According to 'The Barf Diet' book, page 37 (see, this is my bible now :) ) it says if your dog is still itching on this diet try feeding only white meats + fish oils and EPO. would pork be classed as white meat, along with chicken, turkey and fish. Any others?
Thanks Anne

i read somewhere that its not good for dogs to eat pork as it cannot be digested properly.that seems to be why you cannot get pork flavour dog food.

I wonder why that can be, when they can digest bones

My dogs all get pork, and have never had any problems with it, they also get pigs trotters 2 or 3 times a week. The ones I get are the full leg and there is a lot of meat on them.

Is it classed as white meat though?
Anne

Sorry, yes it is classed as white meat

Thanks for that Kayc. Now I know that, I will be able to give her some as well as the chicken and fish. I will get to the bottom of this dogs itching :D I hope :rolleyes:
Anne

I`ve always believed it to be classed a white meat as well :)

Christine, Spain.

I thought Pork was considered a red meat

Digestion is not just down the simple things like soft or hard, Anndee, some factors are very subtle like how the fat molecules are arranged as in cow v. goats milk.  Very complicated business nutrition :)  I suspect it is something of this nature with pork, only one of mine has been unable to tolerate it but there is no doubt its not right for her

Sounds like a great diet to me!!
I will be getting a puppy at the end of this year (have to do my research first)!!! so do you just give your dogs raw meats and vegetables?
I have never herd of a dog eating vegetables but hey.
Does salmonella and all of the other diseases that come with raw meat not affect the dog? Also with fish it might be worth to find out about this new mercury poisoning or keep fish to a minimum?
where can i find out more about the diet. What is the book called?

Hi Josefina.
Its called 'The Barf Diet' by Ian Billinghurst. Its just one of several that he has wrote, but its an easy one to understand. I'll probably buy his others when I go down to Crufts. Lots of people on here are Barfers and they will always give you lots of helpful advice when you ask. I'll try her with a bit of pork and see if she can digest it. If she can all well and good, if not I'll leave it out. I just wasn't sure if it was classed as white meat or not. going to try them with raw Coley fish tomorrow, see how they like that :) Apparantly salmonella doesn't affect dogs greatly as their digestive tract is a lot shorter than ours, and also the acids in their stomachs are much stronger.
Anne

thanks i will certainly buy the book and do my research about raw feeding.
we fed our last dog who died two years ago cooked minced meat every night. He was a fussy eater as all king charles cavaliers are.
would you recomend a bit of cooked and a bit of raw? both at the same time or raw one meal and cooked the other?
I have certainly been put off commercial foods and you can take my word for it that i will NEVER EVEN THINK ABOUT feeding any dog i own EVER, a commercial brand!
anyway if you have any advice i will take it on board very gratefully and i am certainly going to buy the book.
thanks again :)

I am still quite a novice when it comes to barf. I only started feeding it since beginning of Jan. this year, because one of my girls got severe allergy reactions to something in her food ( yes complete) and I decided to bite the bullet and go BARF :D and she has really improved since we've been on it, when I say we, I don't mean me :D
We still have some itching but each day I think its getting better.
With regard to feeding raw with cooked, from what I've read and seen comments on CD's I don't think its a good idea as I think they take different times to get digested. Also some dogs can be sensitive to cooked chicken but can easily digest raw chicken, mine for one! Personally I would feed them separately if I was going to give them cooked meat as well, but mine get all raw. They do however very occasionally get some cooked veg. mixed in the raw meat if we've had some left over from our meal, but usually I blitz raw veg. in the food processor till its in tiny bits, as dogs don't digest lumps of veg. too well. You can give them a raw carrot to gnaw on though and bits of raw veg won't hurt them it will just pass through undigested :)
I also once a week add a raw egg and the shell to the blitzed veg, and put that in with the meat.
I think you will get a better feel of it once you have got the book to refer to.
Hope this has helped
Anne

I wouldn't cook any of the meat, but if your dog won't eat it raw you can flash fry it for a few minutes, then reduce the amount of time you warm it for until they are happy eating it raw.

Anndee - You may want to check as I'm sure Pork is classed as a red meat - I had to put my pup on a white meat diet for a short time for health reasons and all the research I did pointed to Pork being classed as a red meat due to its high level of myoglobin.

Pork is definately white meat 
http://www.otherwhitemeat.com/
http://www.answers.com/pork

Pork is a WHITE meat!  If you were cooking it for yourself it would have to be cooked all the way through (as with chicken) for it to be safe to consume.  However, red meats such as beef and lamb, for instance, can be partially cooked (rare, medium etc) and still be safe to consume. 
My hound loves pork, especially ribs - never had any prob's.
Sarah :)

Well I guess there's two sides to every coin - the research I did suggested that Pork is indeed a red meat. A campaign was launched in 1987 promoting Pork as "The Other White Meat". Market research indicates that 87 percent of consumers now perceive pork as a white meat - however from looking at scientific journals this is not the case. The red meats highest in myoglobin are beef and mutton, followed by lamb, veal, and pork. Chicken, Fish and Turkey are classed as white meats. Looking at the original posters question - it doesn't appear that her dog has a serious health issue - the research I did was due to the fact that the high levels of myoglobin *would* affect the result of the tests my dog was having at the time and so he could not have any red meat (meat high in Myoglobin). I have changed my computer since then so don't have access to the journals at the moment but from doing a quick search on the internet I have found these links.

http://www.fsis.usda.gov/OA/pubs/pork.htm
http://www.porkscience.org/documents/Other/Q-FACT-cooked%20pork%20color.pdf
http://www.ag.ohio-state.edu/~news/files/chowpork.pdf

Below is a quote taken from the Food Safety and Inspection Service, United States Department of Agriculture (the first link I posted).

Why is Pork a "Red" Meat?

Oxygen is delivered to muscles by the red cells in the blood. One of the proteins in meat, myoglobin, holds the oxygen in the muscle. The amount of myoglobin in animal muscles determines the color of meat. Pork is classified a "red" meat because it contains more myoglobin than chicken or fish. When fresh pork is cooked, it becomes lighter in color, but it is still a red meat. Pork is classed as "livestock" along with veal, lamb and beef. All livestock are considered "red meat."

I will continue to consider Pork as a red meat but I guess its up to everyone to do their own research and come to their own conclusions (in actuality I doubt it really matters to most people if Pork is classed as a red or a white meat :p )

Going on the research you have done Ice Cosmos, I will err on the side of caution and just give a her a minimal amount of pork. ie in rmb's once or twice a week, if that, not in actual meat feeds. I want to try and stick to actual white meat and fish to see if I can alliviate this bl**** itching skin problem. I don't think she can even tolerate turkey! Runny bottom :(
I have just bathed her in Quistel, ready for a show tomorrow and that does help, but its not the answer to the problem.
Thanks everyone for all your feed backs :) They are much appreciated
Anne

Hi Anndee,

I hope your girl gets better soon :) When I had my boy on a white meat diet I stuck to chicken, turkey and fish (its a bit of a pain if your girl can't even tolerate turkey :( ) Do you feed carcasses? As the ones I get still contain some offal (which again can be high in myoglobin).

Hi IC. No I don't feed carcasses, as I don't have easy access to them. I mainly feed chicken from the supermarket so its fit for humans :) usually in the form of legs, wings, thighs and I have bought chicken hearts as they were reduced, so thought that was a good time to try them, but she didn't even like them unless I cooked them :( but I am beginning to think, that if she doesn't like it, is it because she knows it won't do her any good (runs).I only gave offal because I read they need some offal in their diet. So if I give it at all it will have to be cooked. Her mum eats it fine raw, but then her mums eats anything without a problem :D :D Bless her
have also got AMP chicken mince in the freezer ready to try. She does love tripe and raw chicken and tinned fish in oil. I don't give too much of this though, as she's already getting fish oil in caps. and don't want to put too much oil into and cause another upset tum. I am feeding her tripe still as I know its not classed as white meat, I don't think anyway, but it doesn't seem to be upsetting her tum, and from what I can make out, its a pretty neutral food anyway. I know people who feed only tripe and biscuits and their dogs thrive on it.
Apart from the frozen AMP meats everything else is from the s/market or the butchers
Anne

IC Thats a good idea about flash frying and reducing the time in heating it up. I will try that until as you say we can get it to raw. I didn't see your comment on that before I did my last post :)
Anne