Wish I Hadn't Asked!

[Crisovar]

Didn't realise it could be that bad

ask your vet about how many people think advantage/frontline etc is put in the dog/cat food to eat. Yup. You would be suprised how many and I always made sure people knew not to feed it to them.

I would hate to add up the amount of time spent explaining things, or repeating ones self over and over.

The release of Frontline spray onto the market was a classic, it drove us nuts explaining it's correct use.

Sometimes it is all you can do to keep a straight face and continue.

Anything to do with diet and flea control are just the most frustrating subjects when dealing with the public.

[alanglen]

I understand your sentiments exactly (although I must admit having not read the entire posting), but I do have to say that none of my dogs would survive in any kind of "wild" environment and that they are so domesticated that I have no doubt there stomach's are too. These are the dogs that lick mice if they enter our yard, and are quite happy to leave bunnies alone despite no correction from us! I have no doubt tha all of my dogs would starve in the wild, and so I am really kind of over this whole "in the wild" argument!

[GreatBigPuppy]

You asked for advice and got an answer you didn't like - your problem, not their's. There has been a gastro going around - I would take dogs off raw meat whilst they are ill as they will not be able to tolerate the bacteria as well as normal. Don't like the vet? Find a new one.

All this they eat "blah blah" is the wild is tripe. It's been a long time since dogs were wild. If you want to argue the case at least do so intelligently. Raw food is good because of the composition of the food itself. The nutrients, the physical structure, etc. My vet also doesn't particularly agree with raw but what she doesn't know about food could fill a large book. I say to her I'm feeding such and such and she has no clue as it's not Hills or Advance. That's fine, when it comes to food I don't mind being the expert, when it comes to saving my dogs life I expect her to be the expert.

I feed a mixed diet as it works for my dogs. Feed what works. Don't sweat the small stuff, it isn't worth it.

[Jed]

Human food

A lot of people I have talked to about dogs tell me that in their parents time, dogs were given scraps from their plates. There wasn't much awareness of dog food.

The dogs probably did get raw meat once in a while, but also a lot of cooked food!!

Prior to kibble/processed dog food, ours ate meat offcuts from the butcher, bones, offal (heart, liver, kidney occasionall) ox cheek, milk, eggs, and table scraps, which were a minor portion of the ration, but did provide veges.

They lived long and healthy lives with good skin, teeth etc. And none had problems with it. There was little or no chicken fed, as there were no processed chickens (except a delicatessens at high prices). The meat offcuts were exactly that - trimmings from various cuts, with some fat attached, from where the meat was cut for display and sale. Trimmings could be bought in quite bit bags very reasonably.

Topside was made into mince. Over time the meat trimmings were made into "steak" mince, or just mince, and were no longer available at a reasonable price.

Vets recommend dry food because it is balanced, which lot of "at home" diets aren't.

If a vet gets "shirty" with me about dry food, I ask, in an extremely polite way, about the canine nutrition course they did , as I would be interested in attending :p

GBP, it may be a long time since dogs were wild, but their jaw, tooth, and stomach structure, and digestive organs are essentially the same as they were when they were "wild". Evolution has not changed the dog from what he was in the essential ways.

[corvus]

I've heard some shockers. It was a vet that convinced me to try homecooked with Penny in the first place, which consequently solved all her health problems, turned the clock back on her arthritis and made her into a much happier dog. Imagine my surprise when a vet nurse gave my mother a lot of crap for deciding to change from a premium kibble sold at her vets to raw. And then a vet told me that I should raise my puppy on Science Diet because although a diet of raw mince, mashed vegies and chicken wings and lamb bones sounded like it had a lot of bones in it, it was actually very low in calcium.

I just raised my eyebrows and said nothing. Kivi is unusually tall for his breed, but he didn't have any problems at all and still eats raw. Interestingly, he never had an upset tummy after coming home and going onto the raw diet. He hardly ever has an upset tummy.

Nonetheless, some dogs don't do so well on raw. You could try homecooked, which is normally gentler on their tummies.

[Kirra_Bomber_Zeus]

GBP, it may be a long time since dogs were wild, but their jaw, tooth, and stomach structure, and digestive organs are essentially the same as they were when they were "wild". Evolution has not changed the dog from what he was in the essential ways.

Exactly. I find that I dont often go 'foraging' for berries in the bush either - I usually go to the supermarket. Don't remember my husband going out and 'making a kill' to bring home the meat either. However, Im quite sure our digestive system and the way we are 'made up' inside is still the same as before.

[kyliegirl]

ask her what she thinks wolves and african wild dogs eat then? berries?

Dogs do infact eat raw meat and have been proven to hunt their own food in some countries and eat it, raw meat is a core part of a dogs diet, while in hard times wolves are known to eat foliage, as do dogs who when they struggle to gain the meat required resort to scavenging anything which could help sustain them. However give a dog a choice between a beef cut and an apple and you will see the dog will take the beef cut over the apple anyday as its more nutritional to them.

Maybe the reason you are getting runny poos is because your switching the food too fast.. I would say your best to start with the food it was best on, then slowly adding more of the food diet you want to change to, if you change it too quickly the dogs body will react to it and cause diarrhea and softer stools. They have a less complex digestive system than ours, so a sudden change to food to a completely different diet can cause some bad side effects (i class diarrhea as a bad side effect as it can dehydrate the dog pretty quickly in a bad case).

off topic for those interested about where dog food started. It was 1860 and the below documentary provides the history.

Edited February 8, 2009 by kyliegirl

[tyra20007]

In my opinion a vet isn't always interested in the best foods for a dog, they are paid commissions to sell the dog foods they "recommend" and at the end of the day they really do not want dogs to be healthy. They are in the business of treating dogs that are unhealthy and therefore benefit from dogs on a bad diet.

I also believe that because the companies that manufacture the processed dog foods that are available are also in the business of making the pharmaceuticals used to treat unhealthy dogs there is a definate conflict of interest.

http://www.thedogbowl.com/PPF/category_ID/37/dogbowl.asp

I am a strict BARF based feeder and my vet is supportive of my choice - I have shown him my diet and also the breakdown of all the supplements I add to their diet and he believes it is a well balanced diet and my dogs are certainly proof of that. He is also supportive of my choice to not over immunise my dogs - I will not immunise yearly! The very few times I have to take my dogs to the vet he is very impressed at their overall good health and is now advising other clientele as to the benefits of a well balanced raw food diet. I have also noticed that his shelves are not full of dog foods as much anymore as he will no longer sell dog food with imported ingredients that has been irradiated and could possibly contain ingredients from China which contain melamine.

It took me going to 4 vets before I found one that had an open mind to raw feeding and now that I have one I will continue to see him with my dogs. He is indeed a rare find and after having heard the other vets brainwashed approach to diet I am glad to have found him.

I would go and see or call other vets to see if you can find a better one than the one you are currently using.

Also whenever my dogs have had an upset stomach and have runny poo I find that the best way to feed is to boil a large pot of water and add a couple of chicken breasts - boil for an hour and then add a few cups of rice and let the rice overcook - then once cooked drain off and keep the soup separate - remove the chicken and refridgerate chicken / rice / soup separately. begin feeding with some rice and a good amount of broth only (no chicken) and feed this 3 times a day for a day or two, this keeps the fluids up and doesn't overload the system with protein. In the next day shred some chicken and add that to the soupy rice mix. Over the next couple of days reduce the soup content and just feed the chicken and rice - making sure that the dog is drinking plenty of water. I have found that this works for my dogs when they have tummy issues.

[Drumbeat]

There has been a gastro going around -

My dog does not have gastro, I never said she had! (If I suspected gastro I would have taken her straight into to see the vet)

I have not changed her diet recently, she has been fed on dry in the morning and raw in the evening for over 8 months. Her poo is simply softer than usual - now improving.

If she has problems again when I reintroduce raw food, I will simply cook it.

Edited February 8, 2009 by Drumbeat

[Crisovar]

In my opinion a vet isn't always interested in the best foods for a dog, they are paid commissions to sell the dog foods they "recommend" and at the end of the day they really do not want dogs to be healthy. They are in the business of treating dogs that are unhealthy and therefore benefit from dogs on a bad diet.

What a load of crap!!! Vets sell dog food in the same manner they sell any other product on the shelves, they buy it wholesale sell it retail, I have never ever in all my years working in Vet Clinics and working with dozens of Vets seen anything like some of the crap that is sprouted on this forum.

As for wanting the dogs to be unhealthy that is utter bullshit!!

[alanglen]

"In my opinion a vet isn't always interested in the best foods for a dog, they are paid commissions to sell the dog foods they "recommend" and at the end of the day they really do not want dogs to be healthy. They are in the business of treating dogs that are unhealthy and therefore benefit from dogs on a bad diet."

Pretty offensive really, not helpful and just plain rude, no doubt your vet awaits an ear bashing every time you come in. Please do not defame an entire industry with your judgemental opinions that are certainly radical. None of this will actually help the original poster.

[sandgrubber]

The nutrition debates, human, and even more so dog, are so thick with rubbish that it's hard to get down to useful solid evidence backed information. Making sense out of it makes rocket science look simple. Someone recommended Give Your Dog a Bone (Billinghurst, 1993) to me, perhaps six year ago. Although I found the concepts appealing, almost no evidence, other than anecdotes and vaguely cited documents, was given. Inflammatory statements, implying conspiracy between vets and petfood industry, left me scratching my head. Likewise Lansdale.

I find vets are all over the place . . . some pro-commercial, some open minded, some pro-raw foods. The dietary trials that form the basis for the formal literature on canine nutrition don't begin to address complex questions, like "show condition" or the merits of mixing fresh and prepared food; even trace nutrient requirements are poorly established. They often know how much must be fed to keep a dog from showing obvious deficiency symptoms in six months .. . . but what will keep it healthy throughout its lifetime?

Personally, I think we're all shooting blind, learning from trial and error, doing the best we can. Some people are arrogant about diet, others not. Some people just take a line and stick to it, others worry and pile on more and more goodies, others experiment with this and that.

Personally, I feed what I do because I can observe that my dogs love raw foods; also that chicken carcasses are cheap as chips and seem to be a good basis for a diet. Minimizing processing and buying locally are good from the perspective of sustainability. I hate the idea of importing pelletized meat by-products into Australia, a country that is awash with meat. I feel good about using a few supplements (the main one being a by-product of culling feral carp) and giving my dogs a bit of veg on the side. But I'm not surprised to see one of the pups I bred come back to me looking great . . . despite having been fed nothing but high quality imported biscuits in carefully measured amounts.

[cm64]

"In my opinion a vet isn't always interested in the best foods for a dog, they are paid commissions to sell the dog foods they "recommend" and at the end of the day they really do not want dogs to be healthy. They are in the business of treating dogs that are unhealthy and therefore benefit from dogs on a bad diet."

Pretty offensive really, not helpful and just plain rude, no doubt your vet awaits an ear bashing every time you come in. Please do not defame an entire industry with your judgemental opinions that are certainly radical. None of this will actually help the original poster.

Agree - What a load of rubbish - The post should be deleted by the moderators as it is insulting to all vets, besides being plain stupid.

[Leema]

At a seminar I went to, there was a suggestion that some dogs are not able to handle raw meats. Apparently, the peristalsis in these dogs does not move food along as far as 'normal dogs'. Because of the slow peristalsis, the bacteria in the raw meat has a greater chance of actually affecting the dog.

In this seminar, the recommendation was that dogs that have bouts of diarrhoea after being fed raw meats be put on a semi-cooked diet instead.

Not saying this is the case with your dog, and I would attempt a type of elimination diet to ascertain whether it an intolerant to a certain type of meat or meat in general.