Raw Food and Aggression! - Page 3

Well, I'm confused now. All who replied recommended fedding raw food, and yet, few confessed that dogs may become aggressive towards other animals under certain circumstances! I'm a little troubled after learning about wuzzup's dog who ate his cat friend!

Bok, two more stories... this one is short.... my neighbors have free range Guinea Hens (not sure thats spelled right) they make an awful racket. They also come over to my house sometime, I can tell my dogs to "get the chickens" my male (different than other male in story above) and his sister will take off like rockets and send them home, haven't tried to kill one yet. The other story... same male has above (my heart dog he was... sigh) I have a hay shed that the door is made out of wood slabs and it  hangs, not on hinges. There are spaces between the slabs. One day going up to feed the horses, two of the girls were barking like heck and hackling at the shed. My boy came running to see whattsup. It was a deer that had stuck its head in between the slats for hay and stantioned itself as the door slipped down off the braces and pinned it. He just sniffed it again and turned to look at me, his ears pointing to the side with a look that just said "its stuck!!" Sure enough it was, and had been there for awhile. I did bring the dogs back to the house cuz I didn't want them to chase it if it ran when I freed it, but they coulda had breakfast right there. I got her out and she ran a few feet,turned and looked, would freak, run a little, stop, turn freak...etc. until she got out of sight. She was pretty disoriented from the whole thing. Weird part is... that spring and the following spring I had a female deer I could yell "Cookie" and she would come pretty close for an apple. I couldn't touch her but it was sweet. Only lasted two springs. One more.... LOL! I was walking my dogs one day (like everyday) behind the house in the woods. I could hear dogs barking. I wasn't going to check it out because I was thinking a dog fight could take place.... but decided to because dogs shouldn't be running amuck in the woods like that. There were 2 dogs, one a Pyrenees cross, the other just a brown medium size mutt. They had a young elk backed up to a tree and were trying to ham string it. The elk would charge forward and back up to the tree to protect its backside. I yelled at the dogs to "go home", not sure why but my dogs seem to think that means "go get 'em", which they did. I thought crap now they may get the elk too. The other dogs decided they were out numbered and took off, my kids made an arc around the elk and just stood there barking at the dogs until out of sight then came back. Talk about a Disney moment... long story short. I called the Game Warden, he found out who owned the other dogs told them keep 'em home or else. Thought the elk would be OK (I went up the next day, the skin on the hind legs was torn down, gross) but about a week later I saw crows and went for a look see, it didn't make it....

She went on to eat many cats before I caught her coming around the side of the house with her fresh cat kill in her mouth. She was the last dog I would have thought to be the cat eater...I don,t think it stemed from eating raw  diet and kibble .She just did it.Then i guess she liked it..It was odd..

Years ago one of my parent's GSDs was guilty of killing deer. She was kibble fed and the most gentle dog with us kids and the house cats (the cats in the neighbourhood too).  It was just something she did if/when she had the opportunity. Do you think the kbble made her do it? I'm a firm believer that behaviour such as this has more to do with prey instinct and less to do with diet.

having any dog around anything s/he could potentially harm, including chickens, ducks, sheep, children .... requires imprinting and training and has nothing whatsoever to do with feeding a raw diet.  imprint on the dog all those things that you do not want her/him to react to then train the dog to do what you want, like herding and guarding those animals.

so imprinting, training and bonding are the key; and to ensure that in the mind of the dog what s/he has been taught always outweighs any primal instinct never allow a bored dog too much freedom. bottom line with few exceptions, like dogs with very poor breeding which has given raise to mental disorders in the dog, a well trained dog will not attack anything without the owners permission.  so other than the exception stated above any problem of this nature falls on the owner and suggests the dog wasn't raised, trained, or maintained properly for the situation. so if the dog kills you need to look to either the owner or the breeding, and most definitely not the food.

there is no doubt food can impact a dog's behavior; and changing the diet can change the dog, but not in this significant of a way.  diet will not prompt a dog to kill.  the most it will do is make the dog sluggish or hyperactive or flighty etc. you can use diet to improve the dog's ability to learn and retain what s/he has learned.  so correct diet in conjunction with working the dog with the animals around will ensure not only the bond between you and the dog but will maintain the non-reactivity of the dog toward the other animals.

so the simple answer to your question - will raw food cause a dog to become more aggressive toward other animals? - is: no, but insufficient or inappropriate imprinting and training or poor breeding will.

Well my dog was not poorly bred nor bored she just ate the darn cats after six years.She got a pretty darn good reprimand over the whole thing.. she was not unstable either.as when under the watchful eye she would not even look in a cats direction.she was not bored she had kids to play with every day fished walked swam played ball.herded horses.put threw discipline routines two or three time a week.I must have forgot to mention she had at least 4 other gsds loose in the yard with her at all times and a Yorkie or two..sometimes its all to easy to blame the owner or the breeder when in reality they are dogs first and last. My Yorkie tried to eat my cockatiel once or twice two was that my fault.no she is a dog and that's what they do..I still have my Yorkie old as she is and now she would eat my amazon parrot if it was not bigger then her.The Yorkie and the German shepherd have two very different blood line .so where do you get bad breeding from.. There dogs for god sakes.Dog will act like dogs..Poor imprinting the dog lived with the cat for six years  ,have you lost your mind making that statement.How much more imprinting could she get after six years.sheesh give me a break..

the truth is lots of dogs work fine around other animals.  farmers have been using dogs to help them work herds for what 1000's of years and any dog that hurt those animals would not have been bred. plus these are shepherds we're talking about here they are bred to cohabit with both humans and other animals; and when one can't something's gone wrong. all i know is i grew up with lots of dogs both pure breeds and mutts/strays along with dozens of cats all running free on a large farm.  we also had horses and ponies and no one ever killed anyone. and none of my friends with dogs have ever had a problems with their dogs becoming killers. i've met a few cat killers but it was clear they had mental problems - btw most were rescues - i guess we all know why they we surrendered.

dogs killing the animals they live with does happen but most often there is a reason.  i'm not sure how to explain your problem but if you want to change it i would suggest looking harder to find the root issue and not fall back on "dogs will be dogs' otherwise the problem will never be solved.  from what you have shared i would say something happen to your dog to make her change her behavior - perhaps a bad reaction to a vax, i know rabies vax can cause mental derangement in some dogs - but if you do look deeper you might find a solution that really works for you. .  imo one of the coolest things about dogs is that they can learn just about anything you just need to figure out how to get through to them - rehab can be a beautiful thing. 

this is just my opinion based solely on my personal experience - so you can jump all over me but i still believe what i posted earlier and i'm sorry that offends you.  but this thread is about the effects of raw diet on a dog's behavior toward other animals and i don't think your experience fits the discussion and has caused some confusion so i wanted to make a clear point that your problem is not diet related. i'm not trying to fight with you i am just giving my perspective on the topic - again jmo

I also said it was not diet related.could have been something that happened while playing with the kids.Kids can keep some pretty good secrets.I believed he asked if it would lead towards aggression to other animals.So it was not off thread.As far as my kenneling her after that ,she was let out when i could supervise her.As for the dog that killed the ducks yes she was a rescue.Who knows what she learned before she came to me? She was placed in a none pet home.Clearly with the duck killer it was prey drive,and at 14 dollars a duck well she could go her way and I went mine..As for the guy who fed his dogs hole unprocessed dead cows hide and all ,he got what he asked for..He imprinted that on his dog. Kindly  wuzzup.

Nope that is not true! Increased aggression has nothing to do with raw. I recently switched my girl to raw. Her energy levels have increased considerably but, she is not aggressive.

All who replied recommended fedding raw food, and yet, few confessed that dogs may become aggressive towards other animals under certain circumstances!  ---> Yes, true. But, those "circumstances" do not involve feeding them raw food, that's the gist of it.