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the best food isn't home cooked and suplimented, the BEST food is a properly balanced prey model raw diet....if its properly balanced (with meat bone organ and green tripe) no suplimentation is needed.
all that being said, the kibble cleaning teeth thing is an age long myth that's been proven both semi true but mostly untrue..
while the crunching of the kibble helps clean some tarter off the tooth surface itself (assuming the kbble pieces are large enough that the dogs actually biting through them and not just swallowing them whole (most dogs don't chew, as they are not designed to grind dry foods like that) the kibble DOESNT clean the plaque and tarter form around the gum line and can actually INCREASE teeth issues because kibble crumbs frequently get stuck between teeth, dogs tounge don't have the ability ours have to dislodge stuck food particles and so those little annoying crumbs sit stuck between the teeth (particularly in the back) decaying and CAUSING tooth issues...
wet food/dry food, the teeth difference only comes in when using cheap foods that are full of sugars...in good foods, it makes no difference, neither "clean" teeth and all can CAUSE tooth issues.
for kibble/wet food fed dogs, regular teeth brushing or at least once weekly acess to a good raw bone with some meat and fat/tendon/cartlidge (the meat and tendon fibers act like floxx while the cartlidge on the sides and ends of the bone "frays" when chewed providing a surface similar to a soft bristled toothbrush gently scrubbing the teeth as they chew.
dogs fed ground raw should also be given an occasional recreation bone as ground premade raw, while balanced, doenst provide the teeth cleaning benefits as ripping, tearing and crunching through a whole carcass does.
the best food isn't home cooked and suplimented, the BEST food is a properly balanced prey model raw diet....if its properly balanced (with meat bone organ and green tripe) no suplimentation is needed.
My vet disagrees. We just talked about this last week. She doesn't approve of raw either.
most vets don't...but most vets also get a whole 2-4 hours of "nutritional training" during vet school taught typically by a "specialist" from hills or royal canin... (and that's directly out of the mouths of multiple vets ive WORKED with...
unless they study nutrtition specially, seperatly and independently most vets know very little about canine nutrition beyond what the rep tells them.
I was a vet tech, and was planning to go to vet school, (but I cant handle human contact lol) its amazing the things vets will tell techs, but wouldn't even begin to think of telling their paying clients...
now a vet whos done independent study into canine nutrition and specialized and not just bought into the hills rep "class"...I pay more attention to...and it was a vet with a specialty in canine nutrition who initially peeked my interest in raw (working at the zoo finalized it for me)
vets, like most drs are NOT nutritonalists...
they have to take additional courses and specialize if they want to learn anything about that field...
like a dr they might have some ideas based on experiences, what they've seen come in and out ect but their TRAINING is very limited...vet school doesn't teach nutrtion, they tech medicine...the nutrition that IS taught is nutrition as MEDICINE (ie script diets) rather than nutrition as preventative...
I didnt want to derail this thread with the "raw vs ..." debate. Our dog used to actually be on raw, but due to her chronic intestinal flare-ups, we couldn't rely on it (she was on raw for 8 months.) We would've loved to stay on raw but there were too many things going against it.
I'm not sure how much of a risk soaking kibble would be in terms of bacteria (over something like raw chicken.) It's soaked in the fridge. The only way I could see it becoming an issue is if the kibble was already compromised, or it soaked for days at a time. We soak it from feeding-to-feeding which is only about 5 hrs. Since we've started, all the problems we have had before (regurgitation, over drinking) have stopped.
Bacteria isn't a concern if it is soaking in the fridge.
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