Canine Domestication - Dogs are NOT Wolves - Page 1

FINALLY! Proof of something I've been saying ever since raw diets became a fad!

Dogs and wolves are different in their ability to tolerate starchy food!  Thousands of years of domestication have altered the canine digestive system so it can better digest human food!

Now, someone needs to research the reverse: is a dog less able to tolerate a wolf-type diet of raw meaty bones as a result of domestication? 

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/starchy-diets-may-given-ancient-dogs-paw-181000580.html

interesting.......thanks for posting

Definitely interesting, but I wonder if just because they can tolerate it better, doesn't mean that it is better to feed kibble than raw food. I guess we'll have to wait for more research to unveil

Good article.  Thanks for the post.

Cullin, nowhere does the article mention kibble, so the jury is still out on that.

However, as someone who has studied bones extensively, I can tell you that wolves have much bigger, stronger teeth and jaws than dometic dogs of comparable size. So, that makes me question whether our domestic canines are able to deal with a wolf-type diet as well as some people think.

Wolf skull:





German Shepherd skull


It may be hard to see the differences, unless you're used to studying bones, but the wolf has thicker, more solid bone, deeper jaws, and larger teeth. The canine tooth especially has a much longer root.

The GSD has a longer thinner muzzle, lighter bone and smaller teeth with noticeable gaps between them.

Obviously, when it comes to bringing down deer and elk and chewing on large bones, old Lobo has the advantage!

Very interesting indeed.

Kibble,

I hear from cat fans that theirs won't eat anything other than kibble and canned food, what is your take on that?

LOLOL! It depends very much on the cat, Ibrahim!

For 17 years, we had a half-Burmese cat that would demand to go outside in the very early morning so he could catch his breakfast on the wing!

Other cats will turn their noses up at anything that didn't come from a box, pouch or can!

And then there was the stray I rescued from the back alleys of Edmonton, who was about as thin as a cat could get and still be alive. He would scarf down anything he could get his paws on, including taking a loaf of bread off the counter, and chewing a corner off it before I caught him in the act!

Soo, to carry the evolutionary thing a bit further with dogs...

What would primitive man have thrown out other than the uneaten parts of grains, fruits and vegetables? Not nice, juicy cuts of meat, certainly. Most of these cultures lived on the edge of starvation. The dogs would have gotten the inedible bits: the guts, brain, gristle and bone.

Was this bone raw or cooked?

Well, if you have ever butchered an animal you will know it's much harder to remove the raw meat from the bone than the cooked. So, the bones dogs got would have been most likely either roasted or maybe stewed.

Yet the fans of raw try to tell me that cooked bones are deadly, and only raw bones are safe?

Sorry, I don't believe it for one minute!

I almost lost one to raw beef knuckle bones......horrible compaction of the bowel.......

I only feed raw and my dog has never had kibble.  Seven years and he is doing great and has no issues.   I just fed him about 2 3/4 lbs of raw food, 1 1/2 lb chicken quarter with bone, tripe, beef liver, yogurt, muscle and other organ meat,  I never feed carbs to my dogs as they don't utilize it very well.  

I never give my dogs any smoked bones or knuckle bones.  I do give raw marrow bones but I take the bone away when the marrow is mostly gone.  The dogs get the raw marrow bones for about an hour than I throw them out.