Raw Diet for dogs/cats (to live, most dangerous, vs.)

[CwittleZ]

Hello -

I'm interested in trying the raw diet for my two dogs, and I was wondering if anyone knew where I could get some fresh whole meat. Organs, bones, what have you. I'm new to the area too, so I don't really know where to start looking.

Thanks!

Crystal

[bigtrees]

Check with the meat department at your local supermarket and see if they have any knuckle joints from cows that they can part with. Dogs love those.

I don't know anything about the raw diet but I do know what dogs love to eat! Knuckle joints are safe from what I understand, they don't break off and get stuck in the stomach.

[elvislives]

The benefit of meat for dogs is protein not enzyme. Secondly, cooking the meat makes it much more digestible as raw

meat has indigestible collagen proteins. In the wild, mother dogs eat the meat from a kill and regurgitate for their pups - serving predigested meat. In addition, raw meat is very high in fat. Thousands of dogs die every year from Pancreatitis, and some are disabled by this disorder after being fed a raw meat diet for a short time. Not only is raw meat high in fat, but the pancreas is made to produce enzymes. Supplementing with too many live enzymes can cause the pancreas to shut down. If your dog has Pancreatitis and you aren't aware of it – a high fat diet of raw meat could kill them.
Freezing kills some but not all parasites and does not kill most bacteria. The most dangerous parasite in raw meat is toxoplasmosis. It can kill your dog. I know of two recent cases where dogs died from this parasite after eating raw meat. Dr. Michael Harrington, a Veterinary Neurologist reported that he treated a dog with thousands of parasites from a raw meat diet, which turned to worms in his brain. An MRI showed the dog's brain looked like Swiss cheese. The parasites are usually much more dangerous than the bacteria. Cats and people are also susceptible to this parasite. Pregnant women are told not to change kitty litter when pregnant because toxoplasmosis can effect the baby. Cats who carry toxoplasmosis from eating birds and rodents, while pregnant, often birth deformed kittens.
Raw Meat Myths (http://www.secondchanceranch.org/rawmyth.htm - broken link)

[CwittleZ]

I greatly appreciate your response, and I am still reading more into the raw vs. kibble arguements. I am not 100% positive I am going to feed them full time on raw, I am researching every avenue. Thank you again for your comments, I greatly appreciate it and will take it into consideration.

[elvislives]

Originally Posted by CwittleZ

I greatly appreciate your response, and I am still reading more into the raw vs. kibble arguements. I am not 100% positive I am going to feed them full time on raw, I am researching every avenue. Thank you again for your comments, I greatly appreciate it and will take it into consideration.

It is just so bad for the dog i hate to think they would die and suffer.

Food poisoning cases are not identified in pets as often as they are in humans, primarily because the labwork is expensive to pursue and epidemiological resources similar to those in human medicine are not there for veterinarians. There is a great deal of evidence to show that these infections do affect dogs and cats. Please check the PubMed site and search under Salmonella or Campylobacter or Toxoplasmosis or E. coli to find some of the references to this. There are some studies outlining how Salmonella affects dogs in these references but most are concerned with transmission methods. Any good veterinary internal medicine textbook will provide details as to the clinical signs of disease from organisms that can be transmitted through raw meat. These are taken from The Handbook of Small Animal Practice by Dr. Rhea Morgan:
campylobacteriosis : vomiting, hemorrhagic or watery diarrhea, fever, clinical course of 5 to 15 days, may be a complicating factor in parvovirus infections, asymptomatic carrier state is common
salmonellosis: vomiting and/or diarrhea, fever, lethargy, abdominal pain. In some instances, abortion or central nervous system signs or death
E. coli: currently considered to be less of a problem in pets than in humans. Similar signs to salmonellosis (from R. Remillard on the Veterinary Information Network, 1-800-700-4636).
Cryptosporidiosis: (protozoan), primarily affects cats, causes diarrhea, weight loss, loss of appetite, dehydration. May be a cause of inflammatory bowel disease in dogs.
Toxoplasmosis: (protozoan), stillbirth, abortion, severe systemic illness in newborns, fever, eye damage, muscle pain, depression, weight loss, poor appetite, cough, respiratory distress, seizures or other CNS signs. Evidence for the risk of feeding raw human-grade meat must be inferred from studies in humans because of the inability to track animal cases. There are numerous cases of well defined, well tracked food poisonings from raw or undercooked meat in the U.S. Perhaps pets are less susceptible to infection from these meat sources but that is not really very likely. If several people die from undercooked hamburgers in Wisconsin, it is pretty likely that a pet or two was affected as well.
Raw Meat Diet - not recommended

[elvislives]

Dogs will be dogs but why intentionally put them in harms way??? Would you let your dog go where you know there is parvo? How about letting it play with a rabid friend? It is always gonna be the owners responsibility to protect your "best friend" from themselves no matter where the dog happens to live.

[magoomafoo]

I do on occasion give my dogs "cooked" meat...deer, elk, moose, antelope....whatever. I am cautious though because, like wolves, once they taste raw meat, they develope a taste for it. Anybody who trains bird dogs will back me up. Once a bird dog gets a taste of the neighbors chickens, they never stop wanting it, so a good bird dog is ruined. I prefer to give my dogs the large bones off of wild game so that they can get the rich marrow.

[DesertMountainsDesert]

I give my dogs Urban Wolf. You add meat (cooked or raw, I prefer cooked) and it's 100% complete. They love it. Of course, they also get kibble when they want it (Sold Gold) and other treats.