Hi

We have recently just got ourselves a lovely little border terrier and he's now 12 weeks old, we run a bike tour company which operates in the summer in the south of France and we'll spend the winters in England. We really want to feed raw but are worried about the quality of meat in France as we'd like to be consistent in quality.

Any advice would be greatly received!!

Laura

chicken wings no problem in France  or even whole boiler hens  very available .

We find when we take ours on holiday to France, that the local butchers give away for bags of raw meat for dogs, also the supermarkets give away bones form the butchery counter, and the meat shelves often have trays of meat for dogs.

But i thought, it was the part that was being avoided to be given as part of BARF. Some people say that the bones in chicken wings are the sharpest one so they avoided feeding it to their dogs.

From a human perspective I've always been hugely impressed by the quality and variety of meat in France.  I wouldn't hesitate to feed it to my dogs BUT remember that beef and rabbit should be frozen first (rabbit should be frozen for three weeks in the UK and I'd assume that's a wise precaution for French bunnies too).  Is that practical for you?

As your language skills are likely to be excellent you'll have no trouble getting local butchers to give you extras.  Just don't tell them it's for your dog - if they are anything like UK butchers they get all doom and gloom about bones!!

Nope chicken in all its guises are fine for both barf feeding and raw meaty bones or any other for that matter just as long as they are not cooked. Some people will however always remain sceptical and sight various horror stories

Mine have had chicken wings and carcasses for couple of years now with no problems what so ever. You can find horror stories about EVERYTHING if you go looking.

I know! We've heard so many bad things about feeding raw but I'm really in favour of it. It's what they would have eaten in the wild - though I realise that humans have domesticated dogs so much over the years this may not necessarily be 100% true now but I've heard many good things about it. My friend feeds her dog raw and she's a very very healthy dog (Fettle!).

Wouldn't butchers like it if the scraps of meat were for dogs then? I'm going on the basis that, if I can eat the meat out there, then I can't see why my dog can't but our vet warned us against it (I suspect she'd like us to buy her dry dog food!).

When my French friends stayed with us recently they were bemused that the dogs were eating raw meaty bones we get free from the butcher which they buy for making stock and soups from their butcher! So when I take my dogs over I'm going to budget to buy everything and then any savings will be a bonus. I am not worried about quality at all.

> if I can eat the meat out there, then I can't see why my dog can't but our vet warned us against it

Was she warning you about feeding raw, or warning you about feeding raw in France?

If you have questions or concerns it's a good idea to do your reading before deciding.  I like Tom Longhurst for no nonsense advice and easy to understand ideas.  Ian Billinghurst and Kymythy Shultze both well worth a read too :)

Thank you very much - I'll have a read!

She was warning us against feeding raw full stop. She said that they could get salmonella and that they're stomaches couldn't handle the raw meat which I disagreed with as I know dog owners that do feed raw and they're fine