Why are so many vets against RAW? - Page 2

Oli,

Do you have any extra horse meet? (Just kidding) Surprisingly it's extremely nutritious and I’m not surprised that your dogs thrive on it. Good for you.

I feed my girl with 100% organic ‘grazing’ free range beef ‘leftovers’ from the cows that local farmers raise and slaughter for themselves (sometimes chickens and turkeys as well). I have a special freezer for this meet when it becomes available…

 IMO the whole idea about scientific food balance is bull****,    I live in a country with the 2nd highest life expectancy in the world.   The old folks that are keeping that bar so high,  did not experience a varied diet for their first 50 years.   Fat,  Protein,  2-4 types of vegetables and thats it.   And were talking about folks that have had a pretty good health their whole life.  
Life expectancy is dropping,  and it's dropping in clear corrolation to imported foods.

I saw my dogs live to a ripe age of 15+ using raw and simple table scraps.   (including vegetables and root type foods).   

This is one of the places where science clearly clashes with real-life results.

   I agree 100% with NIESIA.I have a Friend who Feeds all of his Bird Dogs,and Hounds Home Cooked Scraps,and raw chicken,liver,etc.
    They all have lived Past 15 yrs.
     Also,Every State has Different Time periods for yearly/Biannual inoculations.It varies greatly between States.
      In Urban areas,more Frequent inoculations are Prudent due to Transient Animals.
     In high Wildlife Count areas Rabies should remain an Updated Priority.

because they get commotion from the food company too

Why? Well, yes, the pet food companies really try to get them to push their foods. But there are other reasons, too. They have to remove teeth that are fractured by chewing bones. They also have to remove bone fragments that are wedged in teeth, stuck in the back of the throat, or have punctured the esophagus, stomach or bowels.

Yes, I agree, some pet foods are junk. The vet offered me a free bag of Science Diet puppy food when I took my GSD pup for her first visit. I gave it back. I have also gotten very upset when they put a bag of Science Diet  'prescription' food on my vet bill, without asking.

I also worry about the bacteria in raw meat caused by the way in which we feed and raise our livestock. Overcrowding causes disease which leads to dosing the animals with antibiotics, which leads to antibiotic resistant bacteria. These bacteria often wind up in the meat after slaughter.

Then there is the matter of feeding a balanced raw diet. Most people can't even train their dogs to come when called, and you expect them to make up a nutritionally balanced died for their dogs?? I'd like to show you something, if I could. It's the skeleton of a young ocelot some idiot imported from S. America. He fed it nothing but raw hamburger, and that, combined with lack of sunshine, caused such a severe case of rickets that the cat had to be euthanized.

Finally, dogs are NOT wolves, and have not been wolves for thousands of years. Their digestive systems and teeth have adapted to eat whatever humans throw out. They will just as readily gobble down eggs, potatoes, squash, pumpkin and other veggies as they will leftover meat and bones. Heck, I used to have a dog that loved bananas!

Here's an article about the BARF diet, written by a veterinarian: www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/

Our vet was not against raw feeding, her recommendations were to make sure that the raw food had been in our freezer 5 days for an added safety net. She has always been open to discussing things honestly with me. She has never acted negatively or judgemental, we've been lucky each time we've been transferred to a new base as far as vets go. Take care, Jennifer

One more point I forgot to add, we follow a sheet given to us by an experienced raw food feeder. It includes ground meat, raw meaty bones and organ meat. We also feed a grain free dog food as well because I personally have a hard time with the raw meat so when my husband is gone it is something they are used to. I wish I could stomach doing it myself because I feel like my dog has improved in overall health since we first switched to the raw diet. I have never fed my dogs crap food but until I switched to raw and grain free kibble my dog had never had a solid bowel movement. Now he has much smaller, less stinky movements that are solid. I also feed yogurt daily and I give a probiotic pill daily, I always have. Take care, Jennifer

It's always funny to me when people mention bacterial contamination as a reason to not feed raw. When feeding kibble, I was going to the vet every other month because my dogs kept having diarrhea, urinary tract infections, etc. and I was feeding ORIJEN. I always seemed to be administering antiobiotics or withholding food or feeding pumpkin... After switching to raw about a year ago, neither dog has had a problem. FOR A YEAR. Every other month vs an entire year of not cleaning up explosive diarrhea....it'd be pretty hard to convince me to feed kibble again. I had to clean some of that $h!t up with a toothbrush...

Luckily, my current vet feeds raw and sells organ meat in her clinic.

I dont often have problems with diarrhea, and if I do, I usually know the reason, like the time both my dogs fell through the ice of a beaver pond in early spring, and likely picked up giardia. Ranger managed to decorate the front of my VCR and the TV with poop, and splash it 5 ft. up the wall, too. As I was cleaning up after him, Star came and barfed on the rug.... NOT fun!

Both my females are poop eaters, and if we get a big thaw, they can make themselves sick by eating poop that's been sitting frozen in the snow for a long time. I try to pick it up right away, but if there's a bad storm, I don't always succeed.

I know we will never all agree on feeding, but I'm finding it interesting to hear other people's experiences with raw.

Just a warning: freezing the meat kills parasites (another concern for raw feeders) but does not kill bacteria.