Raw Pets

Hey Everyone!

I’m curious who else feeds their pet(s) a raw food diet? If so, do you prepare it yourself? buy premade raw pet food? Do you add supplements and superfoods to your pet’s food? How do your pets like it? What’s their favorite?

My German Shepherd started raw at six months. He’s a little over a year and a hald now. He loves raw. I currently prepare all his food for him. He use to be on Primal (local – San Francisco based – raw pet food, very high quality) but now enjoys freshmade raw food even better! He gets high quality raw meat, meaty bones, lots of wonderful organic fruits and vegetables, ground flax, cod liver oil, coconut meat, avocados in moderation, etc. Do any of you add seaweed or algaes to your pet’s food? I’m curious to see how he will do with spirulina here and there. I mix things up for balance. I either process things in my food processor or FINELY CHOP things up for optimal digestion.

Anyhow, I’d love to know more about your raw fed pets too : )

For the love of raw and Pink tutu twirls, Johnny and Dante The Super Shepherd! (who sings and plies ballet move with me)

Comments

  • Hey there, I started a thread last week for my kitten’s diet…One person dropped me this link http://dogfoodproject.com

    Hope it helps…

    I have been giving my baby cod liver oil every few days and small chunks of raw organic chicken with a side of wellness cat food to give her some sort of balance. Even though I can’t stand having meat in our house, she seems to do real well with the raw chicken.

  • MOTHMOTH Raw Newbie

    I feed my dog (a shepherd/collie mix) and my three cats all raw. Icarus (the dog) is my baby though and seeing how his health improved actually inspired me to go raw myself. He usually gets chicken, beef or pork, but I have a feeling he would love it if I put some salmon in his bowl. And recently he’s been eating my fruit! I didn’t think dogs liked fruit, but I’ve had enough of him stealing my mango’s and bananas, LOL.

  • beanybeeganbeanybeegan Raw Newbie

    My dog gets chicken necks, organic raw eggs, offal, and a couple times a week a plate of raw processed veggies. Minus potatoes. We also graze together in the veg., fruit garden. When I have sea veggies he gets some, too. I have heard of drying the shells of organic eggs and blend them, tho havent done that.

    I would like to know if during the winter, does indoor dogs need Vit.D ??

  • if youre considering putting your dog on a BARF diet, i have found this link to be particularly useful in the past:

    http://www.njboxers.com/faqs.htm

    it covers the top 50 FAQs. I would also say it is worth doing a whole lot of research prior to switching your animal over to a raw diet. I mean it is pretty obvious that different sized animals with different activity levels have different food/protein/fat etc etc requirements. But some animals are particularly intolerant to certain foods.. like cats and their short intestinal tracts.. dogs and their livers in regards to sodium levels.. Some bids like finches need gravel or grit for digestion in their gullets.. whereas hook bills and parrots can find those items deadly.

    Oh! and of course be wary of things like salmonella!

    I have a parrot that is primarily raw.. but I don’t suppose that is the sort of info most people are looking for on this thread.

    I would love for my cat to be on a BARF diet but he won’t even look at meat cooked or raw.. Or anything other than his kibble, for that matter. Sigh. I have tried tried and tried.. Maybe he will give in one day!

    There is a naturopathic vet I am aware of that is a huge advocate of juicing for sick animals as well. I used to manage a pet supply store and recommended her to a few clients who all ended up switching to BARF or juicing with incredible results.. Like.. 10 year old dogs on their death beds that after a few days would do a complete turn around and have more energy and less joint stiffness than they had had in years. As I recall there seemed to be a lot of beet juice involved!

    If you’re willing to put in the time, I can promise you will see results within days of switching your animals to BARF.

    Should you need anymore convincing, I highly recommend “Food Pets Die For” by Ann Martin

  • I’ve heard a lot about BARF but prefer to make everything myself at this point, my dog likes it better that way. It’s also very fun for me. He likes to watch me make it too : ) I sing and do chicken dances, don’t ask, it’s fun. Thanks for the recommendation for those looking to switch their pets to raw! It’s all about what they like and what works for them. I’d love my Mom to put her golden on raw but my Mom freaks out about raw meat… My dog loves it though, especially turkey necks. He woofs them down, it’s crazy.

  • Branwyn32Branwyn32 Raw Newbie

    I do fostering for rescue dogs, primarily Siberian huskies and at the moment, a little pug. :) I can’t afford to do raw for them (that’s why I just foster instead of adopting…I can’t afford my own dog), but I spent the last 4 months working at an animal hospital with two amazing veterinarians, and I’ve learned that a raw or BARF diet can be a wonderful thing to do for your pet, under your vet’s nutritional supervision.

    It’s really kinda interesting…that and one of the vet techs (who is raw vegan) are a big part of my inspiration to go raw. I listened to all the reasons to put pets on these diets, and watched how closely the docs and pets’ parents monitored their food and gave them the healthiest and most healing choices and it just clicked in my head “Wait a minute…why aren’t HUMANS doing this for themSELVES?!” So here I am! :)

    MOTH- there are quite a few fruits and veggies that are great for dogs! Here’s a list of goodies: apples, avocados in moderation, bananas, blueberries (my pug LOVES them!), broccoli, cantaloupe, carrots, green beans, papayas, pumpkin, sweet potatoes, watermelon, cranberries

    These are in no way a replacement for good animal protein sources though, just healthy snacks. Dogs are meant to be carnivores.

    Things to definitely avoid are: grapes/raisins (will cause kidney failure), peppers, tomatoes…they can be ok in moderation for some dogs, but not all depending on health issues, so I would just avoid altogether…eggplant and other nightshade family vegetables, spinach, onions, raw garlic (anything in the onion family), cacao/chocolate, obviously, and certain nuts/nut butters, I believe pecans, cashews and macadamias especially are on the list. Peanut butter is ok.

  • oh FYI BARF = Bones And Raw Food.. I am not sure there is an exact formulation for it. I know you can get BARF freeze dried or frozen meals.. mostly from local suppliers.

    Branwyn – Maybe you can clarify this for me.. I was once told that vets only receive an approximated 4 hours of nutrition education while in school. I know most vet universities are sponsored by Science Diet or Iams.. (hoorah for proctor & gamble products and foods using peanut shells as their 2nd ingredient for “fiber”) uh.. where was I.. Oh yes. Would you say this would be an accurate fact? But regardless of that did you find the vets you were working with to be receptive to feeding a BARF diet??

    I def think anyone feeding a raw diet needs to do it under a vets supervision.. I have only encountered a few that support it though!

    I want to foster dogs!! Hoorah!

  • Branwyn32Branwyn32 Raw Newbie

    Hey Loorin…to be honest I don’t know about the nutrition training for veterinary doctors. I’, by no means a doc, I was a receptionist that occasionally assisted the vet technicians and tried to absorb as much medical info as I could. I can’t imagine it would be that little though…the 2 vets I worked for were VERY focused on diet/nutritional healing and complimentary medicine, I believe it was something they both specialized in so they had a large degree of training in that particular area. I don’t know if that came during the regular doctorate training or was additional pursuit. I do know they were pretty well respected as very forward thinking veterinarians as opposed to the old school types.

    As far as foods though, they put quite a few pets on supervised raw/BARF diets, with detailed instructions to the owners as to how to prepare, or what to buy ready-made. They NEVER recommended standard Hills Science Diet (full of byproducts and crap, as you said) or Iams/Eukanuba. We did carry the prescription veterinary line of different specialized Hills and Iams diets, as well as Royal Canin, which you can’t purchase in pet food stores without a prescription (if they carry it at all). Those are tailored to different dietary/health needs and are MUCH higher quality than the lower end of those brands…and proportionately more expensive. They also sent ALOT of our clients to buy certain diets at a specialty pet food store too (which we weren’t affiliated with or anything) to buy other brands entirely, like Merrick, Innova, Canidae, Blackwood (which my foster pug is on) and the pre-made raw meals as recommended.

    From what I could tell, I don’t think much (if any) of the money that goes into the docs’ pockets came from food recommendations, but much more so from drug prescriptions. Shortly before I left we were bought out by a large corporation called VCA, and with that came monthly corporate meetings that were usually a rep from Novartis pushing the hell out of a specific drug. Then the doctors had to suddenly start pushing their brands of drugs really hard instead of what they’d prescribed before…Comfortis instead of CapStar for killing fleas, Sentinel instead of Interceptor for prevention, etc. VCA switched the docs’ salaries to commission only, so they were forced to push certain drugs to make any money.

    Gave me a real insight into how twisted the healthcare industry is, even if it was animal care and not human care.

    Fostering is great btw. :) I highly recommend it! You get to have another pet for a while that you don’t have to pay vet bills for, and you give a homeless pet a new lease on life!

  • TomsMomTomsMom Raw Newbie

    TheRawDance, I feed my kitty a species-appropriate, all raw diet. Cats are obligate carnivores and derive no health benefits from vegetable-based diets, so just about any commericial diet is horrible for them. I even see the raw-meat commerical products stuffed with plants, seeds and garlic. Very bad.

    I personally wouldn’t recommend a vegetable-heavy meal for dogs. I know they seem to do okay with tidbits and bits of some vegetables, but keep that to a minumum. A raw diet for cats and pups doesn’t cost more than the organic commericial diets at all. As a matter of fact, it costs me less.

    Some of our big vegan groups tend to lie their socks off to pet owners by claiming that cats and dogs bodies have “evolved” away from their wild relatives and it’s fine to feed them veggie diets. This is a control-issue with them, not to mention an out-and-out lie. If you need assistance with a species-appropriate diet for a cat or dog and if your vet is an industry-propogandist tool, call some good zoos.

    Edit: I got my start from this site www.rawfedcats.org

    There are links for dog owners, too.

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