Which one?
When I considered feeding my dogs a raw natural diet, I was just learning about such a diet from a continuing education course I took in Virginia from a world renowned pet nutritionist named Wendy Volhard. Back then I, like most people, was feeding my dogs a dry kibble, so considering a raw diet was still very foreign to me even though through my studies it seemed right. At first, I settled on a supplement to go over the kibble that would help my dogs digest the food I was feeding them better. It took a while but that last statement, “That would help my dogs digest the food I was feeding them better,” really is the reason I now feed a raw diet. It never dawned on me that feeding my dogs something that is difficult for them to digest would be a problem. Crazy, I know! That’s when I looked at the information I was given from my studies and continued my research, which led me to the following.
Myth: Dogs are too far removed from Wolves and therefore can’t handle a raw diet.
When I tell people that I feed a raw diet to my dogs, the first thing they usually say is; “you actually feed raw meat?” For some reason, most people think it is so gross or that their dogs will get sick from eating raw meat. We can’t eat raw meat so why would I feed it to my dogs?
Truth: While we have changed dogs’ diets and how they look through selective breeding, they do still share most of their mDNA with the gray wolf, 98.8% to be exact. And while their immune systems have been compromised from the food we feed them, resulting in less enzymes needed to digest raw meat, they still do have those enzymes. Once we change their diets from the highly processed food that dry kibble presents to a natural raw diet, those enzymes quickly return back to a normal working level capable of digesting raw meaty bones.
More truth is that dogs’ mouth and teeth are structured very similar to wolves. Their teeth are shaped so they can grab and rip things. Have you ever watched your dog eat or chew a bone? Not much different than watching the wolves chew on their killed deer bones on animal planet! Their jaws are designed to open wider to accommodate bigger prey. Animals who eat mostly a vegetarian diet have a side to side grinding motion with their jaws.
Now, I’m not suggesting that we let our dogs eat exactly like wolves do. Obviously through selective breeding our dogs have learned to adapt to us and eat basically whatever we put in front of them. But, given the closeness that still exists between wolf and dog, it is believed that feeding as close as we can to the dog’s ancestors will improve their overall health. I have personally seen the health benefits in my own dogs in switching from dry commercial kibble to a raw diet. I’ve seen chronic ear infections clear up, skin irritations disappear, and most impressively being able to fight off fleas and ticks without using any of the traditional flea and tick repellants. Fleas and ticks will bite and feed off a weaker host rather than a strong immune system. When you feed your dogs more naturally their immune system improves dramatically.
So, if you’ve ever wondered about a raw natural diet for your dog, I would encourage you to do your own research. More importantly, I would encourage you to ask yourself, why do you feed your dog a commercial dog food? Do some research into when and why this type of dog food came into existence. Is it really meeting the overall health needs of your dog? I think you will be surprised as to what you find!
