I've mentioned this in the Tartar thread but thought it may prompt discussion on its own. Our vet advised us not to feed raw bones to Max from the butcher (not chicken) because it may lead to a perforated bowel or intestinal problems. Thoughts anyone ?

I think your vet is correct Banger it may do, we are unable to feed our terrier bones as we found she demolished them so easily even large marrow bones that on each occasion it led to pieces being swallowed and consequently she passed blood stained stools. Our spaniel has a much softer mouth so probably would be safe with a marrow bone but she just buries them :) I would never feed chicken bones (raw or cooked) without seeing any reliable data, rather than anecdotal, to suggest it is safe to do so I am just not prepare to take the risk.

Hi Isabel

Everything in this world is probably dangerous to someone at sometime.

Dogs were fed bones long before it became fashionable to feed "complete" food.

The only way you would probably accept data as reliable is to feed it to your dogs yourself - anything else would be anecdotal?

Christine

its possible i suppose but you can still feed raw if its minced.personally my dogs just crunch the bones and i never had a problem.i bet the vet sells an expensive complete meal too.

Cooper, Banger is on a dry food anyway so I doubt that was the vets 'motive', in fact why must he have a motive at all apart from Max's wellbeing :) I dare say there are dogs that can eat bones my personal experience is that it can cause GI problems.

well some of the main advocates of barf diet are vets also.ian billinghurst for example.

I'm tempted to say "bet he's got a book to sell" ;)

You're right Isabel, Billinghurst has a book to sell. I have switched all my dogs onto BARF recently after putting my sick GSD onto it on the advice of my homeopathic vet and with the agreement of my conventional vet. (I am in Ireland)

I have not bought the book yet LOL

On the subject of speying, I think a lot of vets now are moving more towards advising speying at 6 months due to the amount of unwanted dogs and litters? After seeing my tiny cat have a season and benefit enormously from it in terms of her development, I have begun to question my own belief that all dogs and bitches should be speyed at 6 months if they are not to be breed from. It's hard to know, but my cat really seems to have benefitted both physically and mentally from going through a season.

That said she is an indoor cat and there was never any danger of her getting pregnant and adding to the unwanted litter problem

Theresa

Hi Teresa where in Ireland are you , :) Mari

Hi Mari,

I'm in Portlaoise, what about you?

Theresa

Hi Teresa
I am in waterford do you show your dogs ?

I`m tempted to say "bet he`s got a bag of processed food to sell" ;)
Christine2

Cooper already did Christine :) Hence my little joke ;)

Why would anything else be anecdotal? I was thinking along the lines of any surveys which show the percentage of dogs fed bones experiencing GI damage the sort of stuff that a vet may have access to published in a peer examined journal while us mere mortals have to settle for peoples experiences as published on the internet :)

8 Labs + 1 Mongrel fed daily on raw meaty bones since Sept/01, various other dogs passing thru my boarding kennels also on this diet & no problems yet. If there were any evidence against feeding this diet I feel sure it would have been published by now in any media.Seeing though the complete diet has only been in existance for maybe 50yrs or so, how can the "reliable data" be that reliable in a short space of time.
Christine2

Actually Max is on an organic 'Wet' food frozen and thawed at meal times but we heard the story from another source and asked the vet to confirm or deny. She agreed with the other source saying perforated bowel could be caused. The vet didn't mention selling any type of food to us, just simply that she didn't think it advisable to feed Max raw bones from the butcher because of the risks.

Every time i give Cyan a bone we have liquid pooh and I mean liquid would this right itself eventually or do you think shes just sensative to them?Gillian

Hi Banger.
Only the cooked bones will cause problems, not raw ones. Chicken bones are very soft when raw, but like lamb bones will splinter when cooked.
Dawn.

Hi Gillian, this used to happen to mine when they were on the complete as well & also to my 2 pups whenever I tried to give them something new. Since I changed them over to raw completely it stopped straight away with the adults but took a while longer for the pups to stop.She could be sensitive to a particular type of bone so you could try another kind. I started off with ones they couldn`t eat & gradually they went to ones they could.
Christine2

Mine tribe was like this as I used to give then raw marrow bones from which they got very little nutrition from it but since eating 'non-weightbearing bones ie lambs necks ribs and chicken I do not have this problem.
Some dogs tummies just do not like a change in food.......

I have tried ribs but must admit not necks or raw chicken bones.So basically I would need to test which ones she can eat and which ones go whoosh:D Gillian

Satincollie.

I feed my 2 dogs and 1 cat on a natural/barf diet. WHen I fisrt changed them onto the diet only one of my dogs had what can I say slimy/runny/smelly poops and this only lasted 7 days maybe 10 max. Some people call it detox.

You would laugh in my house as soon as the fridge door opens I turn round there are 3 little mites at my feet. They all get fed the same.

One mistake I did make was I was trying to give them the same amount of food in volume and they didn't eat it all so I was naturally worried they didn't like it but once I clicked that this wasn't the case and reduced the food to a more appropriate weight they scoffed it.

Food amount is approx 2.5-3% of body weight.

One of my dogs is more chubbier than the other so I give he a little less of the skin and my smaller dog gets all the skin.

My last vet was not impressed by the diet but he didn't know much about it and confessed to this but it would not be in his best professional interest to promote something that if there wasa a problem it could be visibly seen whilst he can promote commercial for 2 reasons one he would not be responsible for any illnesses that occured and two long term ilness that may be caused by commercial food can be diagnosed as being caused by other things.

My new vet ( Change was nothing to do with diet just good reports) who is an agrucultural vet is 100% happy with my choice of diet. He aslo does not sell any commercial food.

Pam

50 yrs a short space of time Christine :) thats getting on for 10 generations in dogs more than enough time for it to have proved its worth.

That may be your opinion Isabel but it`s certainly not mine! Dogs have been eating raw meat & bones ever since they existed.
Chr4istine2

Just cos we have done it in the past doesn't make it right Christine - anyway I'm gonna stick with the experts on this one - one source was a medical person who has dogs (Shepherds) and our vet - not worth the risk really.

No disrespect meant to ANY vets but IMO a lot of what they recomend is only in their well being and not solely the dogs!
Most vets don't have much practical eperience in owning ,breeding and rearing dogs,by the way i used to work at a vets.
Most vets sell complete food and decrease in feeding such food will decresase their sales too.
YES feeding bones{cooked} if not done properly can damage a dog.
After feeding my dogs complete food for many years and studying what actually goes into most pet food I was HORRIFIED and have very recently changed my dogs onto the BARF diet,those that don't chew their food as slowly as others have chicken necks.
I would rather feed this way knowing they are having fresh meat than the processed foot containing heads feathers and feet......
The joy brought from feeding what nature intended in seeing them enjoy their food now is to me worth more than any vets medical opinion

>>a lot of what they recomend is only in their well being and not solely the dogs!<<

In 20years of owning dogs as an adult I have had experience of several vets I have never felt any of them carried this attitude perhaps your personal experience has been different but I would find it very hard to believe that this description applied to anything but the exceptional.

When it comes to spaying bitches I think we all agree that a bitch MUST have at least 1 season{I recommend 2 if the bitch is a larger breed and had a season at a very young age}
But after meeting and chatting with many lovely people it seams the new trend is for vets to spey BEFORE the bitch ahs a season{this is a total of 4 local vets over 15 mile radious Oh and one of them was the one I worked for} they are telling the owners that if not speyed before the bitch will develope mammory tummors and cancer of the womb}
One such bitch nearly died on the table as when they opened her up it turns out she was about 7 days away from her first season and as all the blood vessels in and around her womb were very active she nearly bled to death.
When I sell my puppies I state the bitch MUST have a season first and when one of them was taken to the vets the vet said 'rubbish' and speyed her before she had a season!
WHY do they do this they are going to get their money when the bitch is spayed after her first season.
I could go on and on about the un-nesessary treatment given to our pets and the overuse of steroids in many skin conditions when a change in diet,washing powder or even a cheap homeapathic remedy does the trick!!

Well there you go I've yet to meet anyone who has had their bitch speyed before first season, perhaps vets in it for themselves is a regional thing :)

Emma and Isabel,
With all due respect, not "ALL" here on the board agree that a bitch MUST have a first season before being spayed. Check on past postings, we exist :) :)

Over the last 12 years, I've owned 4 bitches that were spayed before their first season. My extended family has had about 10-12 bitches all spayed before first heat... Why? We usually adopted from shelters. Not out of 'cruelty' --which it's not. No problems at all.

I had one bitch that had several litters (before I owned her) and she developed mammary cancer around age 7. :(

So does this count as "knowing" someone who had spaying done before the first season just because we've never met in person, or not???? :D :D :D :D
toodles

Sorry Toodles my message was a bit misleading :). In fact I am totally open minded about the benefits of speying at whatever age. My view is an owner should just choose the course of action to suit themselves there is likely to be costs and benefits whichever way you opt. I was really just questioning this thing we hear lately that vets push certain courses of action because of a benefit to themselves all I was saying was that I have had no personal experience of this be it speying or feeding.

Hi Isabel,

Eveidence stares me in the face everytime I pass my old vets new £500,000 building with the latest high tech gadgets. With a full facny colourful isle of commercial dog food.

My friend works in the practice and has on numerous occasion told me that half of the original clients can't afford to use this practise anymore. SOme nearly die when they get the bill and don't come back. Including me.

My partner and I both have quite good jobs and can fiancially afford to keep and look after our pets 100% but not to the extent of being ripped off.

This is evidence from another angle. If the vets were all as compasionate about animals as we think why are they making their service only avaliable to certain people.

Yes we have insurance but that does not cover the costs of Worming, boosters, spaying etc..

Pam :-)

My vet is nothing like and I am very happy with her but some people might say high tech is what they want, some poeple might want their vet to recommend and indeed supply a good complete food, no different really to selling a book on BARF diet or charging for access to a web site, how high tech is that?

Isabel I am 100% behind you on that one.

I have tried over the last few weeks to stop using the Barf word and using natural or raw.

I have to say I was saddened when I found the site like that. I however do strong believe in the concept and a 100% happy with my dogs and cats health with the diet.

IF anyone does ask about a book to help I know say natural nutrition or provide Links to natural promoter sites. I did think that some of the commercial aspects would work against the real beliefs and we can see it is and has which I think is sad.

I am part of a very big group who used to be listed under barf but only just recently it has been changed to rawfeeding to avoid the comercial side of it taking over.

It is a sad world we live in really.

My poor old gran was charged £32 for her westies hair cut last week. How can pensioners afford this and why should they be denied the opertunity to have companions without being ripped off.

Her wee westie died at the weekend ..with a nice haircut of course. He live to a good old age of 17 and has been fed on chicken for 17 years. It was cooked though she would pick up a cooked chicken 2 or 3 times a weeks and that was his food. He was ruined. lat time I was at her house she got up off her chair ( Nice leather one) and said " come on sam up on your chair" yes she got up to give her wee dog a seat. :-). her answer was that he made her life so happy and kept her feet warm at night

Pam

Your poor Gran, she must be missing him badly :(

Isabel she is..

She had me in tears lastnight telling me how her and her hubby( Step papa) tried to resusitate him.

I am at my work but she is up vissting with my mum as she was so upset, she has called me already 2 times to see if I have found her a dog..

To be honest if the worst comes to the worst I will let her take one of mine home with her for a few weeks until I find something suitable.

Pam

Pam,
I'm so sad for your grandma. She and her dog had a long happy life together :) :(
I hope she feels a bit better soon.

But do realize, if you 'allow' her to take one of yours home, you'll likely never get it back again. She'll bond and not let go :) :) But it would probably make her feel much happier if you just 'gave' her one. Of course, that would really be a sacrifice of huge proportions!!! :) If you don't want to, best wait for someone to answer one of your queries.
All the best and convey my deepest sympathies
Sara

So ONE vet who promotes raw feeding has gone all commercial & intends making money, so what? Don`t hear any body moaning about the money the MAJORITY of vets make through commission selling various complete diets. Whats the difference & why the moral outrage? Probably taking a leaf out of their books. :)
Christine2

Last time I heard, being a vet wasn't designated as a nonprofit occupation. So why should there be any "outrage" about supposed commissions for food? I've never had a vet push any type of food or drug at me. It sounds like there might be a problem with some vets, but one can take their pet pretty much anywhere if they don't like the provided service. There are always others and no one forces an owner to take their pet to one (well, if you have an insurance plan requiring it, then that's another story -- still -- Just say, "No thank you.")

Sure, it's not a lovely way to do business. But personally, I'd rather concern my scorn towards lowlife human drs. who exploit the system. Cronism abounds. And they have a trapped clientele. :( These drs. make more money, possess more prestige, and are being bought by the drug companies to push their products specifically towards patients. Health care for humans sadly has less options than for animal care. :(
jmho
toodles

Exactly Eog. Billinghurst is just as entitled to make money as the others are.
Christine2

Christine, my vets don't sell dog food, so maybe I'm wrong, but I can't imagine that many use terminology like this when they are selling dog food.

Lauching on a crusade to "build a better world ... for our pets" and then either making money out of it and/or asking people to fund research in order to validate claims that are already promoted as gospel without any research to back them up, and to spread the gospel further before the research is done - despite opposition of the vast majority of vets - seems a little odd to me.