Raw Food Diet For Dogs Pros And Cons of Raw Feeding Dogs

No doubt you’ve already heard about the fresh food healthy diet plan for pet dogs, the alternative raw feeding option that’s been gaining traction these last few years.

Now many specialist raw dog food companies are opening up on the Internet to fulfill that need. And they do it not just for profit but out of a genuine compassion for the most amazing animal in the world – your dog.

These are exciting times for dog owners fed up with their dogs health complaints, expensive veterinary costs and the questionable quality of commercial dog food in cans and packets, even the supposedly best quality most expensive choices have found to be nutritionally unsound despite the claims as dog food recalls become common place and more widely publicised than ever.

Dog owners can now see the pet food industry for what it really is, a worldwide food waste disposal operation based on huge profit margins with little to no concern for long term pet health and wellbeing because they don’t have to – either by genuine compassion or by law.

Have we turned a corner and is the natural dog food revolution about to take off?

If you speak to anyone in a role as spokesperson for commercial dog food, like (most) vets or those online dog health pros like Web MD, you’d be left with no doubt about the fact that they are what I call ‘blockers’ to your dogs raw food diet. Blockers are people with negative views on what they either do not understand or try to block out of threat to their long held opinions and authority.

So what is the whole truth and nothing but the truth about raw feeding dogs and the big mystery surrounding something seemingly as simple as tossing a piece of raw meat into your dogs food bowl?

Raw Food Diet for Dogs Pros And Cons

First off, lets get some historical perspective on the situation:

At some point dogs ate only meat, bone, offal (the internal parts) a long time before the invention of modern pet food. Dogs were wandering around this planet a very long time before man stood upright and put on a tie for work. They obviously had to look after themselves which meant killing something, ripping it apart and devouring it followed by a burp, a lick of the lips and a long sleep.

Meanwhile we humans were clubbing something, ripping it apart, sticking it in a fire to cook and then devouring it followed by a burp, a lick of the lips and a long sleep. So not really much different except early humans loved meat cooked as the digestion issue from raw meat made things rather gassy in that cave and if you’re a lady, you may well know what it’s like when the men folk start with bad manners.

So anyway, dogs used to eat a meat on the bone raw dog diet and we humans and huwomans ate cooked meat on the bone. So what happened in the latter part of the 20th Century and why we all have this lack of understanding or should I say mis-understanding about something as simple as feeding your dog a piece of raw meat?

Here’s why?

Back around 1900 or so some clever ex caveman now in suit and tie had a brain wave while watching dogs scavenge old biscuits thrown over the side of newly arrived ships at port which led to the invention of dog biscuits. One thing led to another and before a couple of decades had passed the whole canned and packet dog food business was up and running. Things really took off after the Second World War when factory production ramped up to meet the ever increasing needs of a rapidly expanding post world war population.

The Worlds Food Waste Recycled Into Pet Food – Here’s Where it Gets Ugly for Your Dog!

Lots more people all over the world meant lots more home food waste (municipal waste), lots more food factory waste, lots more restaurant waste, lots more feed lot and farm waste and lots more chemical and industrial waste. Just huge growing mountains of human industrial food and chemical waste that had to be got rid of somehow.

That’s when a Mr. C. Lever Dick came up with his eureka moment and said, “I know, lets repackage all that waste into cans and packets and pass it off as dog food. Imagine the profits from what is already being paid by businesses just to get rid of this waste when we can buy it all up for pennies, boil it at super high temperatures for days to kill off bacteria, package it up and then market it as priceless wonder food for BIG profits – genius!” And so began the modern industrial processing system of pet food in cans and packets.

A Raw Diet Plan for Your Family Dog – Lost in the Sands of Time

All that now had to be done to win the hearts and minds of the regular folk on main street was to create lots of fluffy feel good bill board advertisements and TV commercials, tell them how convenient it all is, how clean it all is, how “complete and balanced nutrition” it all is, throw in a few cuddly puppies and wham bam thank you mam everyones hooked on the new idea. And here’s the genius part, do this for long enough – several generations – and regular folk won’t even know any more what a dog is really supposed to eat for real health and wellbeing!

In fact, with enough blanket advertising, sponsoring of dog shows, sponsoring of veterinary training establishments and anyone else that can be bought, the dog food moguls have got regular folk thinking that feeding their dog a piece of raw meat is downright dangerous and irresponsible – how’s that for clever brain washing marketing.

I had to share with you a little background so that you understand why it’s taken until now to look into a raw dog diet and perhaps see it – for the first time – from a level playing field perspective away from heart tugging TV ads, misguided vets and loose talk at the dog park.

You might be thinking – Right, got that, so tell me the pros and cons of raw food?

Pros and Cons of Feeding Your Dog a Raw Dog Food Diet:

The Pros:

*Average age of death if fed from puppy is 16 to 19 (*My own research over 8 years which is why the age range is still large but impressive none-the-less when you consider the average age of death for a commercially fed dog is 12.5 years according to National Research Council statistics).

Healing of 9 out of 10 health complaints (Amazing what can be fixed up so quickly through feeding a dog raw food diet). One of the biggest problems dog owners face is allergies. An unprocessed fresh food eating routine for dogs with allergies gets to work quickly putting an end to dog allergies within weeks and for life bringing great relief to dogs with incessant paw licking, hot spots, heavy shedding, intermittent diarrhea, ear infections, cracked and dry nose, paws and skin and blocked anal glands.

Your dog is now getting all the macro and micro nutrients it needs, right down to the cellular level biology your dog was designed to grow and function from consuming a natural raw diet for dogs.

You are protecting yourself from greedy multi-national corporations which have no laws in the US to protect you from them stuffing pretty much whatever they like into cans and packets… really! (your dog is merely an object of commerce and trade by law which means your best friend has no value beyond their price tag – fact!) Chemicals are added to dog food that are banned in human food for being carcinogenic (cancer forming) hence the fact that 1 in 2 dogs will today get some kind of cancer by age 10 – another ugly fact.

The raw food dog diet is pretty simple in theory and practice once you try it (I made sure my book “Real Food for Dogs” was a,b,c simple but balanced to fit in with our modern convenient lifestyle – hey, why not, raw diets for dogs can be made very simply AND be nutritionally balanced to be effective at keeping your dog in lifelong optimal health).

Overall costs of a fresh food diet are cheaper when considering lifetime vet fees and meds (see study below) – Somehow someone whispers in our ear and we think its extra expensive to feed a diet like this. We think in terms of T-bones and supermarket lamb chops in shrink wrapped white Styrofoam trays which when you have a Golden retriever to feed sounds expensive. Well, if you feed that way, yes it’s expensive but that’s not the only destination to purchase food for your dog. A 30lb (13.61kg) bag of Eukanuba premium dog kibbles costs $47.00 in the US and around £37.00 in the UK and usually lasts a month for a medium size dog of 50lb (24kg).

As an example it costs me around £30 ($45) per month to feed my 47lb (23kg) dog like a king on various raw food choices. So let’s call it all square more or less but then take into account the costs of veterinary supervision. On average over the lifetime of a dog – according to statistics – an owner spends in the region of $750 in the US and £700 in the UK every year on vet costs. This includes checkups, diagnosis, treatment, drugs, prescription dog food, vaccinations etc with the bulk of those costs occurring in your dogs senior years.

Now according to an Australian study conducted on 126 dogs over the span of 12 months while being fed a raw meat diet for dogs, costs were slashed by up to 87% as veterinary input was just not needed so much with the big up-tick in health among the test subjects. My personal research conducted on my own lab rat Rocco (actually he’s a 7 year old English Staffordshire Bull Terrier and I love him to bits) reveals a 94% saving on those prices with just a single veterinary visit in 7 years. So you’d be looking at a saving of over $10,000 on the average life of a dog fed a canine raw food diet… not to be sniffed at.

A natural diet for dogs is just that-natural, no chemicals, no cooking, just raw on the bone meat full of all the natural stuff that’s supposed to be in it. Meanwhile those creative guys at the dog food plant have to get their buddies in the marketing agency to manipulate Jo public with “evidence” from their other buddies in the chemistry lab who conduct “controlled experiments” to draw up conclusions that the data can’t really support. Heck this data is even legally sustainable if you have the money, even though it amounts to “BS”.

Raw food for dogs comes mostly from human food outlets which means it’s human grade and therefore comes under strict human food laws, so it’s in good shape, good quality, clean etc (canned and packet food for pets has no such laws governing it, yes we have the AFFCO organization guidelines on pet food quality, but can you imagine the pet food giants saying-thanks guys, but we’ll decide what we can get away with, after all the shareholders want profits and as guidelines are not law they can be ignored to maximise the profit gravy train).

Feeding a raw food diet dogs love bullet proofs their immune system – literally (the immune system is the body’s defense mechanism to invading bacterial and viral parasites among other clean up duties). In fact so much so that tests with my dog eating 1 week old stinking putrefying meat did not trouble him at all. This is because the meat is un-processed and decaying naturally with natural bacteria and this is normal when feeding dogs raw meat as their system is designed to easily cope with high bacteria levels on incoming food. It’s the decomposing of processed food which gives rise to anaerobic conditions that causes the real danger for both us and our dogs simply because of all the artificial chemicals added to the meat.

There’s no grain in a natural diet for dogs which is a good thing as dogs have no real biological need for it, they derive their energy requirements from the processing of proteins found in raw meat. Sure they can eat this cheap carbohydrate filler but the high levels seen in most commercial dog food throws a dogs chemical balance off as the pancreas has to compensate the lack of meat and this the number one cause for the diabetes epidemic in dogs today.

An uncooked, unprocessed nutrition diet regime for dogs contains 70% moisture while kibble rarely has more than 10%. This makes kibble take up only 1/3 of the volume of an equivalent amount of natural dog food and it’s well documented that a dog’s stomach and intestines need mechanical stimulation for healthy digestion. The corn, wheat, soy, barley, peanut shell, coconut husk and sugar beet waste are simple not recognized by your dog’s body as useful or natural nutrition. Add to this the synthetic additives and other stabilizing chemicals found in kibble and you can begin to understand why your dog gets intermittent diarrhea, has tummy trouble and suffers allergies. (The large bulky deposits from dogs on kibble means most of the food is unfit to be nutritionally useful and therefore shunted out of the dogs body quickly in part digested or even un-digested form, as they say, rubbish in, rubish out!)

The best live unprocessed meals for canines have all the essential natural minerals a dog needs for great health (minerals in commercial dog food are usually inorganic i.e. from crushed rocks not raw meat and that is still legal because they are both still minerals as scientifically tested and provable, it’s just that one is from meat the other a rock. Which one do you think your dog would benefit from?)

You know what’s in that piece of raw meat, it’s meat! (contrast that with what’s in that can or packet, heck you can’t even understand the label it’s so full of general terms that tread carefully along the legally provable line but that really means it’s a toxic jungle of 21st century food waste preserved with PHD level chemicals we can’t even pronounce!)

When raw dog food is stored, it’s usually frozen which preserves it’s quality (canned food when stored over long periods of time has been shown to take up metal and metal oxides from the can in proportions that are not healthy to eat in large quantities).

Stools from a raw fed dog being natural are easy to compost and will not destroy your garden or your lawn (kibble contains so many poisonous chemicals that very few plants can tolerate it. It’s the same for dog urine, the chemicals in the commercial dog food when passed as urine simply kill grass when naturally fed dogs tend not to leave dead grass spots).

Stools from a dog raw food diet are small and harder pellet like objects containing mainly waste bone meal with very little smell. After a day or two in the sun they go white in color and with a good aim I can kick them from the lawn into the flower bed – try doing that with conventional doggy deposits!

The big benefits of a natural diet regime for dogs means no obnoxious gas, I bet you can’t imagine what it would be like to have your dog not drop those vile bombs in your living room? Well smell is no longer a problem period!

A natural homemade raw food diet for dogs quickly develops a strong immune system that will cause your vet bills to go down dramatically. (It has been my personal experience over 8 years and from thousands of customers dogs that about 90%+ of dog allergies and skin problems simply disappear about one month after the dog is switched to a natural fresh food diet.)

Raw feeding dogs become energetic and show with their increased vitality that they feel good. Most dogs even obtain their ideal weight completely naturally, without any expensive prescription “diets”. These results are visible within 1 to 2 months of switching.

Feeding dogs raw food means the shiniest and softest coats you can obtain. They also develop strong pigmentation. These are only two of the outer symptoms that the internal glands – pancreas, thyroid, adrenal glands etc. – are working well and keeping the metabolism in good balance.

Feeding raw meat to dogs or raw green tripe, raw vegetables, and whole, raw bones get the cleanest teeth you can imagine – and it normally takes only 3 to 4 weeks, even in bad cases.

Feeding a raw diet to dog’s means they can enjoy feeling full after every meal – simply because you can allow them to fill their stomachs, as nature created them to do.

A raw diet for puppies is the best start you can give them and it’s very easy. Puppies take to raw food without hesitation and recognize it as their natural source of food. Starting your puppy on this bland diet for dog’s means you can add years on the other end of your future adult dogs life. How would it feel to know your puppy will be with you to 18 instead of 13 and in much better health and wellbeing in the senior years?

The Cons:

The best raw dog food diet can be expensive if you only want to pick up raw dog food from your local supermarket and you have an Irish wolfhound to feed. With small lap dogs you could buy from Macy’s deli counter and still feed cheaper though! Yes you will pay more for fresh food for your dog; after all it’s not fast food. However this is more than offset by the savings in expensive veterinarian bills down the line when fast pet food has finally worn your dogs immune system down and you have to deal with diabetes and giving twice daily shots for life. Right now diabetes is an epidemic and I’m contacted daily by dog owners struggling to cope with sticking needles in their dog.

Bones could get stuck in your dog’s throat, stomach or intestines causing damage and possible death – how true is this? (99.9% of the time this is due to cooked bones which are hardened in the cooking process such as chicken bones and from dogs rummaging in the trash to fetch out those tasty cooked bones) So you could say there is a small chance of raw dog bones being a problem, a very small chance though which can even be eliminated if this holds you back by using pre ground food or using a home grinder).

Meat is covered in bad bacteria like Salmonella, Campylobacter and Staph which can upset a dog or make it very ill. Everything we and our dogs touch is covered in bacteria including food. Cooking food kills the bacteria but what about our dogs, theyre eating  raw food and its covered in bacteria? Dogs are meant to eat bacteria covered meat because they are designed by nature to have stomach acid far more powerful than ours, killing 99.99% of incoming bacteria. That’s why they can lick, smell and generally do disgusting things out walking or running in the park, with no stomach upset. If dogs get salmonella poisoning at some point in their lives, it isn’t life threatening and their immune system develops strong immunity towards re-infection.

Update Febuary 2020: It’s been discovered that salmonella is actually found to be naturally occurring in the GI tract of dogs and to date not one raw fed dog worldwide has contracted salmonella poisoning. Meanwhile, the USDA warn against children and old people from handling kibble and packet dog treats as they may contain salmonella.

Raw food diet recipes for dogs take longer to prepare, true. However I’ve seen some of those You Tube videos go into great depth on all the preparation work, a long list of ingredients, all that stuff messing up the kitchen, not to mention the washing up – no thanks (If your anything like me, I choose simplicity, convenience and low cost. It does not need to be BARF diet recipes with long laundry lists of ingredients for amazing dog health, it can be done very simply and fast with just as great results if not better). My video program shows you step by step how to prepare your dog’s complete and nutritionally balanced dinner in 3 minutes or less.

So there you have it, the pros and cons of feeding raw food to dogs. Looks a bit top heavy on the pros that’s for sure and that’s probably because it’s a dog’s natural biological diet and has been for millions of years so it’s going to be good for them.

Yes you’ll hear plenty of cons from the professional establishment as they do have their profit monopoly on commercial dog food to protect and nothing upsets shareholders more than lost profits. As for regular folk like you and me who get caught up in the commercials and can’t possibly – not – believe what is said on TV or written in the newspaper, or spelled out by a vet “they must be right, right?”

The funny thing is I could go on with more pros and yet I struggle to come up with more cons. We have a wild animal living with us as our much loved family pet but his or her nutritional needs are not fast food in cans and packets. As our family doctor tells us, we need fresh food in our diet for best health and to avoid ill health and it’s no less a truth for our dogs, they also need fresh food for good health.

Watch the video below where I explain in simple terms what dogs need to thrive not simply survive.

Always re-evaluate and refresh the mind with new ideas, it’s the only way we can stay closer to the truth.

Good luck with your journey to the truth about a raw eating routine for your best friend pros and cons aside. I hope I have helped you with some insightful points about this exciting diet choice and how it can really help your dog now you know more of the facts. If you need my help, contact me here and please share your thoughts below.

Get my free report below too, it will really help you to discover the natural healthy way to help your dog to real longer lived health and wellbeing and put your mind at ease.