raw feeding - a hygeine question!

[elaine.e]

Shoot me down in flames but I couldn't deal with this however good it is for the dogs.

But there's the thing. No one has actually shown that there is any benefit from feeding a dog on raw meat! So the risks from infection to the dog, injury from bones, unbalanced diet, and possible cross-infection is higher, and there are documented cases of the harm it can do,  but there is no evidence of improved outcomes.

I think that's a bit one sided John. Owners have been raw feeding dogs successfully for as long as dogs have been domesticated, but as far as I know there has never been an in depth study done on the benefits of raw feeding, and neither is there likely to be, because studies relating to nutrition and healthcare in pets tend to be funded by the pet food manufacturing giants and the pharmaceutical companies. Therefore it's easy to say there is no evidence of improved outcomes, while ignoring those of us who have raw fed successfully for many years and are confident that we feed balanced diets and that our dogs are healthy and fit, something which our vets usually acknowledge.

Of course there are documented cases of dogs that have had problems with raw bones and infections. Sometimes they happen. But I haven't seen any evidence that they are major problems that affect a high percentage of raw fed dogs. Dogs fed commercial diets and home cooked diets suffer medical problems too.

I started raw feeding in 1987 and have mostly fed raw since then. The only lengthy period of kibble feeding I did was during the first 5 years of William's life, when I was persuaded by his breeder and my vet that kibble was the way forward. William was fed on a number of different kibbles and had recurring ear infections, recurring lip fold infections, itchy skin and a sensitive digestive system. When I made the decision to switch him to raw all of those problems disappeared. That was the only change to his lifestyle. 5 years on and, apart from 2 ear infections, none of his previous health problems have re-emerged. That and my previous experience of raw feeding my earlier Cockers is enough to make me feel confident that I am doing the right thing for my dogs.

My concern now that raw feeding is gaining a higher profile than it has for many years is that some owners will just jump in without doing their research and will feed an unbalanced diet. Achieving a balanced diet isn't difficult, but it does require a bit of thought and planning.

It's interesting to note than an increasing number of "ordinary" vets are learning about raw feeding and recommending it to their clients. The local practice that I use is fairly conservative, but one of their vets now recommends raw, a further three acknowledge that a balanced raw diet is a good one and only one is dead set against raw.

[Deb H]

I have started to partly feed Hebe a raw diet but it's baby steps for us at the moment. She has two meals of natures menu puppy nuggets and two meals of Orijen kibble. She absolutely loves it licks the bowl clean.

[john51]

I don't think it was one-sided - I didn't say it was a bad way to feed dogs and I wasn't suggesting that raw-fed cannot be healthy. I was saying the same as you have said above, that, as far as I know, there is no good evidence to suggest that feeding raw produces a healthier dog than other methods. In my view, if you take on extra risks, albeit relatively small risks, there ought to be a significant benefit at the end of it.

In your own description, William's health may well have improved but the problems might have been due to something in the kibbles that caused dietary intolerance and not be specifically related to raw food. I do agree with your worry about people taking raw feeding on without the knowledge to ensure that they are providing a balanced diet, however, I must say that this forum usually seems to suggest that this is not a difficult thing to do. I recently posted a quote from Marg Chandler from Edinburgh Vet School who said:

" in years as a veterinary nutritionist I have checked many homemade diet recipes and programmes and none of them were balanced for the essential nutrients."

yet this didn't seem to cause any reaction. If I were feeding raw I would certainly firstly accept that someone with her experience is likely to know more than me and take it seriously, and secondly, want to know more about the potential issues.

My problem with all of this is that the benefits are often oversold on the basis of anecdote, and the potential problems under-played. Identifying genuine improvements in health and what causes them is fraught with difficulty. Humans are very susceptible to confirmation bias. If someone invests emotional belief in a particular course of action, and backs it up by spending money, they will interpret any change as confirming their decision. Even if there is no change they will often see things that are not there and become convinced that their actions have been successful. That is why scientists insist that blinded random controlled trials are necessary to produce good evidence and that anecdote is very poor quality evidence.

I will happily change my views if the evidence changes. Unfortunately, people who operate by belief in a particular philosophy often take the opposite view and treat the evidence as a direct attack on their position and see conspiracies all around them.

If the health changes are as dramatic and universal as they appear to be given the claims in this forum, I would expect vets up and down the country to be shouting out about its benefits. I don't see that. The fact that vets are more accepting of it is probably related to the fact that if they are faced with an owner who has been convinced by, let's be honest, the unsubstantiated hype that comes out of some of the more extreme web sites, they face up to reality and bend with the wind.

For me too much hype, too many specious arguments and the jury is still out.

[LurcherGirl]

I feed three of my four dogs raw but they only get minces (which include bone and offal). They eat that from the bowl just like they would kibble. Any bones (which mine only get large recreational bones once in a while) are eaten in the garden. As it's not a frequent occurrence (once or twice a month) I can pick dry days for it so no-one gets muddy or wet.