Raw/BARF diet

fatmammycat

muddypaws wrote: »

I haven't posted in this forum for a few weeks, but really feel the need on this thread. This forum seems to have become a 'raw is the only way to feed' area. Yes, I agree that raw is great, and when I have the storage space to be able to feed all of my dogs, I will be switching, but anytime anyone puts a different point of view, they seem to be jumped on and their opinion ridiculed, which I think is a real shame. Yes, most dog food is made by large companies, but Tesco, Lidl Aldi etc aren't exactly small, local operations either, everywhere you buy the food, whether that is kibble or meat for your dogs, it comes from a company who is making money on it - unless you are raising and slaughtering your own animals of course. The anecdotal evidence about raw fed dogs having great coats, muscle tone, good teeth etc, I also know lots of people who feed complete dog food who can offer the same evidence, these include hard working dogs who run miles at a time, and pure pets.

I do find it interesting that people advocate duck necks, yet I wonder if it came out that duck necks were used in some dry foods, would the food manufacturers by slated on here for using a by product?

I don't think people say it's the 'only' way at all, most folk usually say to feed dogs as high a quality food as possible. In my case the best food I can feed my dog is a raw diet. However if someone comes on and suggests raw is not a suitable diet for dogs, they ought to have some seriously good reasons for their opinion. Regarding ducks necks, I don't feed them and know little about them, but if they were included as an ingredient in dry food, why would people object?

muddypaws

fatmammycat wrote: »

I don't think people say it's the 'only' way at all, most folk usually say to feed dogs as high a quality food as possible. In my case the best food I can feed my dog is a raw diet. However if someone comes on and suggests raw is not a suitable diet for dogs, they ought to have some seriously good reasons for their opinion. Regarding ducks necks, I don't feed them and know little about them, but if they were included as an ingredient in dry food, why would people object?

Have you read the posts on this thread?

People seem to object when animal by products, rather than meat, are used in dry food, would duck necks not fall into that category?

tk123

muddypaws wrote: »

People seem to object when animal by products, rather than meat, are used in dry food, would duck necks not fall into that category?

They're very meaty so I would have thought not...but I'm probably wrong?! Raw isn't the only way but there's a lot of nonsense/scaremongering about it which is why I share my experiences - I had a lecture from a nurse the other day telling me complete rubbish and trying to get me to buy "Hills-complete-diet" - like no other dry food exists in the world lol except her precious Hills!

borderlinemeath

muddypaws wrote: »

Have you read the posts on this thread?

People seem to object when animal by products, rather than meat, are used in dry food, would duck necks not fall into that category?

Nice to see you back:)

Actually duck necks are used in lots of recipes, I googled them before I ordered them the first time and loads of recipes and images of dishes come up.

I dunno, I get the vibe from this thread that the OP was completely against raw from the get go, the more it went on the more of a wind up it seemed to be. They wanted research and it seems that us regular posters are incapable of doing 'real research' yet when asked we don't get the facts and figures that appear to be at the OPs disposal?

fiounnalbe

borderlinemeath wrote: »

I dunno, I get the vibe from this thread that the OP was completely against raw from the get go, the more it went on the more of a wind up it seemed to be. They wanted research and it seems that us regular posters are incapable of doing 'real research' yet when asked we don't get the facts and figures that appear to be at the OPs disposal?

I already posted the link to pub med where I got a lot of my research
And explained how to find the articles, here are the direct links of some more though since people can't seem to find them...

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22931400

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20163574

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19366336

As I also said before, you need to pay/subscribe for the full articles which I did. In them is the exact figures and % people are looking for, I can't remember them exactly off hand sorry, but they were significantly high enough to turn me away from this diet.

borderlinemeath

fiounnalbe wrote: »

I already posted the link to pub med where I got a lot of my research
And explained how to find the articles, here are the direct links of some more though since people can't seem to find them...

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22931400

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20163574

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19366336

As I also said before, you need to pay/subscribe for the full articles which I did. In them is the exact figures and % people are looking for, I can't remember them exactly off hand sorry, but they were significantly high enough to turn me away from this diet.

Right. I read through the links. I also went searching through pub med for 'raw diet'. A good lot of articles came from Tufts Cummings School of Veterinary
Medicine, named by Forbes as one of the top 25 colleges in America. Here's an example of one of the articles I read

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22852574


Head of Nutrition at Tufts is Lisa M. Freeman.

http://vetprofiles.tufts.edu/doctor/lisa-freeman

Lisa M. Freeman has received a training grant from Nestle Purina.

That's just one example, I'm sure if I went looking for the education history of a number of the authors of the papers that are sceptical of raw food diets I could link up sponsorship or grants but it's late and I'm off to bed. My research is done for the night!

fiounnalbe

borderlinemeath wrote: »

Right. I read through the links. I also went searching through pub med for 'raw diet'. A good lot of articles came from Tufts Cummings School of Veterinary
Medicine, named by Forbes as one of the top 25 colleges in America. Here's an example of one of the articles I read

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22852574


Head of Nutrition at Tufts is Lisa M. Freeman.

http://vetprofiles.tufts.edu/doctor/lisa-freeman

Lisa M. Freeman has received a training grant from Nestle Purina.

That's just one example, I'm sure if I went looking for the education history of a number of the authors of the papers that are sceptical of raw food diets I could link up sponsorship or grants but it's late and I'm off to bed. My research is done for the night!

Firstly, none of the links I posted are by Tufts University.

Secondly, she may have received sponsorship by nestle purina but there are laws against writing scientific papers based on false research. Since this paper is published and all there must be some truth behind it. Perhaps she is just trying to help out pet owners so the same thing doesn't happen other poor pups, I'd like to believe not everyone has a hidden agenda in life.

Thirdly, she doesn't say feed the dog a dry commercial food instead, just a proper balanced diet.

I have recently taken a career break from work and so have a lot of time to think about things now and thought maybe I would start my dogs on RAW since I had read such good things about it on here. Upon research there seemed to be a lot of negatives papers about the diet and all the positives were just opinions of people. I was surprised since so many rave about it on here, so I came on here simply to ask has anyone got any scientific papers on the benefits of RAW food. End of, no other vendetta as has been implied a few times.
Did a single one of you provide me with anything?? No you did not.
You asked what negatives I had found and when I explained them to you like you asked me to, people got on the defensive immediately and battered me down, telling me I was wrong. And maybe I am…I am big enough to admit that. Unlike many people on here, whom, not just on this thread but on others as well can never stand that peoples opinions may differ to theirs, maybe just maybe they are occasionally wrong or indeed maybe there are two ways to do something right??
As I said no one gave me any really scientific proof about this diet. All I got, which I asked not to receive in one of my first few posts, was the constant “my dog has a shiny coat, is lean etc etc comments” Well guess what?? so are my dogs.
Unfortunately two of my dogs passed away this year, which devastated me, and is probably what made me sit down and really think about what I was doing for my dogs and could I do better, I had somewhat been taking them for granted, like they would always be by my side and hence I started researching this diet, anyway my Labrador was 21 years old when he died and my collie was 19 years old, I realise now if I had been feeding them differently it probably would not have made a difference, they were very old for their breeds, they had to leave at somestage. With long lives like these I can sleep easy at night that I must be doing something right.

And that really is the last I will post here about this, because I'm bored of it now.

muddypaws

tk123 wrote: »

They're very meaty so I would have thought not...but I'm probably wrong?! Raw isn't the only way but there's a lot of nonsense/scaremongering about it which is why I share my experiences - I had a lecture from a nurse the other day telling me complete rubbish and trying to get me to buy "Hills-complete-diet" - like no other dry food exists in the world lol except her precious Hills!

And I understand the frustration of people like that vet nurse pushing that one particular food, but tbh, thats how I feel on this forum now with the raw diet being pushed constantly. I don't think that there is enough scientific data yet on the raw diets that are now being fed, dogs have eaten our cast offs for centuries, but not the barf or raw diets that are currently in vogue, so scientifically I don't think the evidence does exist to say for definite that this is a proper, balanced diet for a dog.

I won't go into the ins and outs of it on here, but there has been a legal dispute with a European raw food company (whose products are sold widely in Ireland), and it has now split into two, with its original name being used by one side, and a new, slightly different name being used by the other. So, when money is concerned, humans behave the same way we always have I'm afraid, and so I do wonder if the owners of the raw food companies are actually any more ethical than the dry food companies, which again, is what some posters seem to have major issues with, the companies themselves, rather than the food.

Binka

I think the real problem here is that Raw/Barf feeding has no exact ingredients and that each person following these regimes for their dogs adapt them, mix & match to try to do the best for their dogs based on opinions and informations gleaned from various websites. How much meat, offal, veg, bones etc is the right amount. There are different types of proteins, amino acids and the like. There are also breed specific problems that need to be attended to (ie; Dalmations should never be given offal or anything high in purines).

It's easy for scientific studies to tell us the difference between say, Pedigree and Jameswellbeloved, as we have to assume that the list of ingredients never changes and in what way each is good and bad.

Raw is mainly "homemade" so it's an impossible scientific study really. I think the OP did enough homework to make a decision and may well have already made that decision, but was hoping that maybe somebody had found something more concrete in terms of scientific results to sway that decision.

It's good to ask questions - mind made up or not. Someone else might learn something useful.