Pros and cons of raw food?

[Pringle89]

Just interested in people’s opinions and what raw food/brand do you feed? Our puppy is 5 mths and seems to have a sensitive stomach regardless of what food he’s fed (only natural high meat content food)

We have two kids and I worry about the possible transfer or bacteria from raw food?

My dog has really sensitive skin and is on tablets to stop him scratching, in the process of trying to help his skin we moved him on to raw food when he was a puppy. Although it didn't completely resolve the skin problems I couldn't recommend raw food enough!

He has so much more energy and his fur is like velvet he is so soft! It is so much better for them than dried or tinned food. I buy the raw food already made up from a shop local to me. I did try making it from scratch myself but I was worried he wasn't getting everything he should have and I just didn't have the time.

The only down side is it is more expensive (I have an American bulldog so he eats a lot) and I just wash his bowl out after he has eaten to stop any germs.

Hope this helps!

It's worth being aware that the main risk of bacteria is not from contact with the food but from the fact that the dog ingests the bacteria and then sheds it into the environment just by being there. That's the risk you need to be aware of because most people know about raw meat hygiene but do not know that animals can shed bacteria.

Am not anti raw (have fed it myself) but thought I would mention it as both of you mentioned raw food bacteria risk but not the risk of shedding.

Please what you mean specifically by 'shedding bacteria'

We walk around with mrsa, and all manner of highyl dangerous bacteria around us, which we shed onto our babies. All the bacteria is suffer from live on us or in us and around, so can you explain that comment?

It seems as soon as anyone pipes up about raw feeding there someone to try to terrify you. You do realise that ddogs lived in our houses on raw food up until recently? That, and the fact that tinned food contained a lot more vile aub standard meat and higher chances of infection from nefarious bacteria?

Clean healthy meaty bones, have sustained ddogs for generations without wiping out all the families around them!

There are many that never stopped. I have watched too many dcats die of kidney failure, and ddogs with inflammatory disease to think that what current manufacturers offer is good for our animals. Ddogs are designed to convert protein to energy, not carbs.

It does my head in when people use the bacteria thing to put off feeding raw! There’s bacteria everywhere

I’ve always fed my dogs raw and nobody around my dog has ever fallen ill because of it

She eats her dinner and comes to lick me straight after (almost like a ‘thank you’). I have her sleep on my bed every night when DP isn’t here. I’m still alive and well

Dogs aren’t meant to eat crappy tinned food or biscuits. You can’t avoid all bacteria but as long as you’re hygienic it won’t be a problem

I find it much cheaper to feed raw. Health improves aswell as behaviour.

OFGS I was quite specific about NOT being anti raw or trying to terrify anyone. In fact I quite clearly said I had few raw myself.

Take your fight to someone who wants it.

Please can you just explain what 'shedding bacteria' actually means?

Bacteria (and virus for that matter) do not just spread externally by something like raw meat touching a surface, leaving behind some bacterial cells.

Animals carrying pathogens shed them. They cast them about the environment. They live in the animals and come out via sweat, saliva, faeces (minute amounts) etc. A dog that eats salmonella may not be sick (probably won't be) but could shed bacterial cells into the environment they live. Not all bacteria are killed by the gut. This makes avoiding exposure to salmonella very hard because it's not just a case of washing bowls or hands after feeding.

I called it out because the pp suggested to me they were not aware shedding happens and yet the OP mentioned germs as a particular concern. Making informed decisions relies on being as informed as possible and this looked like a knowledge gap to me.

The degree to which you consider this a risk to you or yours is very much up to you. As with everything in life you weigh up the benefit and risk and make the best decision you can. That's all any of us can do and it's not in me to berate or terrify people for making choices they believe in their dogs best interest.

I fed raw and switched to wet/kibble simply because my dog seemed to prefer it. If I am honest, I saw no degradation in health or behaviour but one dog does not a scientific study make. I continue to read studies into raw - which are now in the increase - with much interest.

animals carrying pathogens shed them I ask what this biological process of shedding actually is.

Of course, the gut of any animals and humans is riddled with bacteria and pathogenic bacteria, but what's this shedding process specifically.

My animals and other family don't, thankfully, crap on the floors, or smear their saliva, and ddogs don't even sweat, so what exactly do you mean?

The latest research has been showing how dangerous complete diets have been in putting animals at risk of getting dangerous deficiencies, and that no one meal should be used but different ones, that's if you're ok feedi g dehydrated foods and what this does to the kidneys.

Mostly its what's going on inside that's the problem, you can't see inflammatory diseases starting but you can look at the animals diseases rising commensurate with the refined processed products.

Dogs do sweat out their paws. They also lick things and breathe in which tiny droplets is saliva are expelled. The same for all of us. Our breathe contains moisture. That moisture is partly saliva. They also rest their heads on things and depart tiny amounts of saliva that way. They also shit then sit. Not enough to smear not able amounts or leave a smell. Tiny amounts. If the tests of the tube seats are to be believed, humans are not much different.

Shedding is a scientific term for a well studied process. Feel free to look it up if you don't like my explanation.

You seem defensive and I promise I am not your attacker. I am not saying your dogs are dirty. I am saying they are normal living beings and all normal living being leave tiny amounts of bodily fluids everywhere.

I just needed to understand the expression you use. Gaseous exchange involves expulsion of water vapour also from the lungs (not saliva). Sweat contains water, salt, urea.

I just don't understand the expression 'shedding'. Skins sheds, as in actual flakes of dead skin shed as a result of new skin cells pushing up from underneath.

Have not come across 'bacterial/viral shedding' is all, and asked right away what that means.

Yes, they lick themselves, but saliva is an active process and alters everything it meets to break it down for consumption.

Yes ddogs and dcats lick their bums/genitals, bit they also walk in across over and through everything imaginable when traipsing through streets/paths/gutters/fields/dirty water, well I mean it's literally all there, every possible bacteria you can imagine and then walk it onto our floors, so unless their mouths and paws are anti-bac'd its already happening on a much larger scale.

I just don't understand that argument. Dcats are considered 'clean' because of their intensive grooming regimes, but they are just spreading saliva across their coats, as well as whatever else they've picked up outside/other dcats/wildlife.

Good job we don't put our faces on tube seats then! How about our sofas, they surely are the same. Or maybe it's only because some rum sorts without any cleaning regime plonk their arses on tube seats and we all have cleaner bums. Must be that.

I am on a vet Facebook page. Where only qualified vets can answer posters questions.
The raw food topic comes up a lot and every single vet highly discourages raw feeding.
I don’t know enough about it to agree or disagree, but from the 20 or so vets on that page it’s a resounding no.

Oh, for sure there are tonnes of bacteria we come into contact with everyday and whilst no one has ever tested my sofa for doggy germs I can only assume some exist there. Personal pride dictates I hope it's not quite as many as on the tube but who knows! I think salmonella is present on the shell of eggs but would be amazed if everyone washed their hands after handling just the shell of an egg. Caveat: I am not an expert on eggs. Someone may well come along and tell me the salmonella i not present on the shell. The point being, I totally agree bacteria are everywhere.

As you breathe out, air passes over your mouth surfaces and picks up tiny micro droplets of saliva on the way. So breathe starts with moisture from the lungs but collects saliva moisture on the way out. Saliva has a slightly alkaline ph to help predigest food, but this would not be enough to kill off all germs. It's definitely not alkaline enough to kill salmonella, for e.g. Poor old Salmonella, I'm over using it as an example.

That cats are considered clean is probably a debate all in itself. Covering yourself with saliva may well help keep some 'dirt' at bay. It probably also spreads other dirt all about the place. That's fine. A sterile world is not an ideal, anyway.

Urine is a nice example because it contains all those things you mention plus a shed load of microbes to boot. Again, this is not necessarily bad or dangerous but worth remembering that all body fluids contain a mixture of bacteria - exactly which ones depends on your own personal bacterial pattern.

Anyway, my point is that all any of us can do is look at the risk of any diet and make the best decision we can. For many people (as it happens, myself included when I fed raw), they look at the risk of bacterial contamination in raw feeding and decide it's not high enough to outweigh the risks we all face day to day anyway. For someone who is seriously immune-comprised (the very young, old, sick etc), the 'additional' risk posed by raw feeding may be enough for them to think the best decision for them is not to feed raw. The OP specifically called out germs as a concern so all I was doing was trying to add extra information to enable them to make a decision that is right for them.

A nice balanced article on this very topic: www.whole-dog-journal.com/issues/19_5/features/Raw-Fed-Dogs-and-Salmonella_21453-1.html

My vet is all for feeding raw 🙂 I'm very lucky. My BC has been raw fed since a puppy and my old dog new ( no longer with us) was raw fed and helped his skin problems. Raw is the most natural food for dogs 🙂

Decent vets are for raw food.

Vets who enjoy the commission they get from selling expensive dog foods for various "dietary needs" will be against raw feeding, for obvious reasons.

I've raw fed for over twenty years. I cannot recommend it enough. None of my dogs have ever been to the vet other than for vaccinations/neutering and have lived long, happy and healthy lives.

Canines are not supposed to eat processed crap.

MissBattenburg - in all my years of feeding raw and courses in dog nutrition as well as being my breed expert for raw feeding, I have never heard of the tosh you are putting forward. Research links please? And I mean proper adademic articles.

Have fun www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1716752/

pdfs.semanticscholar.org/7f94/d665675df0c035e994df54bc98c7f031408b.pdf

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1140397/

www.researchgate.net/publication/318003675_Raw_Meat-Based_Diets_in_Dogs_and_Cats

veterinaryrecord.bmj.com/content/182/2/50

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5644655/

vet.tufts.edu/wp-content/uploads/raw_meat_diets_memo.pdf

journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0187239