Introduction: To BARF or not to BARF

These days, deciding what to feed your dog is no easy task. Before the birth of the pet food industry, dogs dined on table scraps, but enter any supermarket today and you’ll be overwhelmed with dog food choices. You will have to decide between canned food and dry kibble; whether your dog should snack on a big-breed formula or munch on little dog fare. There are foods designed for puppies, for the arthritic, and the fat. Commercial foods such as the dry kibbles you find at the major pet chain stores and your supermarkets are a fairly recent invention. Many people don't believe that dry kibble provides the nutrition that their dogs need, especially since many kibbles include fillers, food colorings, and other things that have little nutritional value to dogs and that serve only to fill your dog up fast and make the foods cheaper to produce.

Some people are therefore returning to the basics. What did our dogs eat before we had kibbles? Throughout years and years of history, dogs were fed on the scraps from their humans. Scraps doesn't necessarily mean what was left on the plate after boiling, grilling, BBQing, or otherwise processing, but rather, raw meats from the game that was killed in the hunt.

And now you must decide whether your dog should go raw.

Ian Billinghurst, an Australian veterinarian, believes most dog ailments are due to the nutritional shortcomings of commercial dog foods. The secret to canine bliss and longevity, he maintains, will be found not in processed pet foods, but in raw meat and vegetables.

Luckily–

• Dr. Billinghurst is passionate about pet health.
• Dr. Billinghurst knows that most of the disease processes which afflict modern pets are due to poor nutrition.
• Dr. Billinghurst knows that modern processed pet foods are responsible for most of that ill health.
• Dr. Billinghurst has the simple but powerful solution to this problem...
• That solution is called the Evolutionary Diet.

More often this diet is called BARF (Biologically Appropriate Raw Food).

Billinghurst discovered the benefits of BARF, both through his personal experience as a vet and the example set by nature. Dogs have evolved to eat a specific diet, he argues, and in order to ensure their best health, owners should prepare the same foods that dogs would naturally consume in the wild. While as of yet unsupported by science, Billinghurst trusts in BARF because of the miraculous health improvements he has witnessed and his confidence in the soundness of his philosophy of evolutionarily correct dog diets.

Detractors of BARF, who comprise the majority of canine health providers, express serious concern over this latest dog dieting craze. They point out the danger of parasite infection raw food holds, the risk of bone shards puncturing your dog’s bowels, and their general befuddlement as to why anyone would think a canis familiaris -- say, the corgi -- should be treated as if it were a wolf. They also mention that the average life span of a wolf is half that of a dog.

Many veterinarians advocate a middle path, one which combines a high-grade kibble with a small helping of low fat, cooked meat like turkey, but you should keep in mind that your dog’s energy level and coat are the best indicators of the effectiveness of any diet. If, after the change in diet, your dog’s energy level is low or his coat loses its luster, it is likely your friend is not getting all his nutritional needs met. Be sure your vet is aware of any changes you make to your animal’s diet.

Raw Feeding Pro's

Most people who are proponents of the raw diet report that their dogs are in much better health due to the raw diet's nutritional value. Because this is a biologically appropriate way of feeding and does not contain artificial ingredients or grains, most dogs do very well on this diet.

• Reduced Allergies: many dogs are allergic to the grains contained in commercial diets, particularly corn and wheat. Once switched to a raw diet, which contains no grains of any kind, dogs are returned to having healthy skin and shiny coats.
  
  
• Less Vet Bills: dogs who are fed a raw diet experience less ear infections and generally never require teeth cleanings at the vet. Chewing and grinding RMBs (raw meaty bones, which refers to soft bones that can be digested by dogs and the muscle meat on them) helps maintain healthy teeth and gums, and most dogs on raw diets never get any plaque or tooth problems.
  
  
• Less Waste: the fillers in commercial dog foods cause voluminous, smelly poop in most dogs. Believe it or not, this is not a "given" with dogs. Dogs on a raw diet have much smaller bowel movements because their bodies use more of the food. There are no fillers that just have to "come out" the other end.

Raw Feeding Con's

People who oppose raw feeding in dogs claim that commercial dog foods offer all the balanced nutrition a dog needs, and that dogs are too far removed from wolves and too domesticated to be fed such a diet. The number one concern with raw diets are contamination - salmonella and e.coli are usually on the list of those worries.


Raw Feeding Myths

At this point in time, many people who don't know much about raw feeding or have little experience with it, will find that there are as many opinions on the subject as there are stars in the universe. There are a couple of persistent myths that come up frequently, which are addressed below.

• Raw feeding is too expensive!
  Go to any supermarket and you will find that the prices of meat are right up there - but those are the prices for the good cuts of steak. Those are generally not what you feed in the BARF diet. A staple of most BARF diets are chicken leg quarters, chicken and turkey necks, whole chickens, beef hearts and liver, and the like. All of those are very affordable and the price of raw feeding is equal, and often lower than feeding a good quality commercial kibble.
  
  
• Raw feeding is too much work!
  While you can no longer just dump some kibble from the bag into your dog's bowl, raw feeding isn't necessarily more time consuming. Since raw foods can be fed thawed, fresh, OR frozen, it's often as simple as taking the daily amount and plopping it into a food bowl. Definitely not a significant amount of work.
  
  
• Raw food will make my dog bloodthirsty!
  While dogs vary greatly in size and shape, all were born to be two things - carnivores and hunters. If you've ever seen your dog chase a bird or a squirrel, you've seen your dog's nature: to hunt and kill prey. It's what they do. Feeding them raw food will not make them any more of a hunting carnivore than they already are, nor will it give them a "taste of blood" so powerful they'll take a chunk out of your leg for lunch.
  
  
• RMBs (Raw Meaty Bones) are dangerous!
  By their very nature, raw meaty bones are defined as being soft bones that can be crushed and digested by your dogs. These do not include large bones such as cow or pig's knucklebones - those are recreational bones: great for gnawing, but not for swallowing. RMBs do include chicken bones - leg bones, rib bones, neck bones. Uncooked chicken bones are safe for your dogs. The dog can crush these using its molars, and once crushed, they can be swallowed and digested. Cooked bones, however, are never safe for consumption because cooking alters their chemical makeup and makes them brittle.

Raw Diet Basics

If you're planning to start a raw diet, chicken is the best place to start. Chicken is easily digestible for most dogs and chicken leg quarters are a cheap and nutritious staple of the diet. They may be fed fresh, frozen, or thawed, and should contain muscle meat as well as bone. It's okay to leave the skin on, too.

A raw diet should consist of 60% RMBs (raw meaty bones, such as chicken leg quarters and turkey necks), 35% muscle meat (no bone, only the meat), and 5% organ meats (such as kidneys). You can also add vegetables to this diet but they are not absolutely necessary - baby carrots make great treats, though!

Depending on your dog, they should be fed between 2 and 5 % of their body weight in raw meat in a day. You can feed one meal, or, like most people prefer, two small meals. The total amount you feed varies on your dog as well as your dog's activity levels. Some people feed less in winter and more in summer because their dogs get less exercise in the cold weather, for example.

In addition to the raw food, you may want to add supplements to your dog's diet. These are not absolutely necessary, but individual dogs' will do differently with the raw diet and you may find that they are lacking certain things. Particularly when first starting on raw, a digestive enzyme supplement will help keep their tummies settled.



Raw Diet Links

For more information about raw feeding, check out the great website links below.

• Raw Dog Ranch
• Raw Fed
• Myths about Raw Feeding
• Feeding a Raw Diet - Questions & Answers
• Dr. Ian Billinghurst
• Show Dog Super Site: "Dog Diets: Driving Me Crazy"
• Natural Raw Diet for Dogs
• BARF World
• Canis Major: Building a Balanced Diet
• Dr. Pitcairn - Animal Natural Health Center
• Second Chance Ranch - Raw Meat
• Raw-done-right- Atlanta, GA