Raw Feeding 101

I was looking through some of the Resources pages on Dogster and happened across an article in the Ask A Vet section where Dr. Barchas addresses raw feeding.

I think Dr. Barchas really tried his best to answer the question with the limited knowledge on raw feeding that he has, but I found the end result to be somewhat misleading and confusing to people who have no knowledge of a raw diet, and I want to address this in this entry.


Foreword

I want to say a couple of things in regards to vets, nutrition, and learning about raw feeding up front.

First, the majority of veterinarians are NOT nutritionists, nor have they ever taken any in-depth classes on canine nutrition. The majority of their materials come from pet food companies, so naturally many vets support certain brands (such as Science Diet) because they base their opinions on the materials they were provided with.

Second, while I raw feed, I don't advocate the raw diet for everyone. Raw feeding is more work and requires a lot of research. I've done a lot of research on my own, but also rely on many other people who have done research long before me. For some of them, please see the links at the end of the entry.

Raw feeding is not new. It's not some new fad or trend. Many breeders and dog owners in the United States have been feeding raw for decades, not in response to pet food recalls but because they want to provide their pets with proper nutrition instead of the filler-laden canine "junk food" sold at the pet store. However, the recent recalls have led a lot more people to look into alternative diets such as raw and home-cooked foods, and many people don't take the proper time to understand and feed these diets correctly. (A lot of recent articles have also been misleading or were poorly researched, so people who are going by those are off to a bad start.)

That all said, let me get to Dr. Barchas' article and raw feeding 101.


Bones in the Raw Diet

I want to address the issue of bones first. Dr. Barchas writes, "When whole bones are added to the diet, new risks develop. Although many animals can tolerate bones, many others will break their teeth on bones or chew the bones into fragments that can lodge in the intestines. The latter problem can be life-threatening." The problem with Dr. Barcha's statment is that he doesn't go into detail. He is partially correct, but he is also incorrect by omission.

If you feed a raw diet, RMBs - raw meaty bones - should make up approximately 60% of every meal your dog eats. Bones are an important part of the diet and provide nutrients both through the actual bone as well as through the bone marrow. A raw meaty bone is a piece such as a chicken wing, chicken leg, chicken leg quarter, pork rib, pork neck, turkey neck, chicken neck, etc. It is a consists both of bone as well as the meat on that bone. The majority of raw feeders use chicken leg quarters as their "staple" raw meaty bone because it has a lot of meat and they're cheap, too.

It is completely safe to feed any of the bones I've named above, just as long as they are RAW. They become unsafe once they have been cooked because cooking alters their consistency and makeup, making them easy to splinter and dangerous. In their raw form, these are "soft" bones that can be crunched up by a dog (this is what dogs have those strong back molars for), swallowed, and digested. And yes, in a raw diet, these bones are supposed to be eaten.

The only time these bones are dangerous is if your dog tends to gulp them down rather than chew them - in which case you will want to give them a larger piece, puree the whole thing in a blender, or hold one end while your dog is gnawing on the other end, to control how fast he gets at it.


Recreational Bones

There are also recreational bones. Recreational bones are the large bones in animals such as pigs and cows that bear the animal's weight, such as the leg bones. Those are NOT bones you feed or add into your dog's daily diet because they are too hard to be chewed up and digested and yes, these types of bones can damage a dog's teeth (they are much denser than the RMBs named above), splinter, and cause damage to the esophagus and intestinal tract.

Some people give them as "chew bones", which is fine as long as you only give them while you are there to supervise your dog and are aware of the possible dangers, such as breaking teeth. In the grand scheme of things, these recreational bones are still a better choice than the commercially processed raw hides or pig's ears sold at the pet store which can cause a lot of health issues, including damage to the intestines by sharp corners of insufficiently chewed ears.


Raw Feeding - How it's done SAFELY

With the bones question out of the way, let me now address the issue of safety, and particularly safety when it comes to things such as e.Coli, Salmonella, and the like which may be found in raw meats. Dr. Barchas points out in his article that, "raw meat, if not properly prepared, can harbor parasites and diseases such as Salmonella, E. coli, and Campylobacter. (...) Although animals naturally eat raw meat, they are still susceptible to these diseases. And they can spread them to people." Again, this is sort of right and sort of not.

If you're considering feeding a homemade raw diet, you're going to have to buy and handle raw meat in order to prepare and feed that diet. It's a part of it. If you don't want to go through that, there are many prepared raw alternatives such as dehydrated raw (just add water) or frozen raw bars (cut and feed).

That said, I feed a homemade raw diet. This means that I purchase all of my ingredients separately and put them together at home. I buy all of my ingredients (with the exception of the green tripe which I get at a specialty pet store) at two local stores: Global Foods and Giant. Each of my ingredients is human-grade, human-quality, sold in a human grocery store.

I buy my raw food in bulk about every two weeks since I have a limited amount of freezer space at my disposal. If I had a standing freezer, I would probably keep more food at hand, but I don't, so the freezer above my refrigerator has to do. The night I buy the food, I bring it home and bag it into meal-sized portions, each packaged in a Ziploc bag before freezing. This saves me from having to handle messy meat everyday, having to thaw and re-freeze, etc. It also makes daily feeding so much easier.

An average meal pack consists of the following:

60% raw meaty bones
35% muscle meat
5% organ meat

Variety is important in raw feeding, so I vary my meaty bones, muscle meat and organ meats pretty frequently. However, as an example, a meal for my dog may look something like this:

1 large chicken thigh quarter
2-3 chicken necks
large piece of beef heart
small piece of beef liver

After I bag all of the meals for the next two weeks, I seal the Ziploc bags up and then stack them in my freezer. Whenever you have quantities of raw meat, you want to keep them frozen until you're ready to feed them, which helps keep down the threat of food-borne diseases. Once I've put everything away after bagging, I place my utensils in the dishwasher and wipe down my counter-tops using antibacterial wipes. Then I wash my hands thoroughly.

It's very important that you practice good hygiene and safe food handling techniques when you are raw feeding. If you're careful with how you handle the meat, and clean up diligently, there is very little chance that you will contract any food-borne illnesses. The chances of getting a food-borne illness from feeding raw is about the same than getting it from handling meat in preparing meals for yourself. So be smart about it.

In the mornings, I take out a Ziploc'd meal and place it in my stainless steel sink while it's still in the bag. I do this first thing after getting dressed and feeding the cats, and before I take my dog out on her morning walk. Then I grab my leash and we're off for our morning walk while the meal defrosts in the kitchen. We first stop at our potty spot and then go on a 45 minute brisk walk. (It's an exercise walk - no stopping or sniffing!)

When we come back, the meat is mostly defrosted. It's okay if the meat is still partially frozen, too, and many dogs like it that way, especially in summer when it's hot out. I use a large, shallow stainless steel feed pan that is much larger than a regular food bowl. This helps accommodate the raw food a lot better than a regular bowl, which is what I used to use until I found a better food pan to use.

I now mix in various supplements. With each meal, Abby gets a tablespoon full of plain, unsweetened yogurt which helps with her digestion. She also gets fish oil and Vitamin E. The Vitamin E is needed to properly absorb the fish oil if you add fish oil to a dog's diet. She gets a combination pill of Glucosamine, MSM, and Chondroitin for joint health. (You can use the "human" kind they sell at the grocery store. Same with the Vitamin E and fish oil.) Every other day, I add a complete raw egg with the shell, and every day opposite of that, she gets two tablespoons of ground green tripe.

Once I've plopped everything into her bowl, I put the bowl down for feeding time. I use a folded-up vinyl tablecloth to cover the surface where I feed because raw feeding can be quite messy. I like the strong vinyl table cloths because you can wash them, but you can just as easily wipe them down using disinfecting wipes or Chlorox spray after removing the bowls.

When Abby is done eating, which takes about 30 minutes, I clean up. I put the food bowl and water dish in the sink and rinse them thoroughly using soap and a scrub brush I only use for her dishes. I wipe the vinyl surface clean with disinfecting wipes, as well as the surrounding area (my kitchen floor, which is linoleum). Then I refill the water dish, put the water dish back down, and put the food pan away until the next meal.

Again - if you clean up after feeding, wash your hands, and wipe your counter-tops, you'll be perfectly fine feeding a raw diet. Obviously, you will also want to keep your dogs from licking you, particularly in the face, after they have eaten and for about an hour after feeding. After that, you should be fine. (My dog licks me a lot and I've never gotten sick from it!) Your dog will be fine, too, even if the meat contains Salmonella or e.Coli. Unlike people, dogs very rarely get sick from these.


Raw Feeding Resources

You can learn more about raw feeding from some of the sites below. These are sites of breeders, owners, and veterinarians who have been feeding a raw diet to their dogs for many years and have lots of good advice on how it's done.

The Raw Dog Ranch
Feeding a Raw Diet Questions and Answers
Jane Anderson's Raw Diet Site
Monica Segal's Site - Consultations & Books on raw feeding
K-9's Naturally - Has a list of Pro-Raw-Feeding Vets
Switching to Raw