My first post so go easy on me! Just come back from the vets with my 2 and a bit year old ESS; she had to have her anal glands squeezed, yet again! After much reading on these forums I decided to try some raw chicken wings to see whether that would help to firm up her poo. When I told the vet this he gave a sharp intake of breath and said that feeding raw chicken is a no no. So my question is this; who am I supposed to believe? Thanks in advance for any comments.

Paul

There are many on here who feed raw, including raw chicken wings, which I often give to my younger dog as a treat. Am sure they will be along shortly with a more comprehensive reply to your question.

Thanks liberty; should have mentioned that her main evening meal is Royal Canin.

Paul

Well is the vet a trained canine dietician ? If he/she isn't then they won't have anymore knowledge than anyone else & probably a lot less than an exerienced dog owner

My puppy has raw chicken wings & raw anything else I can give him, my other collies had the same & they never had any problems. My vet actually had a dog with similar problems to yours & on the quiet he feeds him raw & has had no further problems

Don't know whether he's a trained canine dietician; just said that he'd had to treat dogs who had ecoli etc from eating raw chicken. Am I wrong expecting the vet to know more about these things than the average layman?

Paul

Dogs usually have a strong enough immune system to combat ecoli and other even worse bacterial cultures.  There are some dogs, such as those with a weak immune system, who may not be able to - but this is a very very small minority.

Vets, on average, spend one full day at vet school studying canine nutrition.  So I wouldn't go by anything they say about it, frankly!!

Oh well; maybe I'll try the hard boiled egg thing and see whether that firms her up! I'm a bit reluctant to change her food even though the aforementioned vet suggested it maybe a bit rich for her. I'm open to any and all suggestions though.

Paul

My dogs have raw chicken quite frequently - if they can eat putrefying rabbit, fox poo & decomposed mice without ill effect then I reckon they can cope fresh chicken :D

I'de say a severly immune compromised dog could pick up e-coli etc.,but a healthy dog should have no problem. I've fed my dogs tonns of raw chicken over the years with zero problems.

I have to chuckle when i hear what some of these vets say! I am pretty positive that your vet did not give you the whole story.Did he know what kind of health these dogs were in prior,the circumstances surrounding the "e-coli" etc. etc.,i bet he ommitted these parts from his story ;)

Chicken wings and rmb's clean teeth.Dentals are one of the vets biggest yearly money spinners,if they encourage these things they will end up losing money in the long run!

Have you ever thought of changing from Royal Canin? She may be a bit sensitive to the one of the ingredients or something like that. Try gradually changing over onto something like Burns or James Wellbeloved and see if that improves matters.

My puppy was on Royal Canin and it went straight through him, though I think the high protein level was the culprit in his case. He has no problems with raw chicken wings and lamb ribs an has a little raw food a few times a week along with his dry food. He looks fab and the only time he has soft poo is if he has a pig's ear or certain tinned dog foods.

I wonder where your information about vets studying nutrition for just one day comes from?  I have often seen in bandied about on forum such as this but I can't really understand how you could possibly study anatomy, physiology and aetiology without studying nutrition.  Now it may be the case that they spend a short session on how a dogs nutritional requirement may be met by various diets but the understanding of the effects of nutrition is so intertwined with their physical wellbeing that it will have been an integral part of their study of the beast I'm sure.

Isabel all you have to do is ask your vet ;) or go to the vet school sites,it's all there in black and white  :) Might i add that the nutrition part of their training is "optional" :rolleyes:

So you think it is possible to study A&Ph and aetiology and not involve the effects of nutrition at all?  I may not have studied these subjects (in the human) at anything like the level of a veterinary surgeon but it certainly was closely linked last time I looked at the subjects :)  As I say I would not be suprised if the delivery of nutrition is a minor subject, after all veterinary surgeons are likely to respect the experts working for the nutrition companies to deal with that aspect but I would be very surprised if the average vet did not have a pretty comprehensive knowledge of the requirements of healthy nutrition and the likely effects of an inadequate or inappropriate diet.

Ah, but Isabel vets and doctors learn about nutrients. The people who know so much better than them are obsessed by ingredients :D

Hi paulr and welcome. You couldnt find a more contreversal first post? :D

Anyway if you are concerned about e-coli you need to do the follwoing: Buy and keep the chicken as you would for human concumption. Just prior to serving boil a kettle of water and pour over the chicken on both sides, this will in effect steralize it, so long as it is then eaten fairly qiuckly it is VERY unlikley to cause any problems.

As for other associated problems, the only person that I know who had problems was feeding about 80% raw meaty bones and had a very greedy springer who stole from the other dogs. She did get an impaction, but then again would probably have had problems with dried food if eaten unsupervised and she managed to steal a significant amount from the other dogs.     

Well thankyou one and all for your help; maybe I should bite the bullet and try her on a different food just in case it's the Royal Canin not suiting her. I do make sure the chicken wings are absolutely fresh but I'll try Bluebells suggestions of rinsing them with boiling water.

Paul

Most vets seem to recommend feeding Hills to every person who walks through the door and I wouldn't feed my dogs on that ;) I'd far rather take my chances with raw chicken.

Royal Canin didn't suit my puppy either, despite the fact that her mother looked great on it. Every dog is different.

Paul, you might want to try Burns or James Wellbeloved: www.burns-pet-nutrition.co.uk  and www.wellbeloved.co.uk

They are both excellent foods with good quality ingredients.

As my puppy is still teething(all the baby teeth have gone but the adult teeth are still coming through) he gets his raw chicken, pigs trotters etc frozen takes him longer to chew & it does ease the sore gums

My late X brred(who was 19 + when she died)ate raw food & used to bury bits & leave them for weeks to be dug up & "enjoyed"later when matured ;)

She never had any stomach problems & had shining clean teeth to boot !

From my research, I found that JWB and RC are both part of the Mars group and are made in the same plant, so I think Burns might be a strong contender! Don't think I'm quite ready to go over to raw completely.

Paul

Certainly MY vet, who i spent two weeks with some time ago, and also my friend who IS a vet, both say they are not canine nutritionists. Their canine nutrition education is made up of information that comes from sources such as Waltham (Pedigree!), and is just a few lectures out of the entire course.

Considering vets need a basic understanding of the nutritional needs of a HUGE range of animals its hardly surprising they dont get taught in depth about specific ones, unless of course they choose to specialise later on.

Em

So do you think it possible to study A,PH and aetiology without involving the effects of nutrition?
As I keep saying it does not suprise me that they receive information about products capable of delivery the required nutrition in a balanced way, devised by Canine Nutritionists, but as Jas has pointed out their understanding of the effects of nutrients is a different matter and entirely necessary if they are to understanding how the physiology of a dog works.
I would expect vets to have a rather more sketching idea about the requirements of the rarer kept pets, perhaps needing further research when faced with something unfamiliar but I would imagine most small animal vets will deal with dogs primarily and therefore I would expect their greatest depth of knowledge would be centred on them along with the other more commonly kept pets. 
If by some chance the notion that they are likely to be dealing with large numbers of dogs is not appreciated at Veterinary College :)  I would expect like all science graduates they will have been educated in a way to faciliate continuing research and education. 
When faced with large numbers of dogs in their waiting room I would imagine they would maintain a interest in such a subject that clearly is directly linked to their wellbeing something which I feel sure they will be able to do as it seems likely to me to be a popular subject for the journals after all there is never a shortage of interest in this forum :)

Isabel, with all due respect, yes you are right that vets SHOULD, by all rational argument, understand ingredients and diet well, but the fact is that they don't.

They have the equivalent of one day of training on the diet of ALL animals, over the entire course of their degree.

In addition, they are then offered commission for selling various "prescription" diets.  Which doesn't exactly make them unbiassed, does it?

My only concern when feeding my dogs is they get nutritious food, of course as that can only come from the ingredients they are fed I do tend to take make sure they get quality food packed full of nutrients ;) :D

http://rawfed.com/myths/vets.html
http://www.purina.com/science/partnerships/OtherAlliances.aspx
http://www.rawfed.com/myths/

And for info on feeding raw for beginners :)
http://www.njboxers.com/faqs.htm
http://www.irishwolfhounds.org/nutritionart.htm#commercial
http://www.irishwolfhounds.org/nutrition.htm#index

Onetwothree, so you think it is possible to study A,Ph and Aetiology without including nutrition? 
Why does nobody answer that one direct, simple question? :)

Isabel my answer is NO :)

WHY wont you ask your vet?He/she will be able to tell how much nutrition training he got and who it was funded by.The other courses you mentioned may "touch" on nutrition,but i doubt in great detail,i know alot of owners who know more than their vets when it comes to feeding,a couple of these vets even admit it

Have you studied any of these subjects yourself I have studied human A&P and it is impossible to seperate nutrition, it is not something you add to the course it is part and parcel of the subject, you really can't appreciate how an organ functions (or what might go wrong with it) unless you understand what nutrients nourish it, create waste for it to deal, the effects of a dirth or surfeit, nor can you appreciate how muscles function, cells are replenished, how one nutrient facilitates the digestion of another.  I doubt it is different in dogs :)
What people keep talking about as regards half day lectures sponsered by food companies are clearly talks about which food can deliver the necessary nutrition this is completely different to the understanding vets' A&P knowledge will have given them on the effect of these nutrients.  The failure to understand the distinction does little to convince me that people do know more than their vets on the subject :)

My vet did not approve of feeding Barf but after reading advice on this forum I decided to bite the bullet and go for it. I read all the books I could lay my hands on ( a bit confusing as times as all slightly different) and have never looked back. My initial motivation was that during the first 12 months of life my baby was never away from the vets, it was just one thing after another being treated with ever increasing ammounts of anti- biotics. She has now been fed BARF for 6 months and not one visit to the vet, good enough for me.

My vet told me one of the biggest reasons they dont encourage raw/homecooked is because they worry that most of their clients wont do it properly,as in balance it properly etc. etc..There's an awful lot of people out there who think barf or homecooked is simply throwing a slab of mince meat in their dogs bowl :(

whilst the feeding of raw food that has been contaminated with e-coli can be a problem, unfortunately many commercially fed dogs also contract the deadly form of E-coli via other means, ie water, eating animal dung etc so the absence of raw feeding will not guarantee that your dog will never contract it.

However, if you feel uneasy about feeding chicken wings, it is better for both you and the dog if you do not.

Feed what you and the dog are comfortable with.