httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1vB4_zKJ-s
Have a look as my dog Chandler gets his first raw egg. We have had Chandler for just over 2 years now and he has been one of the most welcome additions to our family yet. He brings me joy and acts as an amazing reliever of stress and should be rated as a service dog for all he does for me!
I have been home recently for days at a time and have gotten to know Chandler much better to discover he seems to have a major food allergy. We used to think all of his snorting and sneezing was normal but it definitely was not! I began searching in earnest when he would lick at the floor for 15 minutes after every meal. We already have been feeding him some really premium dog food that was kibble based, knowing that the stuff you buy at the regular store is NOT good for your pets. What we did not realize is that even the top grade kibble fails to give our dog what he really needs. He needs raw meat and bones. That’s it!
Imagine a dog in the wild, he will never eat corn, oats, meat by products and the like found in most foods. He would never eat Mc Donald’s french fries. He would instead hunt, kill and eat whatever animal he could catch.
It makes sense then that dogs are not really meant to live on kibble. They are supposed to eat meat. I did a lot of research and discovered a plethora of people feeding their dogs just this. The recipes are dead easy. Remove a raw chicken (bone in) from the package, give to dog. Repeat daily.
I’m targeting 2.5% of his body weight which works out to approx 4.4 oz of meat per day. I’ll assume an egg is approx 2 oz and will use them as needed.
I can’t wait to see if this makes his stop licking his paws, sneezing, reverse sneezing and licking the floor. It might also make him a happier part of the family. Now for me to just get over the ewwwwww factor….
As I understand, dogs are omnivores like humans, pigs, and bears, rather than carnivores like cats. A dog in the wild will dig up and eat roots, plants, etc. as well as eating meat (when it can catch it), and dogs (like humans, but unlike cats) can survive on a vegetarian diet when they have to.
In any case, modern domestic dog breeds have evolved beside humans for thousands of years, living off our table scraps and garbage, so they’re actually pretty good at surviving on a diet similar to ours (cats, on the other hand, have lived with us mainly to catch and eat mice and rats). My Border Collie, at 11, is actually having a lot of trouble digesting straight meat now, but she can still handle it in kibble, as long as it’s made with lots of non-meat products as well. She loves oats, mango pulp, and cheese as much as (or more than) meat. Go figure.
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I agree with you David that dogs have evolved next to man for a very long time but I cannot ignore the ideas presented by the raw feeders. It is a topic of controversy but for me just getting away from the kibble and all of the allergies is worth taking a chance. I believe there is a need to feed the dog a consistent diet. I think a lot of people who have trouble feeding their dogs meat are doing it concurrently with kibble (which confuses the digestive tract) or are feeding cooked meat, which is not the same as raw meat. (you should never give a dog a cooked bone yet I understand that raw ones are fine!) I’ll be keeping a close eye on this and hope you enjoy the blog posts as they come up.
Raw meat gave our dog several days of explosive bloody diarrhoea even when she was younger; even big chunks of cooked meat do now (2-3 days with more blood than stool), but meat in kibble still seems OK. We even put her on 100% vegetarian dog food for a year, and her health was excellent all through that time, though she didn’t like the taste much, so we put her back on meat-based kibble (I would never put a cat on a vegetarian diet, but as I mentioned, dogs, like humans, can handle it fine).
I have no objection to feeding dogs meat — after all, they can (usually) digest it well, just like humans can — but I’m worried that insisting on an all-meat diet for dogs is based on a non-scientific, romanticised idea about how the dogs’ ancestor breeds once ate in the wild.
Dogs are carnivores – not omnivores or herbivores. There is alot of misinformation out there on raw feeding dogs and proper nutrition for their digestive system. Even though dogs have evolved into pets, their digestive system has not evolved. You are correct, Michael – raw meat, period; not cooked meat (ever see a wolf on the Discovery Channel cooking their food over an open fire?), definitely no plant food (vegetables), and no grains.
For those of you genuinely interested in learning more about raw feeding your pet (dog or cat), start your research at http://www.rawfed.com. You will find a wealth of information addressing the myths and objections some people raise to raw feeding.
I’m sure Chandler is already a happier camper! Keep an eye on the rawfeeding site to find out how and when to transition him to other meats.