed and eaten their own food, meat, bone, veins, muscle, sinew and all the other nasty business that goes along with being a wild animal, and never once did they cook it, so why should they have cooked meat and bones now?

It's only now, in the 20/21st century that humans have started looking at a dogs "most beneficial" diet, but in nature we can find the strongest, healthiest dogs and cats, (wolves and lions for example).

I hope that makes some kind of sense... kinda been a long day lol

Cherry Blossom

westies4ever wrote: »

i am very aware of westies complex allergy problems which is why i switched to raw - finance wise i am stretched as it is. am considering ordering some allergy testing through the vet to see if i can get to the bottom of it. its not chronic - she has no sores, bleeding skin etc but is almost constantly scratching - i just want to improve her quality of life.

I'm aware that the topic is raw food but just want to throw in my two cent that raw did my Westie no favours whatsoever. Westie breeders the world over recommend a cooked diet of rice and lamb, which I've had best results from myself both fresh boiled in times of tummy trouble and in the form of hypo-allergenic dry foods with minimal ingredients. Mine is currently on Barking heads (green bag) with best results so far but I want to change as she's been on it a while now. Have also had good results from a salmon and potato food. I try to avoid anything that contains any description of something that might be chicken (eg. 'poultry fat') - on the raw (ish) front I was looking at this earlier, ruddy expensive though! It can be bought on-line from two different Irish sites but I'm not too sure how reliable the supply might be.

Wibbs

recedite wrote: »

Why?

Basically R, it's not because they're soft, quite the opposite. If they were softer it would be fine. Cooked bones are harder and more likely to splinter and cause damage to the digestive tract. Uncooked bones have more "give" in them, they're more flexible. Or what Dogsfirst said re collagen.

I'd add and it's just my personal take, it might depend on your dogs eating habits too. IE my guy at 6 months old tends to go full on and can reduce a weight bearing 9 odd inch lamb leg bone to a two inch stump in around 5 minutes, can get through a raw whole chicken carcass in around 10 and reduce a full rabbit to bits of fur in 15. Consequently I've become careful about things like raw chicken wings with their little bones, because when I've fed him those what comes out the other end is too sharp for my liking and I'd be worried about internal damage. Plus if we're going the "wild" diet protocol route, wild canid puppies eat already partially regurgitated food(from the adults) for quite a long time. It's already partially broken down.

I'm not a pure rawist myself. My dogs(with the sad exception of one ) have had a mixed diet, mostly raw meat and veg but with table scraps and the like. Even the odd backup of good quality dry food the odd time. Hell my current guy isn't too keen on raw fish, but goes mad for frozen fishfingers. He watches the Donegal catch adds with interest

Plus and this is a biggie IMHO, our dogs like their owners can vary(EDIT like adrenalinjunkie has experienced). My last guy sadly missed was mad for salads. I kid thee not gentle reader. I mean proper mediterranean salads, with all the trimmings. The fcuker ate better than me Including tomato which in my profound ignorance I didn't realise was toxic to dogs. And he was a large breed who only died 6 months ago two months away from his 17th birthday. And he ate grapes too. I know, way out of order on my part, but it may show that like in human dietary advice, one size may not fit all. That said just like in us humans, good sense should prevail. Good fat/protein/carb/veg sources should be at the forefront, with commercially overproduced food kept to a minimum. My 3 cents anyway.

Wibbs

I'd add that domestication causes many changes in an animal. Across the board there are phenotypal differences compared to the wild counterpart. IMHO extrapolating from the wild while often useful is not always a given. This goes double for diet. Humans a clear example of this. We've evolved more in the last 10,000 years than we did in the previous 100,000 and the vast majority of those changes have been dietary in nature. Given that genetic studies keep pushing back the dog domestication event(s) further and further(currently at least 30,000 years ago and likely further back) then it may be a grey area to ascribe the fully "wild" diet as a blanket notion across all breeds. IE the diet that suits the more ancient spitz breeds may not go down that well with more modern breeds. Or at least the dietary ratios may be similar, but the means of getting those ratios into our dogs may differ. Giving an Akita with it's more "wild" dentition and digestive system a sheeps leg bone may be bang on, but giving a pug with much reduced dentition the same leg bone may not be. In life, very little is so black and white and in life as we all know instinctively one size rarely fits all, or at least in the way our initial mindset may lead us to believe.

DogsFirst

adrenalinjunkie wrote: »

Westie breeders the world over recommend a cooked diet of rice and lamb, which I've had best results from myself

Agree. While raw works for 99% of sensitive dogs I've encountered I can think of a few (one sheltie, one westie) that benefited on a cooked version of something thought should of been better raw - like lamb or fish. This is unexplainable and a thorn in a side of fresh feeding purists, like me. Cooking reduces the digestibility of animal protein and denatures it, making it unrecognisable by the body and thus allergenic. Nothing hypoallergenic about cooked protein. But it works with some dogs. As a matter of course though various forms of raw meat should be the first stop, but if you got a problem, try anything.

Tip: Only make one change every 3 weeks. Food intolerance is a slow process and can take days to weeks (gluten) to materialise say as a skin rash. Pick and stick.

DogsFirst

Wibbs wrote: »

Given that genetic studies keep pushing back the dog domestication event(s) further and further(currently at least 30,000 years ago and likely further back) then it may be a grey area to ascribe the fully "wild" diet as a blanket notion across all breeds.

Giving an Akita with it's more "wild" dentition and digestive system a sheeps leg bone may be bang on, but giving a pug with much reduced dentition the same leg bone may not be. In life, very little is so black and white and in life as we all know instinctively one size rarely fits all, or at least in the way our initial mindset may lead us to believe.

Me and you differ on the whole evolution thing Wibbs!! Domestication didn't begin in earnest until 6000 years ago with the appearance of farming. By 5000 years ago we had terriers, guard dogs and other utility breeds etc. While isolated incidences of domestication exist (with human/dog bone grave sites now up to 33,000yrs ago, as you put me on to awhile ago, a whopping 20,000 years before I thought it was!!) these are isolated little pockets of domestication in a world full of canids but only tiny pockets of non-migratory hunter gatherer folk. Not enough in the slightest to force a dietary change on a species globally. So it's really 5000 years of domestication. 5000 years of humans selecting partners for proto dogs, but at what stage did humans select for the digestive capacity of the animal?? Such as an ability to process plant material? Or cooked protein?

We didn't eat them, we never cared about muscle growth, if we did we would never have moved them on to a carb full diet as they are today (carbs build fat, protein builds muscle, think athletes). We opted for stuff like smaller size, face shape and behaviour to the point that breeds differ in their external phenotypes (teeth, jaw, size, behaviour) but this says nothing of their dietary choice.

So the question is, left to their own devices and completely free of human influence, what do wild dogs chose to eat? And the answer apparently is wild domestic dogs, when left to their own devices, follow a completely carnivorous way of life (see Fleming et al 2003, a study incorporating 30,000 stomach samples of wild domestic dogs, dog/dingo hybrids and dingos across 6 climatic regions and found dogs to consume 97% animal protein, the 3% veg matter was mainly berries from the stomachs of birds in tropical regions, pretty conclusive). If they were selected to be omnivores it appears nobody told these dogs!!! Has domestication influenced the digestive anatomy of the dog, the influx of domestic dogs here would have resulted in a much greater selection for plant material.

It's never been an issue / advantageous for humans to select what their dogs eat. They were assumed to be "kind of" omnivorous which suited us as our leftovers were only veggie scraps, rarely much meat, and feeding pregnant or whelping bitches this stuff (and young pups in first 3months) convinces dogs to chose this material later on, like asian cats eating rice and veg flavoured with tuna oil, but this says nothing of it's potential for optimum health.

Free of human influence, wild domestic dogs follow a totally carnivorous way of life. And they aint cooking it either!!!

Wibbs

DogsFirst wrote: »

Me and you differ on the whole evolution thing Wibbs!! Domestication didn't begin in earnest until 6000 years ago with the appearance of farming. By 5000 years ago we had terriers, guard dogs and other utility breeds etc. While isolated incidences of domestication exist (with human/dog bone grave sites now up to 33,000yrs ago, as you put me on to awhile ago, a whopping 20,000 years before I thought it was!!) these are isolated little pockets of domestication in a world full of canids but only tiny pockets of non-migratory hunter gatherer folk. Not enough in the slightest to force a dietary change on a species globally. So it's really 5000 years of domestication. 5000 years of humans selecting partners for proto dogs, but at what stage did humans select for the digestive capacity of the animal?? Such as an ability to process plant material? Or cooked protein?

Couple of points DF:

1) farming is more like 10,000 years ago.

2) Going by both genetics and morphology of earlier dogs these were not isolated incidences. The 33,000 year old dog was clearly a dog, not a wolf/wolfdog. Human selection pressure had changed it's appearance to something similar to a spitz type breed, though significantly larger and more robust than modern examples. The arctic fox domestication research in Russia going on for 50 years now took many generations of very heavy experimental selection from a large cohort to get a fully domestic animal(though some traits of domestication kicked in early). It was down the line where morphological changes occurred in coat colours, curved tails and floppy ears. Even so in the skeleton they still looked like their wild counterparts, their dentition etc hadn't changed much, if at all. "In the wild" humans would have taken many times longer than 50 years to achieve the changes seen in the 33,000 year old dog(never mind the 40 plus gene changes seen in the foxs). They would have had a much smaller choice of animals in the first place, so this 30 KYA dog didn't spring from an isolated event and likely took 1000's of years of human selection.

3) as for dietary selection by humans? We didn't need to select for that if such changes took place. The animals own evolution would select for that and it clearly did(just like in humans). Two clear "in the bone" examples/evidence for this. Teeth and zygomatic arch angle and width(the cheekbone basically). Dogs of all breeds have smaller teeth and thinner enamel than wolves. They have less robust muscle attachment points on the jaw. Their zygomatic angle is much less and that whole area is narrower than a wolf. This is clearly in response to dietary changes. Domestication does shorten the muzzle and flatten the face, which may be something to do with it, however pit bull terriers have short muzzles, yet their cheekbones are more wolf like. That 33KYA dog had more robust dentition and wider cheekbones.

We didn't eat them,

Actually we did in some cultures and indeed still do(Korea, China).

we never cared about muscle growth, if we did we would never have moved them on to a carb full diet as they are today (carbs build fat, protein builds muscle, think athletes). We opted for stuff like smaller size, face shape and behaviour to the point that breeds differ in their external phenotypes (teeth, jaw, size, behaviour) but this says nothing of their dietary choice.

Clearly it does, even from a practical and mechanical angle. You yourself have suggested avoiding weight bearing bones as food, because of the risk of damage. A wolf would have no such issues, even their cubs will chew on them.

So the question is, left to their own devices and completely free of human influence, what do wild dogs chose to eat? And the answer apparently is wild domestic dogs, when left to their own devices, follow a completely carnivorous way of life (see Fleming et al 2003, a study incorporating 30,000 stomach samples of wild domestic dogs, dog/dingo hybrids and dingos across 6 climatic regions and found dogs to consume 97% animal protein, the 3% veg matter was mainly berries from the stomachs of birds in tropical regions, pretty conclusive). If they were selected to be omnivores it appears nobody told these dogs!!! Has domestication influenced the digestive anatomy of the dog, the influx of domestic dogs here would have resulted in a much greater selection for plant material.

That's in one population. A population that largely avoids humans and humans take issue with them. Indeed having read the report, I noticed something on page 22

"2.3.3 Dingo diet in south-east Asia
Very few dingoes in Asia live totally independently of humans and the main food of Asian dingoes is carbohydrate (rice, fruit and other food scraps) supplied by people or scavenged."

Same dogs, completely different diet. It seems when "left to their own devices" around humans the domestic dog will chose more carbs, even though those Asian examples are free to and do also hunt. And since domestic dogs are.. well domestic this shouldn't surprise. And the Dingo is an archaic domestic line.

So we've been domesticating the dog for at least 35KYA and likely way before that. During that process they've been eating the food we eat. Even among hunter gatherers, there's more gathering than hunting going on so they've been exposed to the more omnivorous diet for a very very long time. And BTW that includes cooked meat. Then along comes agriculture 10KYA and our dogs came along for the ride. These are enormous amounts of time for dietary genetics to start to make changes. It did in us. In Europe we've (mostly) adapted to take advantage of gluten, lactose and even alcohol in the last 10,000 years or less. Given dogs have been with us throughout this time it would be very odd indeed if they hadn't had genetic adaptations too.

DogsFirst

A lot of this is just pedantics. Farming started in 10,000 years ago. OK maybe but by 6 or 7000yrs ago mid-scale farming was entrenched on the banks of the Nile. We're talking an established practice not some gom bean in the himalayas with 5 turnips in his front garden. Those that know say that dog breeds popped up around 6000years ago, I have no other choice but to accept their findings as most likely to be true.

Some people eat dogs......god!!!! 'course they do, but it's not why we domesticated them Wibbs come on.

Re asian dingoes- this is a really really common fall back fo the whole omnivore malarky. Dogs reared on plant material (through monthers amniotic fluid, mothers milk and experience in first 3 months) consume plant material, that's a given (like the cat example above, but who of us would argue that's an absolute carnivore). But this says nothing of it's suitability for optimum health. As scavenging carnivores dogs can be "convinced" to eat almost anything while in utero. You can spray lemon in the air while they are little amorphic foetuses inside their mummy and they come out aiming for the teats covered in lemon scent.

Human influence is everything when it comes to diet selection. There isn't one study that shows dogs, free of humans, select this junk. There are three reliable studies that show free roaming dogs take stuff from humans, like the asian dingoes, and all state, when left to their own devices, that the dogs follow a totally carnivorous way of life when off on their own.

More importantly studies of Itallian feral domestic dogs show that 98% of them are dead from malnutrition by one year. If plant material was on the menu these dogs would be off happily eating plants to stay alive, seeing as plants are readily available and easy catch. But they don't / they do and they die of malnutrition, whichever. Dogs are crap at catching their own meat today for lots of reasons - changes to dentition (shorter smaller teeth and weaker bite mean they can't hold on to big things), ear carriage, hunting behaviour (we don't want animals that kill our stock) to name but a few, but their bodies still need the stuff, as we haven't selected for food preference.

What we have now is an animal, confined and with key bits and bobs removed, making him less able at getting what he needs. Everything about his internal digestive anatomy screams carnivore - saliva, enzymes, carnaissal teeth, wide keratinised gullet, acidic gut, short fast intestinal system 4 times the length of the body, zero physiological need for dietary carbohydrate. Bar some quirky metabolic tricks for converting some compounds shouted by dry food manufacturers, two of which are evident in other scavenging carnviores, and they're just the ones that have been studied) there is zero anatomical evidence and zero dietary studies of "wild" (don't like humans) domestic dogs, to support the whole "loves a bit of rice" argument.

Wibbs

DogsFirst wrote: »

A lot of this is just pedantics.

Not really DF it's science and archeology.

Farming started in 10,000 years ago. OK maybe but by 6 or 7000yrs ago mid-scale farming was entrenched on the banks of the Nile. We're talking an established practice not some gom bean in the himalayas with 5 turnips in his front garden.

Nope again. Go to Achill island in this country and you will see field boundaries that are nigh on 8,000 + years old. They practically cover the landscape under the current bogland. This was a full on agriculture industry in the mesolithic and on the very edge of Europe. Not a couple of turnips. Catal Huyuk in Turkey is a full on city supported by agriculture 8,500 years old and they've not excavated down to undisturbed soil yet. There's pretty good evidence that many hunter gatherers set aside land to grow their own(as many do today) long before the larger scale agriculture kicked off. Many thousands of years before Babylon was even dreamt of(who were before Egypt). All of these cultures had dogs and these dogs would be exposed to the novel foods just like their owners. Their owners digestive genetics changed, so it's at least possible that their dogs did too under similar pressures. Changes that are not immediately obvious too. If you look at a Cro Magnon from 40,000 years ago, he looks pretty much the same as we do today, however he would be very lactose and gluten intolerant.

Those that know say that dog breeds popped up around 6000years ago, I have no other choice but to accept their findings as most likely to be true.

Well "those that know" should do more reading or maybe redefine what they mean by "breeds". For a start domestication is a different subject to further selective breeding for certain traits. You see this with domestication in cattle too. The domestication point is long before distinctive breeds of cow come along. The 35KYA dog is clearly a dog quite different in makeup to a wolf. Bit of a gap really. Nearly 30,000 years of a gap.

Some people eat dogs......god!!!! 'course they do, but it's not why we domesticated them Wibbs come on.

It's not why we have domesticated them, but a number of meso American cultures bred dogs for food. OK now I am being pedantic

Human influence is everything when it comes to diet selection.

I agree, I just question that this has no effect on the make up of dogs.

There isn't one study that shows dogs, free of humans, select this junk. There are three reliable studies that show free roaming dogs take stuff from humans, like the asian dingoes, and all state, when left to their own devices, that the dogs follow a totally carnivorous way of life when off on their own.

Then why do they take the carbs at all? Domestic cats won't or are far less likely to.

More importantly studies of Itallian feral domestic dogs show that 98% of them are dead from malnutrition by one year. If plant material was on the menu these dogs would be off happily eating plants to stay alive, seeing as plants are readily available and easy catch.

Actually kind of a non argument as outside of seasonal fruit most plants need to be gathered and processed. If I left an untrained human in the Italian hills they'd be scratching their head on the hows and would likely starve too. We as clear omnivores would likely turn to hunting in such a circumstance.

Dogs are crap at catching their own meat today for lots of reasons - changes to dentition (shorter smaller teeth and weaker bite mean they can't hold on to big things), ear carriage, hunting behaviour (we don't want animals that kill our stock) to name but a few, but their bodies still need the stuff, as we haven't selected for food preference.

My point is we wouldn't have to. The environment of the domestic dog would have done the selection.

Everything about his internal digestive anatomy screams carnivore - saliva, enzymes, carnaissal teeth, wide keratinised gullet, acidic gut, short fast intestinal system 4 times the length of the body, zero physiological need for dietary carbohydrate. Bar some quirky metabolic tricks for converting some compounds shouted by dry food manufacturers, two of which are evident in other scavenging carnviores, and they're just the ones that have been studied) there is zero anatomical evidence and zero dietary studies of "wild" (don't like humans) domestic dogs, to support the whole "loves a bit of rice" argument.

Have any studies been done on the differences if any between wolf and dog acid levels? Any on gut flora? Any on possible adaptations to novel proteins like gluten? Given the obvious mechanical changes in dentition etc it might be worth a punt. I'd look at gluten first. Captive wolves can't process it well at all. Interestingly these eejits with high content wolf/dog hybrids in the US notice this holds true for them, even if the dog bitch was raised on dry food, which may suggest a genetic component.

Bubblefett

Quick question- I've started feeding my 11 month miniture JR meat instead of packet food and he's really taken to the food and it's agreeing with hm. He gets 2 meals a day of chicken thighes, pork chops or mince from Lidl. I take the chicken thighs off the bone because he inhales his food and because he's so small the idea of bones make me very nervous.
I've always cooked these before giving them to him, I never actually considered giving him them raw. Would raw be a better option? I just want to do whats best for him

Vince32

I haven't seen any modern day dogs or cats cook their food first, they were made to eat raw food, in fact the only animals that cook their food are humans and we can't apply human science to canine bodies, it's like apples and oranges, so if I had to guess, I'd say raw food would be just fine, I'm not convinced on the bones part, but again many dogs eat bones regularly and have no problems. As long as they are uncooked brittle bones the dog should have no trouble digesting them.

Since I gave mine raw chk wings and tinned salmon, she turns her nose up at the dry food and will wait patiently for me to give in and get her more of what she wants, which is a pain because I still have 10 of the 12kg of dry food left and at this rate she will never get it all on schedule.

I hardly want to dump or pass off €45 worth of food, and spend the same again on raw and prep it for the rest of the month. But the dog wants what the dog wants, regardless of science or archaeology. So if she refuses to finish up the dry stuff, I'll have 8-10kg of puppy food to give away....

She will eat when she's hungry enough, I'll just have to struggle on

Wibbs

Vince32 wrote: »

I haven't seen any modern day dogs or cats cook their food first, they were made to eat raw food, in fact the only animals that cook their food are humans and we can't apply human science to canine bodies,

Have you ever seen a 3 year old child cook their dinner? OK I'm joking here, but illustrating a point. The overwhelming vector for what domestic dogs have eaten down the ages has been their human owners(breeds like huskies who were traditionally let free during the sub arctic summer months to fend for themselves notwithstanding). This goes double for dogs since the advent of agriculture and settled living. They basically got human hand me down food. So we've been applying human dietary changes to our dogs for most of their history.

so if I had to guess, I'd say raw food would be just fine,

Oh do not get me wrong V, I've been pretty clear in supporting raw and non commercial diets for our dogs. I've also been quite flabbergasted with some vet recommendations against this point. IMHO the majority of commercial dry dog food is crap, made of cheap ingredients, preying on the lack of basic knowledge in owners. When you see nightly ads for tooth cleaners for dogs you just know they're taking the piss. MOre to the point these are needed because of the stodgy crap they're feeding us with the other hand. Wolves and dingos don't need dentists. Ditto for us as "cavemen" too. Gorgeous teeth for the most part.

I'm just making the point that in my humble any extreme type thinking with regard to diet is not always right and certainly not across the board for all dogs and breeds. I'd defo think this about the heavy duty rawists who do "wild feeding", whole rabbits and the like.

I'm not convinced on the bones part, but again many dogs eat bones regularly and have no problems.

Funny enough I'd be more a bonist(oh er missus!:)) as it's only very recently that dogs haven't gotten them regularly. When I was a kid, dog bones from the butcher were a given.

Vince32

yeah alright fair enough, I guess it comes down to common sense at the end of the day, I'm still learning about raw diets, and there are tons upon tons of articles to digest (pun intended )

If in doubt ere on the side of caution

Everyone gives their dog a bone, not many cook it first tho.. lol.

boomerang

DogsFirst wrote: »

Its shown that dogs maintained on the same dry food for more than 12 months "sentitise to a protein" so the body develops a permanent problem with that protein - so cooked beef, cooked chicken, cooked fish. Sometimes this will develop into a problem with "beef" or "chicken" or "fish" in any form, raw or cooked.

One of my two dogs is fed a commercial dry diet. I have always changed brands at least every 6-8 months. Not so much to prevent sensitisation to the animal protein, but rather to ensure that the dog is not being over-supplemented with a micronutrient due to the particular ingredient mix in that particular food. (I don't think pet dogs should be fed one brand of food over a lifetime anyways. As scavengers I think they do appreciate variety in their diet.) The cooked animal protein she has eaten has always been chicken, turkey, salmon or lamb, sometimes for more than a year, but in different brands of food, like James Wellbeloved, Arden Grange and Burns. She is fed raw chicken or lamb occasionally without any reaction.

My other dog (the one with the kidney problems) is now fed raw lamb or defrosted pork mince mostly, after a lifetime of eating the same foods as my other dog, as described above. She has no problem with raw, except for beef, which makes her itchy. But she would never have been fed a commercial dry food that had beef as a listed ingredient.

Why is it that so few brands of dry commercial dog food (except for the crummiest, like Madra and Brandy) contain beef? I find that interesting, seeing as it's relatively cheap. The vet in school says that we now export most of the beef offal for human consumption. I wonder has that anything to do with it? I know a huge percentage of Irish beef offal is considered unfit for human consumption because of endo-parasites, but then this infected offal is sold off to petfood manufacturers, so it's still fed to pets.

Think of any brand of commercial dog food - the only one I can think of that offers a beef variety is Hills' - which I'd consider crap anyways!

DogsFirst

Its just pedantics

Wibbs wrote: »

Not really DF it's science and archeology.

Still think its pedantics!! You're missing all the info by trying to pick holes. I feel like I'm debating the existence of God with a guy using the fossil record and all you can do is focus on the gaps in the fossil record - what happened there then?!! I dunno. Well then, it's possible you're wrong!!!! Yup. It's very very unlikely, especially considering all the other stuff....but it's too late, he's skipping down the road to build another church and loot the locals.

Now I'm going to sound like an ass here but I got the science bit down. While many folk leave their details blank, I have mine on show so I don't have to write imho all the time. 'course mines just an opinion but it might weigh more in the science field than someone that didn't study the boring stuff for years and years.

So I'm not going to pick out each point you say - like pointing out omnivores only eating when fruit comes out, so in Autumn, not sure what they do with the rest of the time!! Meat is hard to catch, omnivores turn to other plant stuff, flowering at different times, new buds and leaves, mosses, lichen, roots, tubers, very easy stuff to find if you're an omnivore. Omnivores in general make crap hunters, we got lucky.

Forgive me if I get a few bits wrong but by focusing on the 8000 yrs or 6000yrs you miss the point - it taked thousands of years to form new gut system / function and thousands / millions of deaths but aside all that, what you're saying is "its possible a dog has evolved to digest gluten better / eat cooked protein better / become an omnivore". Absolutely it is, nobodys disagreeing with you there. And the gluten thing is a hot topic.

It is interesting re wolves, I don't think 8000 years of domestication can have no effect on an animal, but their guts are the same size and shape and they look damn similar on the inside. A different type of carnivore though it seems. One that seems to be able to cope with heavily processed gluten to some sort of extent (though most suffer terribly, just not instant, over time, think orthopaedics), how much is unknown. It's not just a physiological trick he needs to deal with gluten, he needs a much longer, slower system to give his body time to break it down, and this he doesn't have.

All I'm saying is that nobody has found any evidence yet, and believe me some groups have been looking! Despite a few token physiological tricks, probably typical for scavenging carnivores in times of little (do vultures do it? hyenas? dunno), everything points to the dog as a carnivore. All independent anatomy and physiology experts agree the dog has the internal anatomy and physiology of a carnivore (Akers and Denbow, Feldhammer). Not one independent disagree with this. It wasn't until 1986 that manufacturers began refering to the dog as an omnivore and they (and their literature) are the only ones saying it today. So while it's possible, it hasn't happened yet. I can assure you, IMHO, on the inside, he's all about the raw meat.

Re cooked protein here and there is going to do little for evolution, we all know this. It's not going to kill a dog, just possibly make him sick / weaker for a bit. Cooked meat was a rarity (back then), especially for dogs so a little squit is a small price to pay for a meat feed. If he's domesticated (controlled breeding not focusing on digestive issues and great vet meds) it matters even less. Its evolutionary inertia. No stress, no evolution. Even if it doesn't make him sick, cooked meat is poor nutritionally. Enzymes gone, hard to digest, vitamin defunct. While they can eat twice heavily cooked meat it's not great for them. Raw is great. And Vince32 is spot on. Heavily cooked meat is crap for kids. Doesn't kill 'em straight away but meat processed at high temps forms amines which today are known to cause cancer to name but one issue. Cooking is unnatural and we're only getting used to it (very slowly in fact as we rarely pick mates based on little health problems like "dunno man, she gets the runs now and again".

Bottom line: dogs can be influenced to eat veg, like cats. Does it make them ominvores? Nope, as left to their own devices, free of human influence, they still reckon they're carnivores.

ISDW

My dogs love blackberries in the autumn, quite happily strip all the brambles on my land, we end up with only the higher up ones that they can't reach. They also dig and eat roots. Weird creatures my lot.

DogsFirst

ISDW wrote: »

My dogs love blackberries in the autumn, quite happily strip all the brambles on my land, we end up with only the higher up ones that they can't reach. They also dig and eat roots. Weird creatures my lot.

Its gas watching them gagging trying to eat a mushroom or orange segment. Offer to them - no way!! Drop it on the ground - BAM gone! There's nout as queer folk.

DogsFirst

boomerang wrote: »

Why is it that so few brands of dry commercial dog food (except for the crummiest, like Madra and Brandy) contain beef? I find that interesting, seeing as it's relatively cheap. The vet in school says that we now export most of the beef offal for human consumption. I wonder has that anything to do with it? I know a huge percentage of Irish beef offal is considered unfit for human consumption because of endo-parasites, but then this infected offal is sold off to petfood manufacturers, so it's still fed to pets.

Yeah I think it's the price boomer. Pound for pound beef at the moment is going up, but is it more pricey than the others?? Hmmmm. I dunno though, a good few of them are beef based.....

Yup pet food manufacturers love 4d meat - dead, diseased, dying, disabled. To make it worse this meat has to be "denatured" when it leaves the abbatoir to ensure it doesn't go back into the food chain! Bu you can feed it to dogs. They use kerosene / creosote, stuff labeled as poisonous. But they cook it before they give it to the dogs so its grand!!!! Ann Martins book "Food Pets Die For" is a must read. Truly shocking stuff.

The Sweeper

The cow can be more processed and used than other meats - gelatine, stock, glue, leather, bone meal, fertiliser, so on. It's partly due to the usefulness of it and partly due to the size of the animal (would you rather process one cow carcass or four sheep carcasses).

Poultry is more easily processable into petfood due to the size of the bird and its bone structure making it amenable to being put through machinery and so on. Same with fish. Bird protein tends to be the staple in most cheap dry foods, or a combination of proteins (a true slurry of mechanically reclaimed meat).

Pet food kibble represents profit from crap - never forget that. Trace the brands you know back to the companies that own them - there are four massive, multinational companies who are the producers of most of the world's petfood. Their businesses supply their other businesses with the leftovers, the chemicals, all of the ingredients they need.

boomerang

Great post!

I was at a Royal Canin-sponsored conference last year. The speaker from Royal Canin (a scientist) was insistent that dogs should only be fed a single brand of dry commercial food and that because they have less developed sense of taste than us, they don't need variety. One person in the audience piped up to ask if this was so, then why did her dogs go doolally when she gave them tripe or table scraps as a treat? The speaker hadn't an answer for that one.

I've brought the issue of quality up in school, too. The teachers are from a veterinary background so would be of the belief that the likes of Royal Canin or Hills' are the best things to feed. Most recently I pointed out that the quality of the ingredients doesn't match the price, and expressed the opinion that a lot of the price label on these foods goes towards the companies' massive marketing and advertising budgets. My teacher said that the companies list "meat and animal derivatives" rather than naming animal proteins, because the meat ingredient of the food varies according to availability to the manufacturers. But she still felt these were the best foods, because they are nutritionally consistent. I thought about this - no human I know has a completely balanced diet every day, so why this emphasis on providing all the essential nutrients in one meal? Surely so long as we provide a dog with a varied diet, they'll fare even better on home-prepared or raw?

I have stayed away from the "big guns" (Hills/Eukanuba/Iams/Pedigree Masterfoods etc.) and bought brands from smaller, more ethical companies such as Arden Grange, Burns, Green Dog and Land of Holistic Pets. Even so, I still think fresh food is better for our dogs.

Edited to add: My own vet believes fresh is best, too. If her clients can't/won't feed their dogs a home-prepared or BARF diet, she encourages them to add healthy table scraps to the dog's meals. (While keeping an eye on the dog's weight, obviously. She says not to give too many starchy veg.) I think that's pretty cool.

Vince32

Couldn't agree more, There are some brands that make up a canines RDA of nutrients (or so they tell us, who knows for sure?), made by processing birds, or livestock, with dried veggies and minerals, and to an extent they seem to of done at least some homework, but I think the real question is why bother buying processed foods, made by "in-house experts" when the dog can (and should?) be feed real food which is already enriched with what they need to be healthy and happy. Proteins, fats, minerals.

There may be issues of supply, storage or just not having the time to shop and feed raw / cooked, and people choose a quick fix with dry foods ( as I do), but the more I read on raw vs dry, raw is winning me over. It just makes sense to feed real food to an animal.

As an aside... and I don't want to go off topic here but I found it interesting, NASA has a planned trip to Mars in 2016, round trip it will take roughly 2 years, and there is no way they can store enough food for the trip logistically speaking. So they started looking into making dry food and NASA can't figure a way to get a balanced meal into a processed form like power bars, and these are humans, top priority. Albeit some can argue that dogs and cats don't have high nutritional needs, or as complex, but if NASA can't do it, I doubt anyone else can.

I doubt my aside has any bearing on the debate, since it was speaking on human needs, but I thought it was a bit quirky.

Cherry Blossom

Vince32 wrote: »

I think the real question is why bother buying processed foods, made by "in-house experts" when the dog can (and should?) be feed real food which is already enriched with what they need to be healthy and happy. Proteins, fats, minerals.

No, the real question is what do they need to be happy and healthy? This varies between breeds and even individual dogs, science is only correct for as long as new evidence doesn't prove it wrong, which happens every day, new evidence is stamped as 'the facts' until newer evidence replaces it - which then becomes 'the facts'. Scientific research often has personal bias incorporated into it as there are always factors which have not been taken into account. Unexplainable exceptions are not unexplainable - it means something has been missed and not taken into consideration - in my humble unqualified opinion. How do you determine what nutrients and in what ratios are needed for each particular dog, how do you know you are doing it correctly and are not causing nutrient overload leading to various organ failure, kidneys, liver ect. or nutrient deficiency causing the same problems, which are often not detected until it is 'too late' - how do you prepare a meal for a dog that has the correct phosphorus:calcium ratio? I have no clue and my dog does not tolerate raw foods, so I look for the best commercially prepared foods armed with my list of 'good ingredients' and 'bad ingredients' accumulated from past experience of my own dog. The nutritional analysis is printed on the bag which tells me if it has the correct balance or not. So that's why I bother buying processed foods made by in-house experts (no inverted commas needed).