Raw Feeding Explained
Feeding a raw food is not a new fad or ‘fashion’. This is how our dogs are genetically designed to eat.
Species Appropriate Food, Raw Feeding, Bones And Raw Food, Biologically Appropriate Raw Food, BARF… these are all terms you will come across to describe the method of feeding your dog (or cat) the way its digestive system has been designed to be fed. Not with commercial food, made up of totally inappropriate ingredients like maize, corn, plant-based protein and so on, but with raw bones, raw meat, vegetable matter and other natural raw ingredients.
The basic principal in feeding dogs raw food lies in the proven fact that dogs are descended from the grey wolf. A chapter in the publication The Genetics of the Dog (ed Elaine A. Ostrander – National Human Genome Research Institute National Institutes of Health Maryland, USA & Anatoly Ruvinsky – University of New England, Australia), confirms the wolf origin of the dog. A comparison of the DNA of the grey wolf and the domestic dog shows a slight divergence of around 2% compared with 7.5% between dogs and coyotes, their next closest kin (Vila et al., 1997a). In fact, if we were to place the internal organs and digestive system of the grey wolf and, say, a German Shepherd Dog, on 2 tables and invited 10 experts to come in and identify which belonged to which, they would be unable to do so! The internal workings of both grey wolves and the modern dog are identical. So why wouldn’t we feed them the same way?
The raw food diet is therefore based on the fact that the dog comes from the wolf, which is a wild carnivore, as well as an opportunistic scavenger. As such, they eat the animals that they kill. This means that everything a wolf eats is raw, and bones form a very important part of their diet. Their gut and intestines are designed to cope with raw bones, bacteria and other such things that we would turn our noses up at. Since the closer association between man and dog dates back only some 12 000 years, on an evolutionary scale not enough time has lapsed for dogs’ nutritional requirements, or for his gut chemistry, to have changed.
Commercial food became BIG business in the last few decades and a large amount of money has been spent by these multi-million dollar companies on ‘educating’ vets and the dog-owning public about the necessity of feeding a commercial food. What does not make sense is that the basis of most of the commercial foods today is grain, rice or corn. These grains are alien products that a wild carnivore would never eat. Not only that, but the commercial dog food is COOKED. We’ve already established that the dog has descended from the wolf and have you ever seen a wolf with a stove? The very high temperatures involved in producing dog pellets destroy vitamins such as E and C. Another alarming fact is that a high percentage of the protein in most commercial dog foods is plant-based and not animal based.
Raw Feeding has a huge following around the world, with its supporters reporting phenomenal health benefits, from the disappearance of skin allergies and skin problems, disappearance of gum disease, increased health and vitality, increased fertility, maintenance of appropriate weight, reduction in joint disease and so on. The list is almost endless. Vets visits are reduced to the necessary annual visits for Rabies jabs and the like, and vet bills for all sorts of ailments are a thing of the past.
Commercial food became BIG business in the last few decades and a large amount of money has been spent by these multi-million dollar companies on ‘educating’ vets and the dog-owning public about the necessity of feeding a commercial food. What does not make sense is that the basis of most of the commercial foods today is grain, rice or corn. These grains are alien products that a wild carnivore would never eat. Not only that, but the commercial dog food is COOKED. We’ve already established that the dog has descended from the wolf and have you ever seen a wolf with a stove? The very high temperatures involved in producing dog pellets destroy vitamins such as E and C. Another alarming fact is that a high percentage of the protein in most commercial dog foods is plant-based and not animal based.
Raw Feeding has a huge following around the world, with its supporters reporting phenomenal health benefits, from the disappearance of skin allergies and skin problems, disappearance of gum disease, increased health and vitality, increased fertility, maintenance of appropriate weight, reduction in joint disease and so on. The list is almost endless. Vets visits are reduced to the necessary annual visits for Rabies jabs and the like, and vet bills for all sorts of ailments are a thing of the past.