Hi, hoping to get some answers for a friend. She has 2 dogs, a BC and a GSD, I have been telling her about this chat room and she has expressed an interest in raw feeding, I suggested she started with chicken and go on from there, she also has looked at this site on my comp.  I have been feeding my own dogs raw for some time now, the main part of their diet being minced chicken carcasses or just the carcasses depending on what I can get from the butchers that week. I myself have never had any problems with raw feeding, in fact it solved a dietry problem my own GSD had, so I was suprised when a few weeks after my friend had starting feeding raw chicken to her dogs, she phoned to tell me the GSD had had a chronic case of dihorrea and that the vet said it could be salmonella picked up from feeding the dog raw chicken, I wondered if any of you had any thoughts on this, I always thought that they sort of had built in immunity to that sort of thing, any thoughts??

Like you, I always understood healthy dogs could cope with salmonella and in fact come into contact with it regularly even if they are not fed raw.  Maybe the dog wasn't fit to start with or the vet is showing the pretty common horror of the veterinary profession at raw feeding :).

Unless the vet has tested samples and K NOWS its salmonella it could be all manner of things.

Raw feeding carries a risk of salmonella, however feeding kibble does too! and yep, a healthy dog should cope with salmonella WAY better than we would!

Em

Personally i won't feed raw after my dane contracted diamonds disease (a pigs skin complaint) and although the vet couldn't confirm where he picked it up from (the blood tests confirmed diamonds) was highly interested in what he was fed which was raw pigs trotters/ears as we don't live near a pig farm.
£3000 later...........

Maybe those with a lower immune system can be succeptable to things a normal dog wouldn't.

At first my vet was 'horrified' that I was feeding raw chicken (bones included) went on about bacterias etc never mentioned salmonella though, but when he saw the difference it made to her he relented. Only thing I was worried about was making sure my hands were washed thoroughly after feeding and worktops scrubbed just in case we got anything

My vet was horrified also but I pressed on regardless and my GSD has never been healthier. I used to give her pigs trotters for a change to the chicken wings along with ox tail. Suddenly 8 months after starting this regime she started to refuse the trotters. I tried not feeding them for a while and then tried to reintroduce. No way was she going to eat them. She is not a fussy feeder, scoffing everything in sight so I have given way and stopped feeding them. No problem after all we don't like everything.

Thanks everyone, another thought which I had was if the dog had contracted Salmonella would it have coped with it itself and mybe just had a few runny days or would it have been present until treated with antibiotics?

Healthy dogs are not affected by salmonella,if this is indeed what the dog has contracted then i would be looking into immune enhancing supplements. Dogs can also pick up salmonella from kibble,chicken,duck poop etc etc..Strange that vets never mention these things when they warn against salmonella and raw feeding

Couldn't agree more Hailey ;)

My dogs both had chronic diarrhoea a few yrs ago and when the Vet picked up on what I fed them he came to the same conclusion, possible salmonella caused by raw feeding etc :rolleyes:

In fact, it turned out that they had picked up Campylobacter and I have my suspicions as to the source of infection. It certainly wasn't their diet.

As i've said before i refuse to feed raw after my dog contracted diamonds disease (a pigs disease) and although nothing was proven where he contracted it from (no local pig farms)the vet was very interested in what he was fed (pigs ears/trotters)

I think having a low immune system has alot to do with it and it affects dogs in different ways.

So the general opinion seems to be that most dogs will cope with Salmonella probably far more than we realise, it probably doesn't even present symptoms in the healthy dog, however if a dog's immune system is weak then it could be more serious. Just like us with colds and flu then, probably nothing much to worry about. Thanks

It could affect a dog with a weak immune system.. however i do know of a dog who had an auto immune disease, whose life was in fact lengthend by a combination of raw feeding and no vaccinations. She did eventually die of the condition (caused by over vaccination), but raw feeding gave her 4 or so more years than the vets reckoned she had!

Em