Natural always better?

I understand. I can't feed both of my dogs raw, so my GSD gets a pretty decent kibble.

As a snack, yup. Treader actually likes cooked peas. I give him some once in a while.

Definitely not evil. I've fed it to my dogs most of their lives. Cooked diets can be okay. I just think that dogs handle raw better, and that with commercial pet food, it's too easier to tricked into feeding some harmful chemical.

 

In order to determine what our dogs should be eating, we need to look at what they are designed to digest and how their bodies will naturally gain nutrients. If we look at a dog's digestive physiology, it is essentially identical to that of wild canids. Key points being dentition, digestive tract length, stomach acidity, production of digestive enzymes, rate of flow, and bacterial populations. By digestive standards, dogs are carnivores. Everything about them was designed to eat raw meat and bones. Now, please do not read the word "raw" in there and think that I am staunchy promoting a raw diet. Yes, I feed my dogs a raw diet, but I understand that some people are not willing or able to do so for their dogs, for whatever reason.

But regardless of what you do or don't/will or won't feed, the truth of the matter is that our dogs are carnivores (who also happen to have a sweet tooth so enjoy indulging in treats like berries, fruits, marshmallows and ice cream).

The idea that "natural is better" is based on the diea that in order for a whole body to be healthy as possible, the fewest stresses should be applied to that system as possible. Going to extremes, if a dog is fed a vegan diet, we are expecting their digestive tract, their "system", to strip nutrients from food matter that they were not designed to eat. They do not have the digestive enzymes or bacterial populations required to digest plant matter. Obligate herbivores rely on immense populations of bacteria in their rumens or ceca to digest plant matter for them, then the herbivores gain their nutrients from the by-products produced by the bacteria during the digestion of that plant matter. So even cows do not digest corn for nutrition, rather, they ingest corn which is digested by bacteria in the rumen. That bacteria gives off volatile fatty acids as they process the plant matter, and the VFAs get absorbed by the cow's intestinal lining to be used as energy. If we expect our carnivore dogs to do that same thing, we are asking their digestive system to work THAT much harder to try and leech nutrients from matter it can't digest. We are promoting unnatural bacterial growth, overproduction of digestive enzymes and harder working of the system as a whole. Like any machine, run it too hard for too long and it will wear out.

Less extreme, but same basic idea, is asking a dog to get nutrition from a grain based diet. Or, add to it, a processed diet.

During the processing of commercial foods, great amounts of heat are used. During heating, proteins are denatured and folded in different manners. The digestive enzymes that a dog produces naturally rely on natural "raw" folding of proteins in order to act effectively on them and tear them apart into amino acids, used for nutrition. If those proteins are folded differently due to denaturation (from heating), then the efficiency of the digestive enzymes is reduced, requiring increased production of enzymes and the system working harder as a whole.

Again, it all leads back to more stress being applied to the overall system, wearing it out sooner, making it work in ways that it was not designed to work.

During the formulation of "vet recommended" diets (Hills, SD, Metacal, Walthams, etc.), the key aspect during production is meeting preset nutritional guidelines. ie. How much protein, fat, and carbs does a dog need? What levels of vitamin A, iron, zinc, etc. AND, how can those levels be met in the most cost effective way? By taking the by-products of human consumption (grain fractions, meat by-products, etc.), we can get close to those numbers. Then heat it all and the numbers decrease, so you add synthetic vitamins and minerals to bring the numbers back up again. Yes, vet diets meet the nutitional needs of dogs. No doubt. They have all the vitamins, minerals, and nutrients that a dog needs to survive. But what they do NOT take into consideration is the process by which dogs most easily acquire those nutrients. The extra work that the carnivore's digestive tract has to put in in order to strip those nutrients from ingredients that it was not designed to handle.

The key to determining what a dog should eat is to look at what it is designed to eat. What does the physiology say?

 

I'm actually trying to do a study on the history of dog food. Haven't gotten very far yet.
According to rawfed.com/myths, more dogs lived to an old age back before kibble was around. Yet another says the opposite, and that they had hidden illnesses. I think that that last bit better describes what's going on with pets today, but I'm still researching.

 

My question is this: if kibble has all of that done to it before packaged, then does frozen meat you buy at a store have a lot of things in it that it doesn't need? Like maybe sodium or something to preserve it to make it keep longer? Not many people I know are going to go out in the woods and bring back a fresh deer for their dogs. Unless you're Ania and get free meat given to you by random people.

I do agree that raw is best. I'm just sayin'.

 

Before I say anything let me repeat: I'm not changing my dog food (Orijen). I do agree with you though. A lot of times people copy and paste something they see at a website without actually taking the time to stop and think where that person got that information. I'm not saying all studies and tests done by vets are 100% fool proof, but when you get information from a website from somebody with no degree in what you're preaching as fact then...well. You know. I'm not just talking about dog food either. That goes for all things - dog related or not. Just because somebody says something is true doesn't make it true.

I'm not bashing the guy though. For all I know the guy does have a degree. I did make my dog food choice based on his website. Kind of scary when you think about it. I just went to that site and because of something somebody said (that I've never even met) I made an important decision in my dog's life.

 

The vet food debate

This vet food debate I've found completely mind boggling. I've no doubt that I'd prefer giving my dog natural, holistic and organic food. I myself have had health issues and found holistic food and natural medicine to be a huge benefit where traditional medicine could not help me. Problem is, I've yet to find a dog food, other than vet food, that didn't disagree with Sadie. Despite testing, we've yet to find out what's wrong with her, although my vet and I suspect low grade, chronic pancreatitis.

I can't tell you how many hours I've poured over the dog food analysis web site, trying to come up with some solution to Sadie's problem. I've come away so frustrated, more times than I can count.

As much as I'd like to get Sadie off of the vet food, fact of the matter is, she does pretty well on it. Not perfect, but MUCH better than on any other food. The vet swears that the company that manufactures the food does more research than any other company out there, that they break down the ingredients to a molecular level so that the dog's body no longer recognizes those ingredients that caused the upset. I'm forced to believe her, since it's the only thing that works for Sadie.

This brought the question to my mind, what exactly are the credentials of the people who do the reviews on the dog food analysis web site? I wrote a very nice email to them, stating how helpful the site and how I really like the break down of all of the food ingredients. I asked nicely about the credentials of the people who do the reviews. I never got a response, much to my surprise. I honestly thought I'd get one, since I had good responses from several dog food companies I emailed about the ingredients in their foods.

So, for the sake of my own sanity, I decided that I need to rely on this web site less, and come up with my own conclusions based on my own experiences. I've decided that while natural, holistic and organic food is preferred (by me anyways), that maybe these reviewers just look at the straight ingredient list of these vet foods, and don't have a complete understanding of how these foods are manufactured to meet the needs of dogs with different health conditions.

That being said, I'm still trying to see if I can find a more natural food that will agree with Sadie, and I'm still using the dog food analysis site as a guide. Assuming that Sadie is suffering from low grade pancreatitis, I'm looking at more natural foods that have a moderate protein level and a lower fat level, which is made much easier with the use of this site.

 

Yes, Smudge! haha Unless you are willing to go out with a bow and arrow and hunt large and small game for your dog (or let them do the hunting themselves), we have to accept some level of processing in the foods that we feed. There are ways around that, making friends with hunters or farmers, getting freshly slaughtered meat straight from them. But this isn't feasible for everyone. So the majority of raw feeders do their "hunting" at grocery stores. And, while the meat at grocery stores is a far cry better than the meat in dog foods, it still is processed. There is often water added to plump things up, some cuts have broth or salt or "seasonings" added, etc. Some ground meat products have fillers added to decrease fat content and make "lean" ground products. The best you can do is be aware of these processes, read labels, and choose meats that are the best for the amoutn of money you are willing to spend. Doesn't necessarily need to be organic or free range or whatever. But read labels and don't by "enhanced" or "broth added" meats. By "regular" ground meat. That sort of thing.

Luckily, freezing doesn't have the same denaturing effects on proteins as heating does. Freezing does destroy some vitamins, but a PMR raw diet takes this into consideration and compensates by feeding higher quantities of rich organ meats.

To avoid the processing in commercial meat products, I've found a couple of connections that are very valuable to me. I have a couple of friends who hunt, or have husbands that hunt. So we share the organs and scrap meat and bones from the hunted animals. I also have contacted farmers in the area and purchase offal, bones, and cull animals from them. Additionally, I work at an Agricultural college so have the ability to purchase cull animals from the research farm. With these sources, I'm able to have my freezer mostly stocked with the freshest, most unprocessed meat I can find the majority of the time. And rely on processed grocery store meat minimally.

But processing is everywhere. If something is packaged, whether it be in a kibble bag or on a styrofoam dish in the frozen foods section, you can rest assured that it is processed to some degree. We just need to educate ourselves on what those processes are, how they are labeled, and pick the "best" option out of the bunch.