This may be an interesting programme due to air next Thursday at 9pm

http://about.channel5.com/node/1904

Looking forward to watching it

My stepson sent me a link to a YouTube video the other day, an American one, something like "How is dog food made?" -kind of kids programme. Well they mixed corn and flour and rice and turned it into kibble in a factory, then sprayed it with meat flavouring! So NO actual meat added at all. Shocking.

Sounds like some of the foods you can buy in discount supermarkets that contain 4% meat and animal derivatives.  when you consider that most foods have about 6% Ash (carbon) that sort of shows how little there
is.

I won't use a complete that doesn't contain at least 25% meat/fish meal (in other words the dry matter proportion). 

The ones that say 75% fresh meat/fish actually mean around 25% once dry.

We cube any unused bread in this house and bake in the oven for dog biscuits, sometimes basting tehm with meat juices.

For those that watched this programme, what are your views?

I feed raw and have done so for around 15 years so I am biased but Vegan fed dogs are not my idea of a healthy way of feeding an animal that is designed to eat meat and the comment from the lady who fed her rescues this way,  "why should other animals die so I can feed my dogs" makes no sense at all. I cannot believe that she is so naive as to believe that other animals are slaughtered purely to supply the pet food industry! Her dogs, although old and rescued, looked far from healthy to me.

Agree with every word you said hairypooch. Outright cruel to feed a dog a vegan diet -of course they EAT it, they have no choice! And I too said to hubby her dogs didn't look half as healthy as ours! I'm a vegetarian and meat disgusts me, but my dogs and cats still get fed raw because I believe it is most natural for them. It's not that much different to having to do other disgusting tasks like clearing up poo and sick -it's part of having dogs.

Was really looking forward to it, but my over-riding thought at the end was 'waste of an hour'. Didn't seem to come to any conclusions in either direction, or provide any great scientific fact anywhere. Ridiculous to say that 'all dried foods are equally bad' (I paraphrase, but that was the gist) - clearly they aren't - but then they raised all manner of issues with the raw feeding that I assumed they'd be pushing too.

None the wiser and I'll carry on with what I do now, LOL.

It is just a shame that regarding raw feeding, they made inaccurate statements. A lady who sells "home made" COOKED food saying that dogs shed salmonella from their coats when fed raw. This isn't the whole story and IMHO, the comment was made as she has a "cooked" product to promote and sell.

It really is common sense. If you feed kibble, then look at the ingredient list, if you feed raw, then learn about it beforehand. Think that they were intimating that those of us that have dogs in our lives are slightly potty! :-D Not really a very serious documentary on the nutritional value of food/biologically appropriate, from a scientific point of view.

Haven't watched it yet but will let you know what I think

Yes the Lily's Kitchen lady rather shot herself in the foot with the Salmonella statement.
I was also a bit puzzled at the statement from one raw contributor , that dogs in rescue due to behavioural problems , wouldn't be there if they had been raw fed , quite a sweeping generalisation.

On the plus side, if someone who was completely ignorant about dog nutrition watched it, they may now think twice before reaching for that, convenient, cheap kibble on the supermarket shelves.

The program does appear to have worried some of the manufactures, as some have given statements defending themselves, and having a pop back at raw.

> I'm a vegetarian and meat disgusts me, but my dogs and cats still get fed raw because I believe it is most natural for them.

Bravo & well done. My point is dogs are carnivores & shouldnt be fed a veggie or vegan diet. My sister was a veggie but her dogs were feed meat...stinky tripe usually..lol.

As someone on a FB group said " if you want a vegan pet, get a rabbit ".

> On the plus side, if someone who was completely ignorant about dog nutrition watched it, they may now think twice before reaching for that, convenient, cheap kibble on the supermarket shelves.

This is the best argument for the programme, let's hope some ill-fed dogs will benefit.

The thing is, all these TV programmes are what you might call 'entry level', and most people on this (and other) dog owners' forums are at 'level 2' at least, so are going to be unsatisfied.  There is very little in the general media which even gets to 'level 1' and so much (too much) which is just played for entertainment.

I agree. The programme also missed a key finding last year that separates dogs from wolves and that is the presence of genes associated with digestion of starch. The dog story of domestication suggests that it developed the ability to survive on human food scraps and waste,including forms of cooked starch (probably including human faeces as well).

The above suggests that raw is not necessarily the ideal and that the dog's digestive process is not identical to the wolf in the way that is espoused by some raw advocates. I have to say that aside from the obvious shortcomings of cheapo mass produced pet food I am rather on the fence in terms of the merits and demerits of fresh home-cooked/high quality ready-made versus raw. More research needed I think.

>The programme also missed a key finding last year that separates dogs from wolves and that is the presence of genes associated with digestion of starch.

I think it must have been filmed before that was published - these programmes can take ages to make. At least that's what I hope, and that the 'expert' wasn't just out of date!

JG,
Yes that may be the case and would explain a fairly major omission. However, the doc was largely interviews and could easily be turned around in a couple of months as well (this is not unknown). I was disappointed because I felt that the really interesting side of the debate and this latest discovery was not addressed. A missed opportunity and given that it was not broadcast until yesterday there was time to re-edit and add the latest stuff in.

The programme didn't really change my attitude about anything I feed my dog. I expected it to make me feel guilty about giving him tinned food but it didn't. I tried him on raw about 5 years ago following a colleague and her friend trying to make me out to be a bad dog owner and that I wasn't feeding him properly (have since found out that the friend uses shock collars on her dogs so I no longer listen to anything she has to say). He didn't take to raw and I lost count of the number of uneaten chicken wings I found abandoned in the garden. Maybe I could have given it longer but he wasn't happy and it wasn't worth the upset.
He's 11½, very happy, absolutely adored and we do what we feel is best for him. When I see his little head in that food bowl and I know he's enjoying what he's eating and it doesn't upset him then that's enough for me. So he's happy, husband and I are happy and the vet is happy.

I was also a bit puzzled at the statement from one raw contributor , that dogs in rescue due to behavioural problems , wouldn't be there if they had been raw fed , quite a sweeping generalisation.

Indeed. I'd say it is a pretty wellknown fact among dog people/dog trainers that Bakers can cause dogs to become hyperactive (I'm sure the colourings and sugars are to blame there just like some kids can become hyperactive from such things -my stepson used to become impossible to live with if he was given anything strawberry flavoured as a kid), but other than that, it is not a simple case of just feeding your dog raw. The one dog of mine that had been fed 100 % raw the longest (the other dogs will occasionally get other food, but this one does NOT, ever, as his stomach can only cope with raw) is my one dog with serious behaviour problems! So it most definitely had nothing to do with food with him. He's been raw fed since 6 months of age and is now 5 years 4 months old.

Yes Betty had been fed on Bakers before we took her on and was straight onto raw as she was bouncing off the walls !

And I too said to hubby her dogs didn't look half as healthy as ours!

I can assure you that my nearly 10-year old dog, that has been on a vegan diet for over 6 years is in excellent health and could give most 2-year olds a run for their money! He is vegan out of necessity (allergy/sensitivity to all animal protein), not choice, but nonetheless, if done correctly and carefully (just like with any diet), then a vegetarian/vegan dog can be perfectly healthy and will look and act no different than meat eating dogs.

I wouldn't chose to feed my dogs on a vegetarian/vegan diet and indeed my other dogs are either on all raw or half raw/half kibble, but seeing how well my vegan dog is doing on his diet I don't think it is fair to call it cruel!

And the argument that doing it for medical reasons is ok, but out of choice is cruel, doesn't really stick as the dog doesn't care why he gets fed a certain way! I think being open minded is the key... just like raw feeders want to be accepted for their choices, so should people who decide to feed their dogs on other unconventional diets provided their dogs are in good health (and not just surviving)! Dogs are incredibly adaptable and in the past and even now in many countries where they still live more natural lives have a huge range of diets depending on what is available, including vegan/vegetarian diets if the community where they live eat primarily vegan/veggie diets too... So would you call those communities cruel (e.g. in Sri Lanka) because they feed their dogs the same diet they eat themselves - which after all is exactly what dogs have done ever since they have lived with people?

I wouldn't chose to feed my dogs on a vegetarian/vegan diet and indeed my other dogs are either on all raw or half raw/half kibble, but seeing how well my vegan dog is doing on his diet I don't think it is fair to call it cruel!

Well I did have one dog on such a diet many years ago (80s) because he had allergies -I am willing to bet anything now that had I tried raw meat instead he'd have been fine but back then dog food equalled either dry complete or cans. He seemed okay for years then developed heart problems -the only one in the litter to do so, the only dog of that breed I've ever had with a heart problem.

My vegan dog would be no good on raw, whenever he gets hold of something he shouldn't (including a pound of raw mince once), he ends up with dandruffy and itchy skin within hours and a dull coat very quickly! But it doesn't really matter whether he would do well on a different diet. He is doing incredibly well on what I feed him, just today he was racing around with a lurcher for a good few minutes at top speed (and stopped panting afterwards within a minute or so) and my vet has so far never detected any problems with his heart or any other organs (he will be 10 years old later this year)!

In addition, vegan dog foods have come a long way since the 80ies as have the supplements and the general knowledge about them. So I would suggest that a good vegan diet these days is probably a lot more balanced and nutritionally complete than it used to be thirty years ago.

And of course, chances are that the vegan diet and the heart problem in your dog were coincidence. I know a considerable amount of dogs that had/have heart problems and they are on a meat based diet. I have never come across the suggestion that vegan/vegetarian dogs are more prone to heart problems (or any other particular issues) provided a good vegan/vegetarian diet is fed and not just something home cooked that is lacking in complete nutrition.

And it is interesting - and this is not a dig at anyone (and is not in response to your post, Goldmali), just an observation - that most criticism about vegan/vegetarian diets seems to come from raw feeders, which themselves are often at the receiving end of criticism for their way of feeding. I would have thought that knowing what it is like to be feeding differently to the majority, but being confident that it is the right thing for their own dogs, might make them a bit more open minded about other owners feeding a different diet which they too are confident that it is the right thing to do! But alas, everyone seems to be very narrow minded/often fanatical about their own way of doing things and doesn't give other owners the credit to also be intelligent enough to also doing things right, albeit differently. :-(  After all, dogs have survived for as long as they have because they are incredibly adaptable in so many areas, including diet.