Who else feeds RAW?
- Thread starter jdatwood
- Start date
Crio, I don't know that I would a risk $300 vet bill again, but then again, if you were using a vet who doesn't agree with feeding raw, he could have very easily ran up an unnecessary bill to "teach you" about the "dangers" of feeding raw. I've talked to a couple vets here and there in my search for a vet out here that just about lost it when I asked how they felt about a raw diet and went on and on about bacteria, bone shards, nutrient deficiencies, etc. All easily avoidable things if you're doing a raw diet properly. And then proceeded to tell me that all my "problems" could be fixed with the right bag of Science Diet. 
- Joined
- Aug 7, 2008
- Messages
- 2,242
- Likes
- 0
- Points
- 0
Crio, I don't know that I would a risk $300 vet bill again, but then again, if you were using a vet who doesn't agree with feeding raw, he could have very easily ran up an unnecessary bill to "teach you" about the "dangers" of feeding raw. I've talked to a couple vets here and there in my search for a vet out here that just about lost it when I asked how they felt about a raw diet and went on and on about bacteria, bone shards, nutrient deficiencies, etc. All easily avoidable things if you're doing a raw diet properly. And then proceeded to tell me that all my "problems" could be fixed with the right bag of Science Diet.
luckily this vet has never brought up diet at all...I simply gave symptoms and they treated, they assumed she ate som'thing (like a sock or som'thing). This dog in question has a sensitive stomach and have Immuno problems as a puppy...THAT SAID she had a gopher (whole) yesterday and is fine...like I said before I'd love to do whole prey as they have no issues with it I have also given hearts and gizzards and had no issues...its the BONES that they just can't keep down and when they do keep them down they expode. If I could afford to do whole prey more often I would, i do it when I can
I did have a vet tell me purina was the way to go and that my filler free food was a waste of money, I never went back to him.
THANK YOU
I did have raw feeders tell me to stick with it and detox was normal...and I did try other sources, but had the same results. My husband was also not on board and basically put his foot down after Kiwis $300 vet visit because she was so ill.
I guess the point I was trying to make, that everyone else is, is that its not for everyone
I did have raw feeders tell me to stick with it and detox was normal...and I did try other sources, but had the same results. My husband was also not on board and basically put his foot down after Kiwis $300 vet visit because she was so ill.
I guess the point I was trying to make, that everyone else is, is that its not for everyone
I think the one thing we can all agree on, raw diet or not, that to participate in a thread of this magnitude, with all of the varying opinions and whatnot, is that we are all fanatics about our dogs and their health! What was that word? Oh, EXTREMISTS!!!
- Joined
- Aug 7, 2008
- Messages
- 2,242
- Likes
- 0
- Points
- 0
If you gave it your best shot and feel like it's not for you, then that's fine. There is no blueprint for how raw works. While the basis of the diet is the same, the components might be very different for my dog vs what your dog would thrive on. Sometimes it takes more time than people are willing to spend to get it all worked out. Having a dog with digestive issues is certainly no fun and we all have our limits on what we'll put up with in that respect. I'm fortunate that my dogs all adapted quickly. Daisy as a pup was the longest at about 10 days before her digestion settled down, but she was about 14 weeks old at the time. I stuck with the plan, giving her ground up chicken drumsticks and nothing else, and it worked itself out. Everyone else was good to go in less than a week.
I think the one thing we can all agree on, raw diet or not, that to participate in a thread of this magnitude, with all of the varying opinions and whatnot, is that we are all fanatics about our dogs and their health! What was that word? Oh, EXTREMISTS!!!
I think the one thing we can all agree on, raw diet or not, that to participate in a thread of this magnitude, with all of the varying opinions and whatnot, is that we are all fanatics about our dogs and their health! What was that word? Oh, EXTREMISTS!!!
LOL
you know what, i could deal with loose stools, or the occasional pile of vomit...but they were literally wallowing in pure liquid stool in their crates when I would get home and Emma, for example puked up every.single.meal. They couldn't even make it outside...I have carpet. It was not fun....my main problem is that no one mentioned that this could/would HAPPEN. I researched and even belonged to a raw feeding group for a while and saw detox mentioned once or twice and it wasn't until my dogs got sick that people were like "oh thats normal"....I don't think its fair to go on and on and on about how much better it is and leave that tid bit out...as RFD and his posse have done in this convo. Because, to me, it was an important tid bit.
anyway...maybe Iam too mainstream LOL
I knew it would happen because I did so much reading on it prior to trying it. Maybe people presumed that you already knew this could happen? It's one of the basic factoids when you read about changing over to raw. It's really no different than if you changed kibble, how some dogs will react like that for a day or 2 until they get used to it.
The puking thing- that's unusual, especially for every meal. Maybe several smaller meals per day would have helped instead of one big one. I mentioned before, once in a while one of mine will puke up an entire meal and then re eat it. Usually when they get stressed out right after eating like someone walks their dogs by the back yard and mine get agitated. It's uncommon but not unheard of and not something I worry about.
The puking thing- that's unusual, especially for every meal. Maybe several smaller meals per day would have helped instead of one big one. I mentioned before, once in a while one of mine will puke up an entire meal and then re eat it. Usually when they get stressed out right after eating like someone walks their dogs by the back yard and mine get agitated. It's uncommon but not unheard of and not something I worry about.
- Joined
- Aug 7, 2008
- Messages
- 2,242
- Likes
- 0
- Points
- 0
you may be on to som'thing with this...people were like "um yeah, duh, they get sick for a while"...I think people just kept saying "detox" but never elaborated on what that actually meant. There was never a "this is what happens when they are in detox" post in the group I was in. Just lots of RAW IS GREAT YOU MUST FEED RAW!
the think is tho, I can change kibble, and I will have som' loose stools, but zero vomit and zero accidents...Iam talking explosive diarhea on raw.
only Emma did this every meal...they were fed twice a day...Scooter (who has since passed away) would puke up about 80% of his meals. The others were hit and miss, bones seemed to be the issue.
Emma would re eat (or try to) as well...I did take it as "normal"ish until Kiwi needed to go to the hospital. That and my dogs were very hungry (the ones that would not reeat their vomit)
the think is tho, I can change kibble, and I will have som' loose stools, but zero vomit and zero accidents...Iam talking explosive diarhea on raw.
only Emma did this every meal...they were fed twice a day...Scooter (who has since passed away) would puke up about 80% of his meals. The others were hit and miss, bones seemed to be the issue.
Emma would re eat (or try to) as well...I did take it as "normal"ish until Kiwi needed to go to the hospital. That and my dogs were very hungry (the ones that would not reeat their vomit)
My information is from similar sources as yours, as well as reading done on my own while in college. The specific studies and researchers I remember I will give names for - I unfortunately do not recall all of them and my brain certainly does not create a proper Resources & References file for everything I learn throughout my life.
Mammalian-focused biologists in this area typically know a lot about coyotes since they are so prevalent here so there's a lot to talk about with them. More recently, wolves have started making their way back north, so it's a hot topic of research these days too.
The studies that are done actually comparing wolf and coyote diets and digestion are largely done through scat analysis since such invasive research methods as going out to kill samples and dissecting their bodies aren't really looked upon with favour. Back before people were so touchy about it, Gipson in 1974 did a really great study by examining coyote guts to look at their digestion and focused on seasonal variance, basically showing the great adaptability of their digestive system by the change in diet they endure during different seasons. His study was focused on one area but there were other studies conducted later focusing on the coyote's ability to also adapt based on their geographical location. Obviously coyotes in the Midwest are going to nibble their way through a corn field far more often than coyotes living in deserts out west. I will note here that Gipson's studies of course do not mean that coyotes are as efficient at digesting plant matter as a herbivore - it simply means that coyotes eat a lot of plant matter because it's available (and probably, particularly in cases of fruits, because they like it.) Oh, they also eat insects - that was the third most common food source Gipson found.
Otherwise the comparison is simply looking at each individual animal's unique characteristics and noting things that one has that another does not have.
David Mech did a number of wonderful studies on wolves, but unfortunately most of the studies on wolf digestion are not actually wolf digestion studies but dog digestion studies that he takes a lot of information from to apply to the wolf. However if you read his studies he himself says that dogs likely lack a lot of the enzymatic power of a wolf - basically, that a wolf has things that dogs no longer have because they didn't need them. I believe it was also Mech that found that wolves have much stronger stomach acid than the domestic dog. He also talks a lot about the feast-or-fast existence of a wolf and how their eating habits are intended to essentially gorge themselves to prepare for going without food for a long amount of time.
The studies Mech used to learn about wolf digestion discussed the great adaptability of a dog's digestive system - something that coyotes quite clearly have. He believes a wolf could have this ability as well, but it's not something that was studied. This is not spontaneous evolution of the pancreas, it's simply a function of it. It was not Mech's study (he just talked about it), but this ability of a dog's pancreas is scientifically documented. I think it was a study in the 1980's. This may or may not have been the studies that involved injecting deer protein (?? don't recall exactly what is was from a deer) into a dog's stomach to see what happened... can't remember the specifics of that study.
So given everything here, there's a few main points. First, coyotes and dogs eat pretty much whatever given the chance. A wolf, on the other hand, will gorge itself on a meal and will also cache food (something the coyote does not do, but some dogs will do) to store it for later consumption. Wolves will eat berries, but they do not turn to feasting on whatever they can find the way coyotes and dogs do - instead, they will simply fast... and their bodies allow for this in a remarkable way.
Mech has found that the wolf has such an incredibly efficient stomach for digesting meat. Dogs and coyotes do too; however, dogs and coyotes will also feast on other things whereas a wolf will not turn it's typical gorging eating behaviours on fruits. Why not? Mech's presumption is that a wolf is MORE efficient at digesting meat than a dog is, so perhaps the wolf is not quite as adaptable as a coyote and a dog are. The wolf machine does one thing incredibly well; the dog and coyote machine do that slightly less well but also do something else slightly better, too. If a dog and a coyote gain little nutritional benefit from fruits and vegetables yet still eat it anyway, a wolf must gain even less - or nothing at all - from fruits and vegetables. There is no scientific sense to a wolf eating something that does it no good; however there is also no scientific sense to a coyote eating something that does it no good, yet we know coyotes eat these things and therefore it must do them SOME good.
So that's where you get the conclusion that a dog and a coyote are more similar in their eating behaviours and digestive systems than a wolf and a dog. They do it, therefore there's a reason. Exactly what that reason is, I do not know, and I'm not sure we will know unless invasive research is done. Somebody else can write for a grant from the government to determine the why and once they do, we can reevaluate, but right now that's the conclusion that has been drawn among a lot of the biologists I have talked to given the information we know right now (and it makes sense to me, so I agree with it pending more research.)
Mammalian-focused biologists in this area typically know a lot about coyotes since they are so prevalent here so there's a lot to talk about with them. More recently, wolves have started making their way back north, so it's a hot topic of research these days too.
The studies that are done actually comparing wolf and coyote diets and digestion are largely done through scat analysis since such invasive research methods as going out to kill samples and dissecting their bodies aren't really looked upon with favour. Back before people were so touchy about it, Gipson in 1974 did a really great study by examining coyote guts to look at their digestion and focused on seasonal variance, basically showing the great adaptability of their digestive system by the change in diet they endure during different seasons. His study was focused on one area but there were other studies conducted later focusing on the coyote's ability to also adapt based on their geographical location. Obviously coyotes in the Midwest are going to nibble their way through a corn field far more often than coyotes living in deserts out west. I will note here that Gipson's studies of course do not mean that coyotes are as efficient at digesting plant matter as a herbivore - it simply means that coyotes eat a lot of plant matter because it's available (and probably, particularly in cases of fruits, because they like it.) Oh, they also eat insects - that was the third most common food source Gipson found.
Otherwise the comparison is simply looking at each individual animal's unique characteristics and noting things that one has that another does not have.
David Mech did a number of wonderful studies on wolves, but unfortunately most of the studies on wolf digestion are not actually wolf digestion studies but dog digestion studies that he takes a lot of information from to apply to the wolf. However if you read his studies he himself says that dogs likely lack a lot of the enzymatic power of a wolf - basically, that a wolf has things that dogs no longer have because they didn't need them. I believe it was also Mech that found that wolves have much stronger stomach acid than the domestic dog. He also talks a lot about the feast-or-fast existence of a wolf and how their eating habits are intended to essentially gorge themselves to prepare for going without food for a long amount of time.
The studies Mech used to learn about wolf digestion discussed the great adaptability of a dog's digestive system - something that coyotes quite clearly have. He believes a wolf could have this ability as well, but it's not something that was studied. This is not spontaneous evolution of the pancreas, it's simply a function of it. It was not Mech's study (he just talked about it), but this ability of a dog's pancreas is scientifically documented. I think it was a study in the 1980's. This may or may not have been the studies that involved injecting deer protein (?? don't recall exactly what is was from a deer) into a dog's stomach to see what happened... can't remember the specifics of that study.
So given everything here, there's a few main points. First, coyotes and dogs eat pretty much whatever given the chance. A wolf, on the other hand, will gorge itself on a meal and will also cache food (something the coyote does not do, but some dogs will do) to store it for later consumption. Wolves will eat berries, but they do not turn to feasting on whatever they can find the way coyotes and dogs do - instead, they will simply fast... and their bodies allow for this in a remarkable way.
Mech has found that the wolf has such an incredibly efficient stomach for digesting meat. Dogs and coyotes do too; however, dogs and coyotes will also feast on other things whereas a wolf will not turn it's typical gorging eating behaviours on fruits. Why not? Mech's presumption is that a wolf is MORE efficient at digesting meat than a dog is, so perhaps the wolf is not quite as adaptable as a coyote and a dog are. The wolf machine does one thing incredibly well; the dog and coyote machine do that slightly less well but also do something else slightly better, too. If a dog and a coyote gain little nutritional benefit from fruits and vegetables yet still eat it anyway, a wolf must gain even less - or nothing at all - from fruits and vegetables. There is no scientific sense to a wolf eating something that does it no good; however there is also no scientific sense to a coyote eating something that does it no good, yet we know coyotes eat these things and therefore it must do them SOME good.
So that's where you get the conclusion that a dog and a coyote are more similar in their eating behaviours and digestive systems than a wolf and a dog. They do it, therefore there's a reason. Exactly what that reason is, I do not know, and I'm not sure we will know unless invasive research is done. Somebody else can write for a grant from the government to determine the why and once they do, we can reevaluate, but right now that's the conclusion that has been drawn among a lot of the biologists I have talked to given the information we know right now (and it makes sense to me, so I agree with it pending more research.)
That is a very good post. I'm going to have to go back and read it a few times and think about it some. One thing I wonder about immediately is that what diet are the dogs in question eating and what have they been eating all their lives? I suspect that if these are kibble fed dogs being compared to wild wolves and wild coyottes, certainly the digestive juices will differ and won't be nearly as acidic as the wild wolf. I think it would be a different story if you compared a dog PMR fed for several years, the results may be somewhat different. You see, it's what goes in the stomach, as was mentioned in your post, that determines much of the makeup of the digestive juices.
Nope. I think it has been proven beyond resonable doubt that dogs are not only decended from gray wolves, they actually ARE gray wolves. mtDNA is very accurate in determining lineage. Ths is the part of DNA that is passed directly from mother to offspring. Only females carry mtDNA. You should read the works of Robert Wayne on his mtDNA studies of dogs and wolves. Not only did he determine conclusively that dogs decended from wolves, he proved that there was no other animal that mated with a wolf to create a dog. A dog is 100% wolf.
Wayne determined that there is 0.02% difference between a wolf and dog mtDNA. A coyotte is .4% different. A chimp is 2% different from a human. So, a dog is 100 times closer to a wolf than we are chimps. I'm reciting these numbers off the top of my head but they are going to be pretty close.
You can find one of Wayne's studies here The canine genome ? Genome Research He has done many other studies. Check him out if you're interested.
Thats not true since the discovery of mtDNA. The "family tree" can be mapped very accurately.
Hehe, I don't argue. I state facts and let the others argue.
A very good post. Thanks for taking the time.
Nope. I think it has been proven beyond resonable doubt that dogs are not only decended from gray wolves, they actually ARE gray wolves. mtDNA is very accurate in determining lineage. Ths is the part of DNA that is passed directly from mother to offspring. Only females carry mtDNA. You should read the works of Robert Wayne on his mtDNA studies of dogs and wolves. Not only did he determine conclusively that dogs decended from wolves, he proved that there was no other animal that mated with a wolf to create a dog. A dog is 100% wolf.
Wayne determined that there is 0.02% difference between a wolf and dog mtDNA. A coyotte is .4% different. A chimp is 2% different from a human. So, a dog is 100 times closer to a wolf than we are chimps. I'm reciting these numbers off the top of my head but they are going to be pretty close.
You can find one of Wayne's studies here The canine genome ? Genome Research He has done many other studies. Check him out if you're interested.
Thats not true since the discovery of mtDNA. The "family tree" can be mapped very accurately.
Hehe, I don't argue. I state facts and let the others argue.
A very good post. Thanks for taking the time.
I've read this whole thread, and I have to say that in all the years I've known about raw feeding, (and even the year I did it for my dog) I have never been so put off of it. Nor have I seen such gross and blatant arrogance.
I can say that if I ever DO take it back up again, I WILL be including fruits and veggies, thanks to Coops wonderful post about it.
I can say that if I ever DO take it back up again, I WILL be including fruits and veggies, thanks to Coops wonderful post about it.
Now, Crush was attempting to 'educate' too, we just didn't agree with him.
When someone is preaching at people and adding snide little comments here and their about the other point of view's intelligence, then they are not going to get very far. That is arrogant and unnecessary and will turn people away from their cause. I get the feeling for RawFedDogs it's less about helping other people with food choices and more about making himself feel special and important by belittling others. Just based on my experience with him (which has been quite a lot unfortunately)
I feed raw. I'm a bit spoiled - I used SAD Dog Sushi (Free Delivery, Dog Food Delivery Austin, Pet, Pets, Dog, Dogs, Cat, Cats, Dogs and Cats, Raw, Raw Food, Raw Foods, Raw Food Diet, Raw Diet, Raw Pet Food, Raw Dog Food, Raw Cat Food, Raw Carnivore Diet, Prey Model Diet, Pet Food, Holistic Pet Food, Ho). I feed 60% combo patties and 40% RMB (chicken necks). Everything is fresh and non-processed. The patties consist of meaty meat (muscle meat, connective tissue, skin, fat) and 10% organ meat (liver, kidney, spleen, etc.)
Here's a video of Jersey eating her raw meal:
YouTube - Jersey eating her RAW meal
I've been feeding for 5 months and love it. Much cleaner teeth, better breath, less poop (and the poop is never squishy or runny), and weight control. Scout was 12.8 pounds and is down to 11.4 pounds - huge difference. She looks great.
I never give any dairy, veggies, or grains. I only give each dog 500mg of Omega 3 - a gel pill stuck in their patties - they eat it right up.
Here's a video of Jersey eating her raw meal:
YouTube - Jersey eating her RAW meal
I've been feeding for 5 months and love it. Much cleaner teeth, better breath, less poop (and the poop is never squishy or runny), and weight control. Scout was 12.8 pounds and is down to 11.4 pounds - huge difference. She looks great.
I never give any dairy, veggies, or grains. I only give each dog 500mg of Omega 3 - a gel pill stuck in their patties - they eat it right up.
