Blimey this newbie is rattling on huh!

Yeah just wondered if any of you follow the BARF (bones and raw food) diet with your doggies. We just changed our 7yr old to raw meat/bones and veggies etc and his once wallpaper peeling breath is now gorgeous and he's a different dog with loads more energy (if that were possible!) and so much brighter and happier it seems. plus he actually looks forward to eating whereas before with yukky dried or tinned food he kind of looked at you after you'd given it to him like "oh great. the same old thing AGAIN. Thanks"

Alot of the Leonberger breeders we visited/chatted to were on this diet, and some very close friends of mine follow it too and i'm kicking myself for not realising sooner how much sense it made.

Yes I feed raw :D

Look at the Diet Forum :D

I feed half and half, that is they get a balanced varied BARF diet for half their dauly requirements and a good quality complete (actually a mix of Arden Grange and Autarky) for the balance.

I do this partly for convenience, as there will be times when the dogs need to be fed complete (when away from home, or having someone in looking after them.

Yes there is nothing quite like the look on someone's face when you ask them to give them raw kidneys....................:)

Hehe... i just had a chat with the pet shop owner about the BARF diet and she was adamant that it was ridiculous and dangerous (to feed raw chicken bones). I said surely there is more sense in feeding a dog something which it has evolved to digest than something which is so far removed from its natural food that it cant possibly be nutritious. she siad that the dried food is more nutritious (in her world).
I would never go back having seen the improvement with our dog and we will be weaning the puppy onto it too - its currently eating cooked turkey mince, beef mince and iams puppy food (evil!) and tinned rice pudding of all things????!

I cannot see how someone can say that feeding a dog raw meat and bones is wrong. i know alot of people think oh you cant give a dog chicken bones - but what they forget is that its cooked chicken bones you cant feed.

Sorry, i realise this is in the wrong thread - i should have checked out the diet board. oops! sorry!

"I cannot see how someone can say that feeding a dog raw meat and bones is wrong"

Replace 'wrong' with 'unwise' and you've found someone who can ;) :)

Have a look here
barf link

Snippets taken from the link above
  <<Barf Diets - Goodness or Garbage?
by Graham Peck>>

<<BARF diet is inconvenient. It requires a significant amount of time to prepare the food. Each day handling large amounts of raw meat, pulverising vegetables and preparing meal sized portions. >>

I don't find it inconvenient - once you get into the pattern it is little different to feeding dry.

<<At the end of the day most vets are happy to recommend the better quality diets to owners.>>

And most vets get commission for selling these foods, and the "better quality diet's" manufacturers probably supply quite a bit to the vets - education, equipment etc.  Many are also happy to recommend a more traditional way of feeding as well.  Pigs heads etc are no longer readily available which were fed to our dogs when I was a child and other things have had to take their place.

<<. More importantly scientific research has also provided us with prescription diets specially formulated to help address various medical problems such as kidney failure. The contribution of these diets in managing many serious medical conditions cannot be overstated. >>

How many of the "complete" diets are the cause of some of the conditions such as
Dirty teeth and gum problems in dogs and kidney problems in cats?

This vet does not seem to think much of pedigree dogs either - wonder if he realises that more and more human diseases have also been "discovered" and need lots of treatment and investigation

Maybe i should have rephrased it in that I cant see how something which is a natural diet to a dog (even though we have been breeding them to our own requirements over the years, they are still like any wild dog with their digestive system) can be bad. all types of feeding has risks with it, and I know that there is always a risk wiht feeding bones and sometimes they might go down the wrong way, just as they would in the wild and its not something we want to happen. But i still cant see how a desicated dried food or even a cooked food can possibly be good for a dog. I would not prefer dried human food over 'real' human food - I try to eat a 70% raw diet myself, having fresh raw vegetable juice every morning (almost) without fail. My whole body works better as a result because our human bods are designed to eat mostly raw food anyway, not loads of processed and refined and cooked foods.
I would refer to the Pottengers cats experiment which if you havnt heard of it heres the link : http://www.therawfoodsite.com/cats.htm
:)

Me too Jas.  Dogs have been living with humans for anywhere from 15,000 to 40,000 years, depending on the study.  Dog paw prints were recently found in a cave inhabited by humans over 26,000 years ago.   If a bitch has her first litter at 2 years old - then that is anywhere from 7,500 to 20,000 generations (in fact, more) that dogs have evolved to live with man.  Why people seem to believe that dogs somehow have not changed because of domestication over that period of time is beyond me.  Domestic dogs are not the same as wild candids.  They have been accustomed to eating a far more varied diet, cooked and raw, then they did or their wild cousins do who rely exclusively on their own hunting ability.  

The notion that wild candids somehow have the perfect diet and are glowing with health also is flawed.  Most wild candids suffer from malnutrition and lead shorter lives (even excluding those who become prey themselves) than captives of the same species.  Whether or not they are happier in the wild than in captivity is a different issue.   Wild candids do die from injuries cause by injesting bone.  No one knows how often this happens, but it does happen.  Unlike most BARF feeders, wild candids eat hide and hair, and studies with wolves have shown that undigested bone is actually expelled surrounded by hair.  Meaning ingested hide, hair and feather protects the candid from injury due to bone fragments as they pass through the digestive track. 

If cooked food was so devoid of nutrional value most dogs (and people) would die at very early ages.  Domestic dogs (and people) are living longer, not shorter lives.  It is one of the reasons why cancer has become more common in dogs - they are living long enough to get it.  We all die of something, eventually.   Cancer existed centuries before food additives, preservatives, cooking and a whole host of modern "improvements", questionable and otherwise, were even invented.    There has to be some balance between the view that everything new/manufactured is evil and everything old/natural is good.  There isn't enough evidence on either side of the equation, so we all make our own decisions. 

I am by no means defending the pet food industry.  Domestication and diet change has been a slow process over many thousands of years.  The pet food industry is barely 50 years old.  You don't need to be a scientist to know that period of time is quicker than the blink of an eye in terms of evolution.  No species could adapt to such a radical change in terms of its composition (predominance of grain versus meat-based proteins.  Certainly no living being should ingest such high levels of preservatives, additives, colourings, and flavourings  -- many of which have been shown to cause cancer alone or in combination.

Stacey   

You will find that everyone has an opinion about food :D Just as they do with diets for humans :D

I would ask what exactly are the pet shop owner's credentials, qualifications, experience, knowledge in a subject before listening to their advice in order to determine the validity of it :)

The advantage of forums such as these is that people are exposed to a wide variety of views from which they can pick and choose what suits them and their dogs.  We may not all agree but then if we did, the existence of the forum would be pointless :D

It is only by healthy debate, questioning accepted mores, challenging "established practice" etc that we increase our understanding and broaden our outlook.

Yep, my dogs have been raw fed more than a couple of yrs now & I`ve never seen less of the vet since they started on it :D 

Christine, Spain.