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What do you mean raw meaty bones... arn't bones and rawhide bad for dogs? because raw hide is hard to digest and the dog might choke and the bone will splint and hurt the intestinal system? I feel like im getting misguided... ):
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Understandably so. This is part of the ploy of dog food manufacturers to scare you into buying their food and other products. Raw food, including raw meat, is far better for dogs than processed pet food in a bag so long as the dog doesn't have a health concern that would contradict feeding raw and the diet is balanced. We feed a prepackaged raw meat to our dogs (Bravo!) which contains raw meat, raw bones that are ground, and internal organs--then we add in vegetables and grains to make it balanced. Dogs can process the food without being affecting by the bacteria in the meat that hasn't been killed through cooking because their intenstines were designed to digest uncooked meat.
There is a small possibility that a dog could be affected by bacteria in a raw diet. However that can also happen with a plethora of foods humans buy and eat at the grocery store--not to mention dog food in a bag. The risk is so low that the benefits are worth it IMO. The food that I feed did have a recall because bacteria levels were higher than acceptable. However this problem did not cause serious health problems. In most cases the dogs simply had mild GI symptoms that passed. The only time I have been concerned about feeding raw was when my eldest was going through chemotherapy. During this time we lightly cooked his food (the meat) since his immune system was weakend and a bacteria problem would be hard on his system.
Raw bones are definitely better than rawhide. However use common sense when feeding them. We supervise our dogs when they are chewing on a raw bone, buy bones of an appropriate size and only let them eat them for 30-45 minutes. Bone is very porous so usually it will be ingested as particles about the size of sand. Our experience has been that sometimes larger pieces will break off and our dogs will try to swallow them whole which is why we supervise. We don't feed raw chicken necks or turkey necks intact (ground yes) only because our dogs inhale them.
Weily4Life, there is a raw dog food manufacturer in MI, Taylor Pond Farms. Just curious is that what you feed?