Quote Originally Posted by TheSnakeGuy View Post
To all who are feeding raw diets: Keep it at a minimum, raw diets are ALWAYS deficient in certain vitamins and minerals that are present for a reason in dry, semi-moist, and wet manufactured pet foods.

Remember: Dogs are NOT obligate carnivores. No, not even wolves.

And Science Diet is not bad food, it was once top of the line. The bar has just been raised and now it's a mid-grade food that can easily sustain good overall health in many many breeds.
That is 100% FALSE! A proper fed RAW diet is not deficient in anything, thats like saying YOU only feeding your snakes rats is making it deficient in vitamins and minerals.

DOGS ARE CARNIVORES FACT. BUT if you are still one of the weirdos who thinks they arent OR you heavily work a dog you can go with the BARF or semi-BARF diet (like we will be doing come heavier work season). That includes some vegetable matter BUT for dogs to digest vegetable matter you need top blanch it (cook) and then blend it into a paste otherwise it passes through and little if any is absorbed, you know, cuz they are carnivores and all.

A little snippit from some research I have done over the years of raw feeding

"3.) Internal anatomy and physiology

Dogs and cats have the internal anatomy and physiology of a carnivore (Feldhamer, G.A. 1999. Mammology: Adaptation, Diversity, and Ecology. McGraw-Hill. pg 260.). They have a highly elastic stomach designed to hold large quantities of meat, bone, organs, and hide. Their stomachs are simple, with an undeveloped caecum (Feldhamer, G.A. 1999. Mammology: Adaptation, Diversity, and Ecology. McGraw-Hill. pg 260.). They have a relatively short foregut and a short, smooth, unsacculated colon. This means food passes through quickly. Vegetable and plant matter, however, needs time to sit and ferment. This equates to longer, sacculated colons, larger and longer small intestines, and occasionally the presence of a caecum. Dogs have none of these, but have the shorter foregut and hindgut consistent with carnivorous animals. This explains why plant matter comes out the same way it came in; there was no time for it to be broken down and digested (among other things). People know this; this is why they tell you that vegetables and grains have to be preprocessed for your dog to get anything out of them. But even then, feeding vegetables and grains to a carnivorous animal is a questionable practice.

Dogs do not normally produce the necessary enzymes in their saliva (amylase, for example) to start the break-down of carbohydrates and starches; amylase in saliva is something omnivorous and herbivorous animals possess, but not carnivorous animals. This places the burden entirely on the pancreas, forcing it to produce large amounts of amylase to deal with the starch, cellulose, and carbohydrates in plant matter. Thus, feeding dogs as though they were omnivores taxes the pancreas and places extra strain on it, as it must work harder for the dog to digest the starchy, carbohydrate-filled food instead of just producing normal amounts of the enzymes needed to digest proteins and fats (which, when fed raw, begin to "self-digest" when the cells are crushed through chewing and tearing and their enzymes are released).

Nor do dogs have the kinds of friendly bacteria that break down cellulose and starch for them. As a result, most of the nutrients contained in plant matter—even preprocessed plant matter—are unavailable to dogs. This is why dog food manufacturers have to add such high amounts of synthetic vitamins and minerals (the fact that cooking destroys all the vitamins and minerals and thus creates the need for supplementation aside) to their dog foods. If a dog can only digest 40-60% of its grain-based food, then it will only be receiving 40-60% (ideally!) of the vitamins and minerals it needs. To compensate for this, the manufacturer must add a higher concentration of vitamins and minerals than the dog actually needs."

I wouldnt say raw feeding is the end all be all to dog health, and have seen some dogs who do terrible but the majority thrive on it, they dont just live and survive but THRIVE and you dont completely understand that until you start feeding an animal a species appropriate diet.

My dog has been on PMR (prey model raw, so zero vegetable matter) for almost 3 years now..




This is our other dog, PMR fed since Jan






We have half a litter of puppies here now too and they will starting raw once the bulk are shipped off to their new homes

People seem to think and forget that a proper raw diet contains specific amounts of muscle meat, bone, organs and you can add in oils, green tripe, eggs, apple cider vinegar, and yes the odd vegetable that can benefit your dog if you so choose upon proper preparation for it to be beneficial.

Typical meal for our dogs

(chicken quarter, chicken gizzard, hamburger, beef liver, mackerel, whole egg, acv, and fish oil)

The problem is when people not educated on the subject try and explain it.

If anyone is interested in learning about or starting a raw diet with their dogs, here ya go.. factual information http://preymodelraw.com/page/articles.html