Wiggle Butt said:
I disagree. I don't believe that a well prepared natural diet needs supplements unless if for health reasons.
And I don't think they need kelp or seaweed. Where would dogs get that in the wild?
I believe nature knows what's best.
Not trying to start a debate (but I probably just did ... sorry
).
Sorry, Wiggle Butt, that's not an assumption or opinion, it's a fact. I'm a huge advocate of raw feeding myself, but I also recognize the limitations we face when attempting to imitate what a dog would eat "in the wild".
Dogs "in the wild" eat a vastly different diet than domestic dogs. The prey animals they consume have access to a much wider variety of food with a completely different nutrient content than the mostly factory farmed chickens, turkeys, sheep, cows etc. raised for slaughter.
On top of that, wild dogs consume pretty much all of their prey, not just select pieces. They consume things like the brains (in which omega 3 fatty acids are concentrated), the thyroid glands (where as much as 75% of the body's iodine is stored), blood (which is high in calcium and iron) and other tissues that provide various nutrients.
You can't copy that simply by buying a variety of meats and bones at the grocery store, since many of the nutritious organs and tissues are removed long before the carcass (or parts of it) hit the shelf.
It's not possible to
truly recreate that type of diet unless you harvested wild prey and fed it to the dog in its entirety, or raised it yourself, providing all the required nutrients in large enough quantities.
Especially iodine is an important trace mineral, since it is relatively rare. Ultimately it was the introduction of iodized salt that eliminated iodine deficiency in people, something that was not possible before its introduction - and this is not a recent development, iodine deficiency has been described as far back as 5000 years ago in ancient China.
Anyone who raises livestock is aware of the necessity of making iodized salt blocks available to the animals to avoid deficiency. The only exceptions are pretty much coastal areas where iodine from the oceans is in abundant enough supply in the soil and the animals consume vegetation grown in this soil.
It's not a good idea to pick and choose and simply ignore the characteristics of what a wild animal would eat, leaving gaps in what we feed.
Yes, nature knows best, but leave it to humans to not see the whole picture and thus deliver completely different results.