I've always been told that dogs shouldn't be fed pork - but no-one can tell me why.

Are there any RAW feeders out there who can tell me?

When we butchered 2 of our pigs a couple of months ago, my dogs ate a lot of it - the head, trotters and other bits. I don't know what the problem is supposed to be, but mine obviously haven't read the book

I think it is one of those myths that are continued. I feed pork to my girls and have never had any problems.

I think it depends on how the pig has been reared...whether intensively farmed or organically farmed.

I give mine pigs trotters...they seem to prefer ones that have been frozen first...fresh ones that I get occassionally from the butchers have to be rolled around in the grass....and sometimes buried first and then dug up again....they must have an odour on them that isn't immediately attractive to them..??

Certainly my own dogs will turn their noses up at pigs liver (and kidneys) from a supermarket...so it makes me wonder if they can smell antibiotics and stuff as the liver and kidneys are the waste disposal system of all animals. (I also tried them with pigs pancreas once....every single one of them just snifffed it and walked away)

(Mine have a liver meal every week so now I stick with lambs liver which they absolutely love...!)

This is why http://www.cfsph.iastate.edu/FastFacts/pdfs/aujeskys_disease_F.pdf there's no cure for affected dogs and they die within 48 hours.
I think thoroughly cooked pork is ok but personally I certainly wouldn't risk raw.

This topic came up on BritBarf a while ago, and from memory I think a few of the vet's who are on there said Aujeskys wasn't present in British pork any more, so I guess if you stuck to British you'd be ok. It can cause squits of course, but I believe that's down to pork having a larger protein molecule than other meats. I know a lot of raw feeders do use it, I've fed it once with no problems.

I think that disease either doesn't occur in the UK, or has been eradicated.... possibly the former as I seem to remember reading something about it before. The other risk with raw pork was Trichinosis, also not present in UK pork, to my knowledge.

I've been feeding raw pork ribs (spare ribs) to my dog for months now, from free-range local producers and he's always had pigs liver and pigs hearts.

Thanks everybody! I knew there had to be some reason for it - but I guess pork from our healthy home-reared pigs would be OK :)

i feed raw and have fed my dogs trotters, ribs, heads etc, and never had a problem with feeding it