Feeding A Dog – Raw Diet Over Dried Food?
I read so many questions on here about feeding a dog a raw diet as it is more natural for a dogs digestive system.
I have tried this and i dont agree i have 1 young girl who was the runt (4oz pup) and has always had a ‘’sensitive tummy” since being tiny, my 3 others all have a very good digestive system and never have diarrhoea.
However when i tried to feed raw diet i tried it for 3 months all of my girls had runny poos at some time or another not constantly but at least 1 of them had diarrheoa at least once a week and the one with a sensitive tummy was pooing water.
Has anyone else tried raw diet and found it to be not as good an alternative as dried food? I certainly would not recommend it! Just curious to see if anyone else has had same thing.
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as I just said a little while ago raw diets for dogs [and people too!] are just a fad. it is much healthier to feed a high quality dog food and save meat scraps[cooked] for treats.I agree with you it should not be recommended.I think dogs have been domesticated too long for them to eat raw and be healthy and safe.I would never feed my dogs raw.get ready for the hate mail people are goingto jump all over you for this question.glad to see others agree with me
Well first off what were you feeding? The problem with raw is many people jump in with too much too soon, not enough bone, too much variety, too much fat etc.
There is also the fact that many dogs cannot tolerate the seasoned broth additives added to chicken from certain brands like Purdue.
If raw didn’t work for your dogs fine, but don’t go around just blanket discouraging the diet. Just because it didn’t work for you doesn’t mean it doesn’t work for other people.
Read this: http://leerburg.com/feedingarawdiet.htm
All 3 of my dogs were on a raw diet, until out saint got huge and the food bill was over $500 a month for all 3.
A balanced raw diet with supplements is the best. Some dogs will have the runs occasionally, but it doesn’t mean that they should be on the raw diet, it means that they are missing something or getting too much of something in the diet. It’s a lot of guessing and changing the diet around a bit.
I recommend it, but only after you’ve done your research and read all you can about it.
This topic like most requires a little research. Just tossing a dog a couple of chicken legs is not feeding a RAW diet.
Feeding RAW is a valid alternative IF a person first learns what is required for complete nutrition, otherwise it is a recipe for disaster.
edit
“lol dogs are meat eaters, don’t feed them anything other than meat.”
Perfect example of “otherwise it is a recipe for disaster.”
Personally, I think its great, my dog is on it and ever since she started she’s been so much healthier yet i have a friend who says it didn’t help. I think it just depends how much and what type you give them:)
Thats probally because you feed them to much variety. They are both good foods but personally raw meat is the best and it is what i feed my dog.
my dog is a british bulldog and i feed her dry food mixed with various types of meet ‘lamb,beef and fish once a week to keep her coat in good condition.
lol dogs are meat eaters, don’t feed them anything other than meat.
I would never feed my dogs on a diet that consisted of 100% processed food which is what “dried” food is.
I’ve been feeding raw (usually with biscuit added) for 30+ yrs and can only say my dogs very, very rarely have diarrhoea and never suffer from skin complaints or other allergy symptoms.
Maybe you were feeding too much variety or simply too much food (the most common cause of runny poos.
Edit: ” raw diets for dogs [and people too!] are just a fad” – er … tell that to dogs which live in the wild – no-one to cook for them!
Honestly I switched to the RAW Diet to help my dog with his stomach issues and other health problems. Since he has been on the diet he is like a new healthier and improved dog. He use have constant stomach upset, he was constantly at the vets for it but NOT once since he went RAW. His stool is actually firm, and he goes less because there is not as much waste as there is from dry kibble,
You are right everyone is entitled to their opinions, but your results are not common. I just know it saved my dogs life his stomach digestive track is 100%, his allergies are gone, he lost all the excessive weight and is now all muscle, his coat is amazing, he has more energy, his eyes are bright, and my vet cost are down drastically.
for a dog with a sensitive stomach i would say senior dog food would be a good idea or you can get dog food for sensitive stomachs, where some dogs may thrive on the raw meat diet when changing foods dogs usually get sloppy poohs for a while.
all i would say is dont worry about all the hear say just stick with a dog food your dog likes and causes solid bowel movements complete dried food has all the goodness of a raw meat diet its more about the owner than the dog
This might be a bit long and not all relevant — but there is a lot to take into consideration here. No dog fed enough bone content will get the runs. It is also likely as you had four dogs with similar symptoms that it is something to do with how quick you changed over or the food that you are using. It is virtually impossible for a raw diet to have adverse effects on four dogs otherwise.
This is about changing over although not all may be relevant to you at the moment.
Kibble contains sometimes more than half its weight in carbohydrates, carbohydrates is not by nature on the menu of carnivores.
Carbohydrates can only be digested in the dogs stomach by enzymes that only function well at pH levels that are close to neutral (pH6-7) whilst a natural raw diet for carnivores requires a strong acidity (pH 1-2) for the enzymes to digest raw food.
When a dog has been programmed to expect a meal mainly of carbohydrates at 8am the pancreas will produce the enzymes that can do the job of digesting carbohydrates and the stomach will adjust the pH level to around 6. This happens shortly before 8am every day.
If you suddenly start to feed an adult dog a raw meaty bone diet it will be a shock to the dogs digestive system as the stomach is programmed to digest Carbohydrates. The enzymes produced by the pancreas and other glands are wrong and the pH level in the stomach is wrong hence the dogs may vomit the food to deal with the problem. Most enzymes are extremely sensitive to pH and if the pH is off what they need they will not function this is why feeding both raw with biscuit or kibble is a contradiction a stomach’s ph must be one or the other.
The problem is not the food but the past feeding program and biologically wrong food.
Some adults dogs will make the switch to a raw diet with no problems at all but ideally it is best to de-condition the reflex responses created by unnatural predictable feeding by varying the times when you feed by feeding an hour earlier for a few days then perhaps 2 hours early on another day, the stomach is already full by the time the usual feeding time arrives but try to avoid feeding later. It does not take long, just a few days, to break the conditioned reflex of producing enzymes for carbohydrates that may have been established for several years.
Add on.
It is virtually impossible for any of us to say “this worked for my dogs and this didn’t” when we are talking multi-dog household. If someone said “Raw was great for 3 of my dogs but the 4th one didn’t get on with it” then I accept that. So something else has to be the cause, otherwise the rest of us wouldn’t be having all our dogs fine on it.