I have not yet read the books by Ian Billinghurst, I fully intend to, but in the meantime, I wonder if anyone could answer the following questions for me:

1 How safe are raw bones that can be crunched up and eaten, given that raw as well as cooked bones can splinter and pierce the stomach, throat etc.

2 Why give raw bones to dogs to eat, given that in the wild, animals will only eat the meat and leave the carcass, sometimes only taking the larger bones to extract the marrow, but not eating the bones themselves

3 How safe is it to feed raw meat to dogs, seeing as how we cook our meat to kill off bacteria which grows on meat that has been stored for any lenght of time. Again, in the wild, raw meat is eaten, but it is caught, killed and devoured then and there, not left for days on end then eaten.

I am interested in the natural way of rearing and keeping animals, but these are issues that I am not sure have been given full consideration? I eagerly await your replies!

Hello again. Bear I think the wild dogs did eat all the meat including the bones . To my knowledge there was nothing left.I guess if an animal started on a deer it would more than likely eat the best bits first and be too full to eat the rest. some cats do store the kill in trees , and the only reason there is none left is because there would be so many other animals following on to get a share of the kill. Raw meat was eaten by humans untill they discovered it was nicer cooked ;)dont they still eat raw mince and egg in russia ? To your other question re the bones splintering
I believe its only cooked chicken bones that splinter, raw chicken bones are soft. I have an old fridgefreezer for my dogs meat,and therefore dont have to worry about bacteria :) mari

Hi Mari,

I used to think it was just cooked bones that splinter too, but think about it, we can fracture our own bones can't we, and they are not cooked! If any bone can be crunched up and eaten, then surely it has the potential to be swallowed not completley crunched up and end up piercing the stomach or something.
I suppose frozen meat doesnt collect as much bacteria, but how long had that meat been haiging perhaps before it was frozen? Does freezing the meat kill off germs?

Bear Im not one hundred percent sure of this but is it not true that gone off meat is no harm to a dog ? I do know that accidents can happen re splintered bones. complete foods can cause torsion which can be fatal so I guess its all a gamble and we will all have to do what we think is best in the interest of the dogs : Sometimes I think that perhaps we do too much worrying about our dogs but I also wonder are we doing them any good. At the end of the day kibble is convenience food, but it has become a big money spinner and we are all led to believe that it is better for dogs than their own natural food. so I dont know who is right or who is wrong anymore .What I do know is that in my case the dogs appear to be more laid back and happier in themselves. If I think at any stage that it is no longer working i will simply go back to what I was doing prior to the barf diet mari

Bear the meat you feed your dogs is 'hung' for 14 days before the butcher or whoever is legally allowed to use the meat just the same as it is for meat for human consumption.

My friend has just had 2 of her beasts slaughtered and will not be able to collect the meat from her own stock until the new year regardless of its proposed use ie human or animal consumption - I've ordered my 10lb of liver, 2 hearts, 4 kidneys and the tripe for my dogs who are all on BARF diet. The chicken wings I buy are all human standard meat my butcher handles nothing else and charges me £25 for 66kgs of fresh wings.

My tripe/hearts/liver/kidney etc generally comes from an independant butcher in Derbyshire who slaughters and sells his own produce so I know that will also be no older than the minimum 2 wks required by law.

Much of the meat we eat that is imported is many mths old by the time it is defrosted and jointed for the supermarkets only to be refrozen in some instances. Wasn't there something on the news a while back about beef being over a yr old and sold by supermarkets for human consumption? Have to say I never buy meat from a supermarket always go to my local butcher and quizz him about the origins of his produce lol.

Freezing in general doesn't kill bacteria they are designed to survive extremes of temperature in some cases they are enclosed in a very tough outter layer that only ruptures upon high temperatures such as when we cook the food. One reason why in the catering industry you have a different chef for each course to reduce the risk of cross contamination from uncooked food to your 'not gonna be cooked food' sorry my old catering background and training starting to show oooooops lol.

Schip is completely right :-)

And if you buy frozen foodstuff's from your local pet outlet, do not forget that there is a strong possibilty that it will have defrosted to some degree in transit or unloading and will have been re-frozen. Dogs can become very sick from 're-frozen' meats in much the same way as humans.

Ditto to 'catering training'.Old habits die hard don't they :D

Leigh

I am lucky enough to get a free supply of deer hearts and livers which my dogs love. However one of them has develped a very itchy skin(no obvious cause for this and no other lifestyle changes appart from the heart & livers for last 3-4 weeks) Has anyone heard of this effect from meat before?
Ted

yes ted. I have, your dog needs a lower protein diet I had a collie that was reared on royal canine he developed a rash diagnosed as excema due to a high protein diet ,he went on low protein and was fine .Its called trial and error:) hearts and liver are very rich and should not be used more than once a week or so im led to believe best wishes mari

I have been feeding a BARF diet for the last two months. I changed my three year old GSD over and my 4 mth old Mal has been fed it from birth. What a difference it has made to my GSD! he is looking really good on it. I have fed them chicken wings but it made me too nervous watching them eat, incase the bones did splinter. I now give them large bones to gnaw on and bone meal as a supplement.
Naomi.

Naomi Hi. where do you get bone meal . Its no longer available in ireland .Ialways used it and I found it very convenient mari

I save egg shells (as a source of calcium), wash them and pop them in the oven for about 10 minutes to dry out and become brittle. When cool I crush them to a powder with a pestal & mortar. I use this powder together with brewers yeast etc as a supplement.

Hi Mari,
I get my bonemeal from 'Pets at Home'. They have a web site www.petsathome.co.uk or you could give them a call. I also get 'stress' from there which seems to contain all of the same vitamins and minerals (so don't use both).
Naomi

Hi NAOMI,

Sorry to change the subject, but I was interested to read that you have a Mal pup and a GSD, how are they getting on? Are they the same or different sex? How have you found training the Mal to be compared to your GSD?

Hi Bear,
Well, what can I say? The GSD is a dog and the Mal is a bitch. The GSD is hyper and the Mal is extremely laid back. The GSD is a 'mans man' so to speak. He is like my husbands shadow, she is like mine. He is terrible on the lead (when he should be great) and she is great (when they are supposed to be pullers). He is noisy, she is quiet. But whatever their differences, they get on great and are wonderful around the house especially with our daughter (mals love kids). Kiera, our Mal, has been easy to train. She could sit, lie down ,give her paw, stay, walk on heal and stand (when she wants to) for show by the time she was 10 weeks old.
Oh and by the way, it IS true what they say.....Mals CAN dig!!!
Naomi

Hee hee hee!! I can't believe it Naomi - your mal is breaking every malamute rule in the book!!
They are supposed to be SO difficult to train! Mind you, she is only 4 months, do you think she might give you a litle bit more trouble when she hits the teenage stage?
What colour is she? I love mals, almost as much as GSD's, does she go WOOO WOOO instead of barking?!!!