Hiya all you barfers out there. My mum is worried that our pup is 'collecting' all the bones in side her and not pooing enough. i tried to reassure her that they dont poo as much on barf, and when they do its not half as much in volume as 'processed food' poo!  Can anyone tell me if i'm right in thinking this?
Boo (the puppy) seems very happy, is putting on weight and growing every day, and has a nice wet shiny cold nose.  i would have thought if she were constipated with bones that she would be unwell?

What is enough?  One of the bonuses of raw feeding is the lack of "residue" expelled from the dog :D

This is because the food is species appropriate and is of high digestibility.  Dogs that are commercially fed often defecate more often and in greater quantities because it is grain heavy, which the digestive system is not equipped to cope with, and has fibre added in the form of sugar beet pulp or peanut shells.

If your mother is concerned about motions a little liver will soon "loosen her up" (the pup that is).

HTH

Exactly right ...a Barfed dog doesn't poo as much as a dog fed on processed food :) The puppy would get increasingly lethargic if it was constipated and feel unwell

Melody - Off to feed Hudson a pigs ear :D :D

I thought as much - but its good to hear! whats so amazing as they say often starting on barf there will be some bone in the poo - but her young digestive system is sooo good that its digesting it all into nothing already wiht no chips of bone in it! also they dont smell half as bad do they.

The others may be right and if so there is nothing to worry about but impaction due to ground down dry bone in the lower colon is one of the many 'unadvertised' problems with BARF type diets

Really? I had not heard this.   How does the bone get dry and "ground down" and cause impaction?

If the bone isn't 'ground down' by teeth & the digestive proces it either passes in bits and/or damages the intestinal wall. The lower colon is there to remove excess fluid from digested food. Bone fragments/powder dehydrates to a high degree. I was at my vets this morning with a hand reared puppy that isn't doing well and the air was blue with comments from two of the vets who had just unimpacted a BARF fed dog with great difficulty and considerable distress to the dog. I gathered it wasn't the first time they've had to do this. I'm taking the puppy back this afternoon and will ask for more details then if you like?

Yes I would be very interested. 

Bone is never "ground down" by teeth as there would not be any teeth left :D because of course dogs do not "grind" their food like herbivores and omnivores; they do not possess any teeth that would do this as they have no flat bed molars to carry out such a task.  I still don't understand how bone "dehydrates" in the gut?  I suppose impaction is possible feeding barf just as it is when dogs choke on kibble or swallow pine cones, sweetcorn cobs, rubber etc etc etc.

Perhaps the owners are feeding too much bone and not enough meat?  I would be very interested as I have never met or heard of anyone whose dogs have suffered this, had a perforated intestinal wall etc even though they have been feeding in some cases up to 20 dogs this way for over 10 years.

Would be very interested in knowing all the facts eg age of dog, exact diet, percentage of RMBs to muscle meat, offal fed etc etc (unless of course this dog had been left with a recreational bone designed NOT to be consumed)?

Hi tohme, I'm leaving in 10 minutes and if there is time I will get as much info as possible about this dog and about any other BARF problems my vets have seen.

Excellent, well documented facts are always appreciated :D

I would be interested too - i'm sure there are people out there not feeding barf in the correct way.  I recieved an email from someone who feeds their dogs barf (and has done for 12 yrs) and she said she has NEVER been to the vet for anything.  What is interesting si they say that dogs changing to barf often have bone in their poo because their guts arent used to digesting it, but our pups poos are all turning white (meaning she's digesting the bone well) already wihtout having any bone in them.

My pups poo never had any trace of bones in it when i started to feed him raw chicken wings/thighs.

Will personal experience of impacted or 'mega' bowel do with a barf dog?

I boarded a bitch here for a friend for almost a yr, both myself and my friend are Barfers but this particular bitch for some reason ended up with 'mega' bowel and had to be knocked out to be emptied with a 3 wk course of laxatives to rest the bowel and NO bones.   She was fed tripe, pulped fruit & veg, chicken wings, lamb ribs, cottage cheese, pilchards, sardines, whitebait, raw eggs and of course any left overs that went into their tripe mix.  She had access to water all the time and later went on to have a healthy litter of pups a yr later, the vet was very rude but had to agree there seemed no obvious reason as to why she was compacted she did have bones in the bowel but not to an excessive amount, she also went back to a modified Barf diet once she was back with her owner.

Hello tohme, I didn't have much time to talk to the vet today as we lost the poorly pup and decided to do a plasma transfusion on the rest of the litter from two of my own adults. (A million thanks to Anne-Marie of RedRoar Dogue De Bordeaux / Castlestaff Staffordshire Bull Terriers & the Swanbridge vets ).

The very short version is that the practice has had a number of problems with BARF type diets, including 4 impactions and at least 1 fatality due to a shredded pylorus. It is a four man practice and I was only speaking to the senior partner today so he doesn't know of every problem. I did ask him if he and the other vets would be willing to meet me out of working hours to give me as much detail as possible (obviously within professional constraints) about all the proven or suspected BARF related problems they have experienced. Frankly he was dubious about taking the time as he is of the opinion that - to paraphrase - "BARF evangelists" can invent something to explain everything & anything away and to blame it on something else". If however, enough people are genuinely interested and are willing to appreciate the time taken and so to give the views and experiences a fair hearing, something can probably be arranged.

Sorry to hear that you lost the pup :(

As to your vets .....I wonder if they would consider also commenting on the amount of problems suffered by dogs fed on commercial food over the years too? :) There is some evidence to suggest that cancer, skin problems, allergies, hypertension, kidney and liver failure, heart disease and dental problems can all be attributed to the feeding of sommercial dog foods. You mention that your vet has had 4 impactions and 1 fatality ...out of how many dogs that he sees I wonder? If he has only seen 10 BARF fed dogs then that is 50% problems which is a huge amount, if though, he has seen 200 it is a tiny number....statistics, the most magical of tools ;)

I suppose my point is that you can find plus and minus points for almost ANYTHING ..and someone in a position of pwer (Doctor or Vet for example) has to be careful about coming down hard on one side or the other

I am not in any way a Barf Evangelist ...I have simply found a way of feeding my dog that he enjoys and appears to do him good :)
Let's also remember (and not to cast aspersions on your (or anyone elses) vet) they don't get commission on BARF food :)

Really don't want to turn this into a BARF versus commercial debate ...I just wanted to make sure everyone understands the implications of numbers :D

Melodysk, Christine & Kath, thanks all re the pup. :) She was one of two very tiny ones (we lost the other tiny over the weekend). Unfortunately she died while the blood was being taken from the adults and before it could be centrifuged and prepared. So far things are looking good after the transfusion. The improvement was quick and dramatic. So fingers crossed for the other six please - and thanks again to Anne Marie and to Fernando at Swanbridge. They couldn't have been more helpful.

Short of a large double blind study I doubt that my vets or any other vets could comment on cancer, skin problems, allergies, hypertension, kidney and liver failure, heart disease and dental problems in relation to commercial foods. Dogs like people get those (with the possible exception of hypertension), but to say that all or a given proportion are due to any particular diet is tenuous at best. Cause and effect isn't that simple in real life.

I don't know how many BARF fed dogs there are in my practice. Yesterday wasn't the best day for making inquiries. :) But I imagine it is not a high proportion. It's a busy 4 man practice that does about 50% small animal work but the area is rural and I doubt that BARF has caught on to a large degree here. BTW the practice does not sell dog food of any kind although I believe they will order Hills special diets (eg for renal problems) if it is indicated, so commission doesn't enter the equation.

I'll put my own cards clearly on the table. I think there are several serious potential dangers to BARF type diets and as far as I know there is not one single reputable study to demonstrate that any of the claimed benefits are valid. Everyone has the right to choose to feed their own dogs BARF of course, but I'm always surprised when I see people actively promoting and advising it on CD, especially for puppies, without anyone else pointing out the possible problems.

Perhaps I'm the only person here who has deep reservations about BARF?

Whatever, my mind is not completely closed, so for my own interest I'd like to talk to my vets and to the vets I know from the other two main local practices about BARF in order to get their views and their real and practical experiences. Not a scientific survery of course, but it might be interesting.

Hello Jas
You are most welcome to any help given :-) You deserve a big thank you from all the pups too for being so devoted to their well being. I know first hand what hard work it is to hand rear and how much harder it is when they are unwell.
I hope everything is going well with the pups and you are able to start getting some well earned rest.

Hi Anne-Marie, I can't get over the difference in the pups since the transfusion. If I wasn't seeing it I doubt that I'd believe it. I graph out daily weights because I find it too easy to miss a developing trend just looking at numbers. When the little one we lost began to go off only two others had me a little concerned clinically - but all the weights took a slight dip in the same 24 hour period. Less than a day after the transfusion all of the surviving pups each had regained the lost weight plus a bit more. Today's weights are up again and if that trend is maintained they are gaining faster than they have since birth and are now approaching the sort of rate of gain I'd expect from pups reared on mum. Instead of having to persuade the smaller pups to take the nipple again after half a dozen sucks my problem today is getting them to let go of my fingers long enough to pop the nipple in place! :) Obviously after just about as bad a start in life as any litter could have I'm not going bail for this lot until they are weaned, but things are looking good since Wednesday. :) I'll keep you posted on progress, Thanks again!

Hi Jas
That is fantastic news. Fingers crossed it continues,but would have thought if they were going to take a turn for the worse with FPS it would have shown itself by now,so think things ill be fine :-)
Please keep me informed :-)

Hi Jas,

Really good news about the pups :-)

"Perhaps I'm the only person here who has deep reservations about BARF?"   No, you are not, I share your concerns.  I investigated BARF myself.  I did a lot of reading and I talked to friends that I have known for many years that are very active in the dog world, show and breed, chair rescue groups, sit on committees related to breed health.  People I trust.  From my perspective, there were too many cases where bones caused serious problems for me to make the switch to BARF. 

I have, however, changed the way I feed my dog as a result. I am still on the fence with regard to whether or not raw meats are essential.  I do not buy most of the arguments that are usually used to say that raw meat is dangerous.  I did, by the way, speak to a number of BARF'ers who decided that whole bones were too dangerous.  They use very sturdy meat grinders and grind the raw bone.  If I were ever to switch to BARF that is what I would do, as all of the problems I heard about were from bone fragments and impactions from undigested bone.

Thanks for the information, it confirms what I learned myself.

Stacey

Hi Stacey, and thanks. :) Given all the problems they've had I'm not going bail for these pups until they are well and truly weaned but it's looking good now. If all of the six remaining ones make it and as long as Anne-Marie doesn't mind I'll post something about the experience. I suspect Anne-Marie's post on FPS is probably the single most important one ever made on CD.

I'm glad I'm not quite alone on BARF and BARF type diets. I took a good look at raw feeding when it first became popular, talked to people and even joined some of the BARF groups (to lurk only) for a time. Long before the acronym BARF appeared I used to feed cooked home made myself, but getting the balance right worried me too much and I wanted to see if Billinghurst et al had come up with some magic formula that obviated such concerns. But the more I read the less happy I got. Like you I'd not be enormously worried about infection from raw meat (raw chicken waste is another matter) but the dangers from bones themselves, including uncooked chicken bones, are real IMO. But my biggest concern is balance, especially for puppies and most especially for large breed puppies. Too much of Billinghurst's 'science' is no more than speculative pseudoscience (eg on the 'benefits' of ingested enzymes). Billinghurst himself says "A continuing criticism of the BARF system of feeding companion or pet animals, is the lack of controlled studies to give the system scientific validity or credibility." and then invites visitors to download and fill in a BARF Diet Assessment Profile. It's worth a look - if anything approaching a valid scientific conclusion could be reached using a questionnaire like this one, then I'm a Martian. And of course Dr B is making a nice little commercial earner out of his opposition to 'commercial' dog food.

In defence of mr barf - everyone has to make money out of something.  And alot of barf promoters do not make money out of it, so that to me says something. 

A close friend of mine is a vetinary nurse and she feeds all her dogs barf (GSD, terrier, and two lurchers) and she says she has had far more dogs into her surgery with problems from commercial food than she has with barf, in fact i do believe she said that the ones who get the problems with barf are the ones who just feed too many bones.  She has never had problems with her dogs and has been feeding them this way for years.  I also dont think that breeders would risk their precious and expensive animals with such a 'dangerous' way of feeding.  Also with the issue of balance - why would a puppy not get enough goodness from a raw diet?  I have spoken to some large dog breeders who say that commercial puppy food tends to give unnaturally fast growth spurts, which is what you dont want with the giant/large breeds.
One leonberger breeder we visited had all her dogs on barf and i've never seen such healthy coats/teeth and happy dogs - all her puppies get barfed, she is in fact what was the deciding factor for us to go that way.

I think it basically comes down to some of us must agree to disagree!:D

Hi MadMarch, not all of us make our dosh by peddling something that they admit there is no proof whatsoever for and that the vast majority of vets, including vets a heck of a lot better qualified than Dr BARF, disapprove of. :) And Mr BARF must be making a LOT of $$$. According to his web site a consultation costs  $AUD75.00 for the first half hour, then $AUD45.00 per subsequent half hour. Along with it you get  - in VERY small print - a discouraging little note that says "Dr. Billinghurst assumes no medical responsibility for decisions made based on information dispensed during your consultation. It is the responsibility of each individual to confer with their personal veterinarian before making any medical decisions." Recently I had an emergency home visit, a giant breed anaesthetic, an emergency caesarean section and immediate care of 8 flattish pups at the surgery. In all 2 vets and 5 vet nurses / vet assistants were involved and it took about 1½ hours. It cost £113 and some pence and if the vets had made a horlicks they most certainly would have assumed personal responsibility and would have had to assume professional medical responsibility too. I know which I think is better value! Then there are the books .. and the video ... and the $39.00/year to join the BARF Association ... and the supplements ... and the freezer program .. and the BARF patties ...

OK, rant over :D

Giant & many large breed people do worry about 'forcing' pups which is why many change to an adult rather than puppy food much earlier than the manufacturers recommend though 2002 research from Utrecht University now suggests large breed pups come to no harm in terms of bone development from even a very high protein diet (32%) but are harmed if the protein level is too low. Excess protein is just converted into calories - though of course being over-weight does affect dogs and puppies skeletal development adversely.

"Goodness" isn't something I'd want to try to define in terms of food. It is easy enough to put  enough calories in with any diet. It's things like getting the calcium to phosphorous ratio right for pups growing bone at a rate of knots that worried me when I fed home made. I worked hard at it, read a lot and have a pretty fair scientific education to fall back on, but I'll bet I didn't get it right most of the time just as I doubt that most people clutching a BARF paperback get it right (I'm ranting again aren't I? :) ). Really all the proof you need is a pile of old photographs of giant breed Champions. Hardly a straight foreleg between them, yet most of these dogs were reared on home made diets in the old big kennels by people who had infinitely more experience than the vast majority of today's hobby breeders who only take the occassional litter. Yet you rarely see the same crooked legs almost amounting to deformities now, and never in Champions.

Individual examples or what other breeders do isn't going to change my mind on this. The nephew of a good friend was a 'natural diet' and fitness fanatic. He supplemented his way to copper toxicosis and a liver transplant (and happily is doing very well with it so far.) The lad has a PhD in a science subject and had bookshelves upon piles upon bookshelves of books on 'healthy eating'. Before his liver packed in he endlessly proselytised the benefits of healthy eating to anyone who would stand still long enough. I'm glad I didn't listen - my liver may be a shade cobbled and unhealthy, but it's still my own! :)

There, that's the rant really finished ... better head for cover now :D

One of the reasons a lot of us who raw feed do NOT use the term BARF is that this is closely aligned to IBs particular methods not all of which all of us agree with :D  I am always suspicious of ANYONE who has a commercial interest in their feeding recommendations, this would include ALL of the commercial pet food producers and those like Burns, and Billingshurst!  I prefer to take advice and evidence from those who have fed this way either their whole life or very a great many years and to a great many dogs (it is not NEW but IB made this system of feeding more accessible through his books) and those, like Kmythy Schulze, Tom Lonsdale etc who have no commercial interests other than their books!

At the end of the day, as in all things, we must all weigh up the pros and cons of all things (just as we do when purchasing foods for ourselves and our families, whether we choose to smoke, drink etc) and decide on the system that we believe is best for our dogs and ourselves after conducting a risk analysis.  If we feel that the risks of one method of feeding outweigh the "benefits" then we will change and vice versa. 

The important thing is that dogs do not suffer because of our views :)

Yes i was in no way saying that i agreed with mr IB making money out of this, and as tohme said, its not a new fad diet. plenty of people have been feeding these diets for years. Anyway, i think this thread has come to its natural conclusion!

I don't mind at all Jas, the more people made aware of it the better and the more pups that can be saved :-)
I just wish, like we said, the vets would share their new found knowledge, like we do, amongst themselves.

Thanks Anne-Marie! There is one thing I meant to mention when we spoke but forgot about. I have the front dew claws removed at 2 - 3 days. In a normal litter the sites heal over very quickly, but in this lot they didn't to the point where I wished I'd left the dew claws on. Although there was no sign of infection, all of the pups including the biggest healthiest ones had little sloughy 'pits' where the claws had been a week after they were removed. Within 24 hours of the transfusions these had healed perfectly. The vets really do need to collate results from this and get them published asap.

That is very interesting and great news.
I was contacted by a pug breeder once as she had read my article in Our Dogs.
She had told me that a friend of hers had a pug with a severe eye ulcer. So severe the vets were planning to remove the eye. She had heard about plasma for the treatment of ulcers. The vets tried it by droppering plasma into the affected eye. She said after a matter of days the ulcer had healed! Worth bearing in mind.
You know taking it one step further wonder if in healing the same could work for humans??? Dare say stranger things have happened :-)

Hi Jas
I have just read your post on the now locked thread "banned people".
I do not know where my posts went but you are the 2nd person to question it???
I posted yesterday a copy of an email I had received from a friend of a board member on here who will remain nameless - they know who they are - amd admin emailed me to say they had removed that post as we were not allowed to paste personal emails -  which is something I did not know but do now :-) So whether all my posts were removed due to this I do not know?
Any way how are those babies doing - well I hope.

Hi Anne-Marie,

Glad to see you back wherever 'you' went. :)

The pups are still doing very well indeed. If you are interested I'll e-mail their weight graphs just to show how much things changed after the transfusion.

You post about using a version of this method on an eye ulcer made me wonder if you've heard of any other uses apart from that & FPS. I posted about sick shelties [link http://www.champdogsforum.co.uk/cgi-bin/board/topic_show.pl?pid=328557;hlm=and;hl=sick#328557]here[/link] the other day and unfortunately that situation is not getting any better with the puppies very ill now. The problem at least in part seems to be with an antibiotic resistant strain E.Coli. The owner is frantic of course, especially about her bitch but the vet gives little hope for bitch or pups. When I told her about my pups she grabbed on to the idea at once because nothing else is doing any good. Do you know if it might be worth trying in order to boost the IgGs?

All the best, jas

Hi Jas, first sorry to hear about you lost your poorly pup & hope the treatment works with the other pups :)
I`ve heard of only one case of bowel impactation & that was just a couple of mths ago on a raw group list & I don`t think any of us  "BARF evangelists" can invent something to explain everything & anything away and to blame it on something else". Nearly all of us have enough interest to want to know the good & bad points & do a lot of research finding them out. How can we just invent things to explain things away?
I myself have 10 dogs & they have been raw fed for 2+half yrs now, thats without the other dogs who used to board with me & breeders I know personally who feed raw & the impaction from bone has not been seen by them or me, but thats not to say it never will tho!! :)
I don`t like to see hard white poops & if I see it going that way I add more meat, I`ve also noticed this winter for the first time my dogs have been drinking less than normal so now I add honey to their drinking water & they love it so much they are drinking more :)
I`m always genuinly interested to listen to others experiences bad or good, as long as they are genuinly interested in listening to mine. :)

Christine, Spain.

So sorry about your pup Jas, and good luck with the others. :)

>>"BARF evangelists" can invent something to explain everything & anything away and to blame it on something else".

Why would we want to invent an explanation? If something was wrong with my dog I'd want to know exactly what was wrong and if there was something I could do differently to prevent it happening again. :)

Good point about statistics Mel. Also to take into consideration is how many dogs are treated for impaction that are NOT fed on barf.

When Bess has a bone, specially a not very meaty one, she is always very thirsty afterwards. I don't think it's a case of bone "dehydrating" in the gut but that it's comparatively dry to start with. I don't know if all species differ but in humans lean muscle tissue about 73% water and bone about 22% percent water.

Kath.

Its an interesting debate - i just go by the people i have talked to, and myf riends who do it and the breeders i have met who do it also. if it was that dangerous i doubt people breeding highly expensive animals would risk them with feeding them something that could kill them!

I also (with respect) dont understand what is so odd about a dog eating bones. If a dog became feral, he would scavenge and eat anythign small he could catch.  If i was a dog, or if i put dog food into human food (ie, processed, dried and crisped my food into a 'complete' food) i know i would prefer to have the whole food and not the processed kind! I could survive on the processed, but not live fully. I am big on humans eating 70% raw food (although its not meat!) and i have raw vegetable juice every day including lots of fruit. I've never been better since doing so too.

Nothing is odd about a dog eating bones, but that does not mean they have to eat bones to be healthy.  They absolutely have to have the minerals in bones, but that does not require them to crunch and ingest whole bones.  At least for me the risk of giving a dog whole bones to eat outweighs any of the supposed benefits from a nutritional standpoint.  I would rather improve on what dogs had to do when left to hunt for themselves.  I doubt any of us have got it exactly right. 

Stacey

Mel - I gave Willis a fresh pigs ear but he wouldn't eat it until it had...er "crisped" a bit and dried out... is Hudson the same? I think Willis finds them a bit chewy fresh :D

Hudson was a bit iffy ...it involved  afew licks and then a few nibbles ..then burying ...then digging up and a few more licks ....then he ate it :D :p

One question which hasn't even been raised re. Barf v Processed food is
What percentage of dogs need to see the vet, how often and what for (which problems are most common to each group) relative to the different methods of feeding.     Hope this makes sense?

The reason I ask this is because My fathers dogs never needed the vet (they were never ill) in the 40's and 50's and when I was growing up our family dog never saw a vet until he was PTS at the age of 18.  These dogs never ate the type of processed food available now - they were fed raw meat with table scraps and dog meal.  The 18 year old still had most of his teeth but they had grown a little loose in the last 2 years of his life and a few had fallen out, but that was to be expected at his age.

So do dogs fed on processed food see the vet more often than dogs fed non processed food, or does the quality of the processed food have an influence on the dogs health? (personally I think it does)

I have many Q's like these
Dill

Dill - well to compare with humans - you can see that humans are definitely affected by what they put in their bodies. The more processed and refined foods we eat, the less healthy we will be - no matter who you are.  Some people are lucky and get away with it, but fewer and fewer people do.  To say that feeding something so far removed from its natural state isnt going to do them any harm is not logical to me.  I am not a barf evangelist, but i do feed barf and i am concerned about the dangers of it - however weighing them up I feel the dangers to me are more great when feeding processed. Just my humble opinion.

Hi

When I lived at home (I moved out in 1989) we had a black labrador bitch (born in 1987). She went to the vet for her vaccinations, and then only when she was pts at 11 years. She was fed on dry food from the local supermarket!

My girl, a brown lab bitch, Luna is now 11 months old. She has been to the vet a couple of times, but thats mostly because, I'm being a bit hysterical - Luna is MY first dog! And I've always left the vet with a reassurance that Luna was okay.

Luna is fed on Hills dry food, and has always been fed dry. When she was younger I tried giving her a bone, but she ended up having a runny tummy for 4 weeks. So I'm never gonna do that again!

I don't like feeding barf if its gonna give my girl all this trouble, and she thrives. Oh and she only poos twice a day, and they are always good and "pick upable".

Jeanette