Raw Food For Dog's
The Natural Diet

William Pollak D.V.M - "In the wild, no one cooks for the coyote or wolf; no one brushes their teeth. Their foods are raw and unprocessed...

When I suggest to people they may want to consider raw dog food for there dog, I often get a surprised look. They will ask, what do you mean raw? You mean stuff we eat that’s not cooked?

I say yes, raw food for dog's is completely natural and all around the best thing going for them. If your dog is having one of the many issues we see, quite often it is corrected by introducing raw food into there diet.

Dr. Don E. Lundholm, D.V.M. - "We are seeing disease conditions in animals that we did not see years ago. Many of these may be traced to nutrition as the source..."

Those who are opened minded will want to hear more and listen very close. Those who don’t will just try to shrug it off and move on.

"Nature never designed canine or feline kidneys to handle the volume of impurities that come their way," states veterinarian Al Plechner, DVM

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Most people we see in the store are open-minded. They come in to learn how to best take care of their pets. They know food is the most powerful medicine and has a dramatic impact on a pets life. We give them the information they need to feed raw dog food along with other supplementation.

Is raw dog food for everyone and every pet? Of course not. Because of our recent practices of feeding to high grain based diets and do to some illnesses, some pets immune system is too weak to handle the bacteria and/or digestive system support. Those who are on antibiotics should not be feeding raw. There are other alternatives if you can’t or don’t want to feed raw (see our Dog Supplements page). Those with small children need to be very careful the dog does not eat and then go lick your child's face.

For those who can feed a raw diet daily or at least once a week, you can achieve greater health, vitality, stronger immune system and longer life with this practice. Usually the next question we get is: How do you feed it to them? Can’t they get sick from that stuff?

Many stories or scare tactics abound in the dog world about parasites and bacteria contained in raw meat and that feeding raw can make your dog vicious. These wives tales carry little truth to them. Raw meat may have a high bacterial count on the outside of it and chicken may have salmonella. A healthy dog can cope with both.

Spraying apple cider vinegar on your meat will also kill bacteria if you are a little nervous about feeding raw. More about this in the Feeding Raw Guidelines page.

Parasites in human grade food are almost unheard of these days. If your dog has a healthy immune system, they naturally deal with these on there own.

If you have a very sick dog and need to cook your meat, be sure to add a digestive enzyme to his diet until he is well and can return to a raw diet.

To be safe from salmonella in fish products, cook salmon and other fish before feeding. They will still get benefits from the oil. For some reason dogs are the only species susceptible to salmonella poisoning. Mostly present along the west coast of the US, Canada and Alaska. They say they can eat salmon from the east coast but I sure wouldn’t want to take that chance. There are too many other proteins to feed raw to your dog.

When a dog eats food, it sits in their stomach for much longer period of time than it does in humans. This extra time allows the hydrochloric stomach acid to destroy the bad bacteria in the raw dog food. They then process a short time through the digestive tract before eliminating. In humans it is the opposite, we process food a short time in the stomach and a longer period in our digestive tract. That allows more bad bacteria to build and gives us our diseases.

I have to keep reminding people who are newly introduced to feeding raw food to there dog that this is the way nature made them to eat. Another classic response we receive is that our pets have been domesticated and therefore are no longer able to eat raw foods.

This is completely false. The difference in DNA makeup from a dog to a wolf in 0.2%. Even those tiny little Chihuahuas are a close relative to the wolf. Yes, we have domesticated the dog but that only changes his appearance and temperament not there internal anatomy and physiology. The dog HAS NOT adapted to a cooked diet.

Feeding nothing but dry food and/or some sterile canned food has suppressed immune systems and under produced enzyme levels that nature made them to get from raw foods. This is very evident by the presence of flourishing veterinary practices all over the country. Just observe the waiting rooms of these practices. You will see an increase in periodontal disease, skin diseases, cancers, organ diseases, diabetes, obesity—diseases that have strong connections to cooked and processed foods. Cooked diet has not been kind to our dogs.

Processed foods have led to some of these of unheard of diseases. Relevant by the increase cases of diabetes, various cancers, inflammatory bowel syndrome, and bloat, for example. Veterinary medicine has needed to evolve as well into 'modern veterinary medicine' because of the increasing prevalence of processed food-related diseases and the need to treat and fix them. Generally the fix is a high-priced prescription food that is processed as well. There is a very strong link to the processed foods they eat and the new diseases as those proven to exist between humans in developed countries and processed foods. Feeding raw dog food can dramatically reduce the chances of developing these diseases.

We’re often told by our customers that there vet told them not to feed raw food to there dog. We know of one vet who told one of our customers that if the wolves had microwaves, they would use them out in the wild. Most people believe that there vet is the know-all to everything about animals. This is just not true. Nutrition is no more than an elective class in there education. There are a few who will take further nutrition but most don’t. They get right into the very lucrative practice dealing with all the diseases that makes them money.

This is just not there specialty. They are great for what they do, medicine. We have our own vet as well; we love what he has done for our dogs and cats. But if it’s a problem that we believe can be dealt with through nutrition, we go see our holistic vet. You are completely in your right to ask about your vets nutritional training. Those veterinarians who have gone on after graduating to study nutrition are mostly referred to as Holistic Vets. These are the people you need to seek out. There are not as many of them because of all the extra schooling.

We tell people to do there own research as well. There is a lot of information on the internet regarding raw dog food. You have to take control of your pets diet and find out the best information you can.

Again, our best suggestion is to seek the advice of a local Holistic Vet. They specialize in nutrition and will be able to help you make informed decisions.

For more information on how you can introduce raw food for your dog, click on the following page Feeding Raw Guidelines.