|
Click
here for more detailed feeding plans and other resources.
We believe that MOST commercial
dog food is bad for your dogs.
Over time, it will
make them sick and kill them.
If your dog smells,
If your dog has weight
problems,
If you dog has skin
problems,
If your dog has
allergies,
If your dog has dental problems,
If your dog vomits
frequently,
If you dog has
accidents in the house,
It may be caused
by the food you are feeding.
After doing
some research and raw feeding our dogs for a while, we no longer believe
that any commercial dog food is as beneficial as raw feeding.
The
benefits of raw feeding are difficult to ignore.
Raw feeding starts with 100% human grade
meats, vegetables and supplements that YOU buy at the grocery store.
No mass-produced commercial pet
food can make this claim.
Even the most expensive premium
foods don't come close to nutritional value of an equivalent portion of raw
food.
The commercial pet food
industry is the garbage dump
for the human food processing
industry.
Click
here to find out the dirty secrets about commercial pet food.
We
believe that you are slowly
poisoning your dog if you feed it commercial dog food.
Our dogs work and play hard.
The right food is as important to them as clean water.
We
think the right food is raw,
meaning that it is NEVER cooked.
Raw feeding is easy to do and the
results speak for themselves.
Our dogs
are vibrantly healthy.
Our vet encourages us to
continue our dogs on a raw diet because he can see positive results in
our three dogs.
Raw
Feeding Benefits
Here are the benefits that
we believe we are seeing in our dogs from raw feeding:
1. The
"doggy" smell is gone! Even wet, they don't smell "doggy".
This includes our previously very stinky Beagle.
We are not a vets, but we believe there is something
important at work here. It is a wonderful benefit.
It seems to make sense that nature would not have evolved a predator
animal that has such an obvious stench about it. They
couldn't sneak up on anything smelling so stinky.
2. Their coats are
luxurious, shiny and soft. Their shedding
seems to have decreased or is spread out, rather than having the
"coat blowing" events. Their fur seems
to be staying cleaner too. Dirt and mud doesn't
seem to stick to their fur as much any
more.
3. They don't seem
hungry all the time. Their meals seem to satisfy their
hunger. Begging has dropped off almost
completely.
I accidentally dropped a potato chip on
the floor shortly after feeding time a few months into the
program. Our Shepherd ignored it. That
really surprised me. When this Shepherd was eating commercial dog
food, he would try to eat anything that fell on the floor whether it
was food or not.
4. Their weight is much
easier to control with a raw diet. We have had no trouble getting all of
our dogs' to their ideal weight, using the raw feeding program.
Even our formerly
grossly over-weight rescue Beagle is now fit, trim and abundantly active
on a raw diet. Raw feeding gave this Beagle his life
back.
5. We haven't seen any skin
related problems (itchy, hot spots, etc) in our dogs. Our Beagle had
a problem with hot spots before being on a raw diet.
6. The dogs' energy levels are excellent.
We train daily so we pay attention to this.
7. They always eat the
full meal and get excited about dinner time.
8. With three dogs
eating commercial dog food in our house, we always had at least one of the
dogs puking up dinner every week or so. That has
all stopped.
9. The poops
are much smaller than the food that went into the dogs. It is
MUCH, MUCH, MUCH easier to clean up the yard now. Most
of it seems to disintegrate into the ground before we get a chance to pick
it up.
With commercial food, the
dogs would poop mud piles seemingly bigger than the food that went
in. The piles would not break down very
quickly. They were horribly messy to clean
up.
10. They seem
to be drinking less water, and asking to go out less frequently.
11. The dogs
take a nap after dinner time. When they were
eating commercial food, the dogs would get a burst of energy after
feeding time. Now they prefer to take a nap
after dinner.
12. Their teeth stay
MUCH cleaner eating raw food. Their breath is not
so stinky on a raw diet too.
13. With careful
shopping, raw feeding can be done economically. We believe that the vet bills,
over time, will be lower too.
Raw feeding
negatives
As you can tell, we are strong
advocates for raw feeding. But as with most thing in life,
there are a few negatives associated with raw feeding that we have found
too:
1. You have to
throw away
all of your kibble before you start. We do not recommend half
kibble / half raw diets. There is nothing to be
gained by this approach, other than sick dogs.
2. It is a little
more time consuming to prepare meals than just pouring a cup of kibble in
a bowl. Our dogs are worth the little bit of extra effort
required.
3. You have to think,
but only a little, to prepare the right food in the proper
quantities. We measure everything we feed
and keep track of our dogs weight closely. We never let the
animals get more than a pound or two off of what we believe are their
ideal weights. We adjust feeding quantities by small
amounts up or down on a daily basis to keep the dogs weight in check.
4. You may need a
bigger freezer to store meals, depending on the number of dogs you
feed.
5. Feeding raw while
traveling is a challenge. Here
is a link to dehydrated raw food that we have found useful while traveling.
6. You have to wash
your hands after you feed the dogs.
7. You have to clean
up the area where your dogs eat after each meal. Our
dogs tend to pull the food out of the bowl, and eat if off the
floor. Don't ask me why, they just do.
8. You start to
realize how important whole food is for your own body, but that is another
story.
The negatives presented
above are more about being lazy than real negatives related to raw
feeding.
The improvements in ALL of
our dogs' health are more than worth the minor inconvenience related to
raw feeding.
Schutzhund Training,
Illinois
| 
