Iowa State University’s "Food Safety News" reports that, "a recent study published in the Canadian Veterinary Journal has raised concern about the dangers of raw meat diets—danger not only for animals but for people as well. The University of Guelph study found that every one of the commercial raw food diets they tested was contaminated with potentially disease-producing bacteria."
How, or why, this old battle got started again is anyone’s guess but the fact is that people–dog food producers, veteranarians paid by dog food producers, and PETA–don’t want you to feed your pet whatever you think will be the best for them. Only now, they are attacking the pet owners, not the diets. Now I am sure you are wondering–raw food diet, pets??? WTF?
It is a little known fact that dogs are related to wolves, etc. Animals in the wild eat and exclusively healthy and raw food diet. Purina does not have a wilderness outlet selling road-kill kibble to foxes. So why not feed raw food to your pet? This was a question I found myself asking 6 years ago when my beloved dog kept breaking out in wealts even though we were feeding him top-of-the-line-super-primium-extra-healthy dog food. Vet, after vet could not solve the problem and bills were mounting. So I stumbled across the BARF diet–bones and raw food. He has not been the same pet since. Hale and Hardy and full of energy. And because his food is healthier and not full of fillers it is absorbed better and cleaning up the yard isn’t as much of an issue. . . .
Without going into the diet too much, suffice to say that we feed our boyo alot of RAW chicken backs and legs–yes, poultry bones are fine to feed pets unless it is cooked. Think of animals hunting in the wild, eating pheasanst, etc—they eat the bones too. We also feed the beast a ton of raw veggies–carrots, broccoli–he loves them all; and TABLESCRAPS. What idiot claimed that human food isn’t pet food, made a lot of money selling pet food. Think about it–before the 50’s there wasn’t really a commercial pet food market. People fed their dogs meat scrap from the butcher, bones and table scraps. Turns out it was really healthy. Since the advent of the commercial dog food industry pet health has declines and several diseases have become epidemic.
The key, as always, is watchfulness. If you are feeding your pet raw food you must take precautions for your own safety. Barkley can down a bowl of chicken legs in 5 minutes. This is raw food, presumably full of bacteria. No worse then when a dog eats rotten garbage, and probably a lot better. A hunter friend dropped off some venison legs the other day–4 of them. Dogbert loved em. In fact I think he’s still gnawing on one he buried–a sign that he is full and happy and wants to save something for a cold, rainy day. But, what we do is make sure that we wash, and keep the dog’s food in a separate fridge so as not to spoil our own.
As for bacteria and disease making its way into his feces–yeah. Of course. It’s shit, you’re supposed to give it a wide berth. Duh. If humans crapped on lawns–not that some don’t–there would be a public outcry over disease there too. Should WE stop eating certain foods? In actual fact, because a raw food diet–for pets–is absorbed so much more fully there is less waste and what little of it there is dries up in a few hours because it is mostly bone meal–which is healthy for the dogs excretory system (haven’t had to deal with anal glands in 6 years either. . . ). At the end of a week there is little to clean up, and so not much to cause a health problem.
As for illness, I don’t think Commander Dogleash has been sick ever in the six years of his BARF diet. And he’s eaten some disgusting stuff–his choice, not mine.
Blanket statements from the press meant to scare you into a panic because your neighbor feeds raw food to their pet so they must be trying to kill YOU are annoying, but as lobbyists for major industries vie for a market share I think they will become more common in the future. The same common sense which tells you to wash your hands after using the toilet, petting an animal, or handling raw meats should also help protect you from inflamatory statements from the press.
Would this face lie?
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