BARF diet, the other side

[Wrath]

Found an interesting link:
Raw Meat and Bones: A Dangerous Fad Diet?

I'm not really sure what to think about this, other than the fact that there are some handy links to buy books on the subject, just as there are books on raw diets. Oddly enough the sites in favor of raw diets seem to be chanting similar mantras, but as evidence FOR the diets.

[Rottlva]

Hmmm... interesting. I have been doing barf on and off for a while now and have so much more to learn.... But i do have to say that one of our dogs has bloated 2x and is alive and well..... We made this last and final switch to barf because of him!! We were following all of the vets instructions feeding him 3-4x/day small meals, restricting his water when needed, keeping him quite after exercise... HE STILL BLOATED!!! I wanted to find something with a high moisture content which wouldn't swell in the stomach and would safely hydrate him.... Barf was it.... I was amazed when talking to my veterinarian, who works at a 5 doctor traditional practice actually said.... " short of putting him on meds I feel this is the best route for him"......

I couldn't tell if that article was from Ann Martin.... but I've read her books, Some of her words are a pretty sharp. I knew she felt badly about barf... but I not that bad.

Oh well... to each his own.

[Carina43]

Well. Ol' Katie from the Second Chance Ranch has written another article...she is a vociferous and well known detractor of raw diets! Just about everyone researching raw has also seen her other article, and most have read it and continue to feed raw. :) I did. I'd take what she has to say with a grain of salt - she's rather given to hyperbole and un-cited statements, like this one:

"...at least eight veterinarians in my area have treated hundreds of very sick dogs that were on raw meat diets."

Which is a: a vague and meaningless statement; she doesn't say sick from what - related to diet, what? and b: I don't believe it anyway - in most areas there probably aren't even "hundreds of dogs" who EAT raw, never mind get sick as a result. Think about it!
I could go through her article and pick apart many of her statements...as in her other one, she backs up very little of what she says with actual information and statistics, despite her "11 year study" on the issue. She keeps talking about increased numbers of dogs with pancreatitis & bacterial illness....but again provides no proof. Are wolves true carnivores? She says no; and this is a hotly debated issue; but there has been research from researchers like David Mech - who has spent years actually observing wild wolves - who say they are indeed carnivores, they rarely even eat the innards of prey.

On the other hand, raw-feeders can certainly give out vague and silly information too, and this raving about it being a "miracle cure-all" diet is certainly inaccurate. Can it alleviate some chronic health concerns? It most certainly can. Can it alleviate doggie smell - yes, but then again so can switching to some premium kibbles. Will it remove plaque and whiten teeth? Absolutely! Do raw-fed dogs get sick? Of course they do, just like dogs eating Alpo or Canidae. Can they suffer bone-related injury? They can, though it appears to be a pretty rare occurence. And if you grind, as many do, there's no chance of that.

Can a lifetime of eating grocery store kibble cause cancers, epilepsy, chronic allergies, diabetes...? There are studies that certainly indicate that - read Dogs, Diet and Disease by Caroline Levine. Yes, there is propolene glycol, BHA, BHT, etc, in some foods people eat - but we don't eat it for every single meal. The switch to mixed tocopherols as a preservative in even some of the merely "good" kibbles reflects an awareness that such high doses of these ingredients may be dangerous.

Even in Andrew Brace's book "The Ultimate Rottweiler" he talks about a training kennel in Austria where the dogs are amazingly healthy and long lived eating raw meat every day. There are certainly many thousands of people - some who have raised generations of dogs - on a raw diet. There's also many thousands of people who have raised generations of dogs on Purina, but those people aren't the ones going on the internet and writing books and articles about how much better their dogs are doing on their current diet. ;)

I think you are wise to do your research, just be aware there is exaggeration and misinformation on BOTH sides.

[moondog]

Originally posted by Carina43
I'd take what she has to say with a grain of salt - she's rather given to hyperbole and un-cited statements...

I take what ANYONE says with a grain of salt! :) When people start the mud slinging, hyperbole and un-cited statements abound from all sides.

I have no personal experience with the BARF diet, but I can attest to the benefits of a home-cooked diet. I do believe she's on target with her statement that the improvements that are seen by feeding raw or cooked have more to do with what we are NOT feeding (as in preservatives and other chemicals and gunk added to low and mediocre quality commercial diets) than whether the food is cooked or not. It's amazing what eliminating an offending agent can do for health!

"...at least eight veterinarians in my area have treated hundreds of very sick dogs that were on raw meat diets."

Is this statement from this article? I can't seem to find it. I'm wondering if it's taken out of context, because it does seem ridiculous that hundreds of dogs on a BARF diet would be found in any geographical region at the same time, especially hundreds of sick dogs. Is it possible she was referring to hundreds of dogs over a long period of time, say 10 or 20 years?

On the other hand, raw-feeders can certainly give out vague and silly information too, and this raving about it being a "miracle cure-all" diet is certainly inaccurate....I think you are wise to do your research, just be aware there is exaggeration and misinformation on BOTH sides.

Ain't that the truth! :D :)

[Carina43]

Originally posted by moondog
I do believe she's on target with her statement that the improvements that are seen by feeding raw or cooked have more to do with what we are NOT feeding (as in preservatives and other chemicals and gunk added to low and mediocre quality commercial diets) than whether the food is cooked or not. It's amazing what eliminating an offending agent can do for health!

I totally agree with you, I think it's one of the few things she says in this article that I concur with...I've said the same myself, many times.

The other statement about "at least eight vets" and "hundreds of sick dogs" yadayad - sorry, I should have clarified, that was from her rebuttal, one of the links to the left. Pretty much looked like she was talking in the present tense.

I take my dogs to two different training facilities here. Most of the trainers & many members feed raw, it's become quite prevalent here! Most of the people training have other jobs....managing pet stores, groomers, one vet tech, a lady who is a FRR distributor. Quite dog-savvy people who are active in the local doggie community. I imagine if there were hundreds of dogs dying as a result of raw diets, word would have gotten around.

There's a Yahoo group, set up by someone who really had a bug up their butt about raw diets, like this lady. It was quite funny. I joined once (can't remember the group title) and read through archives. Seems this person was trying to find people to share horror stories of dogs keeling over from raw meat. Instead, month after month, there's posts about how well peoples' dogs are doing on raw... :) It might be called "anti-barf" or something, if anyone wants to do a search on NO SPAMMING.

This seems fairly free of hyperbole:
http://www.canine-epilepsy.com/Survey.html
:)

[Rott-Wiley]

There is a lot of reading there. In the very first paragraph there is a "click here" link that takes you to a list of references both pro and con for feeding a raw diet.

I feed a mostly raw diet and am very pleased with the results I'm seeing in my dog. IMO, one of the greatest problems with feeding a raw diet is getting it balanced. I guess that's why some people do say that done improperly, it is the worse thing you can do to your dog. But the people that are reading up on how to feed are not the ones that are going to be doing it improperly. Do your homework and then decide if feeding a raw diet is what you want.

[moondog]

Originally posted by Carina43
The other statement about "at least eight vets" and "hundreds of sick dogs" yadayad - sorry, I should have clarified, that was from her rebuttal, one of the links to the left. Pretty much looked like she was talking in the present tense.

Thanks, I found it!

He claims that the veterinary community is not stirred up or concerned, yet at least eight veterinarians in my area have treated hundreds of very sick dogs that were on raw meat diets (some from his book). The American Veterinary Association told me they were also concerned about this trend._

To be objective about it, I can't assume that she means "in the present" by what she wrote. The problem is that she didn't clarify, so the interpretation of that remark is left to the reader. It's stuff like this that spawns misunderstandings. :)

[Solomon]

Actually, I only have one regret about feeding raw...Solly has learned to chew, and has developed really powerful jaw muscles. Before switching him to barf, I never had to worry about him destroying his Kongs. Now, he'll shred one in about an hour.

[Rott-Wiley]

Yeah, I know it. I get those soup bones instead of a Kong. A 3 inch bone will keep her real busy for about 5 hours. That's about how long it takes her to get the marrow out of the center. She'll still chew on it after that but with much less enthusiasm.

[Luvs]

Ok, I feel kind of stupid but where do you get a soup bone from? Is that what they are called?

[Carina43]

Originally posted by Luvs
Ok, I feel kind of stupid but where do you get a soup bone from? Is that what they are called?

Don't feel stupid!
The beef marrow (leg) bones can be bought at many supermarkets or butchers.

[Rott-Wiley]

Our local grocery store gets them in, cuts them up into 2 or 3 inch long sections and packages them to be boiled up as soup stock. The butcher there knows me and will seperate out a single bone or two at a time so I don't have to buy the whole package which is usually 6 or 8 bones. They are really great for the dog to gnaw on. :)

[Homerhomer]

Originally posted by Carina43


"...at least eight veterinarians in my area have treated hundreds of very sick dogs that were on raw meat diets."

Which is a: a vague and meaningless statement; she doesn't say sick from what - related to diet, what? and b: I don't believe it anyway - in most areas there probably aren't even "hundreds of dogs" who EAT raw, never mind get sick as a result. Think about it!

First of in the above statement she is referring to raw meat diet and not to raw meat and bones based diet. On one hand I agree with her that the diet based on raw meat and not much else are harmfull, on the other hand, like Carina said, you will probably not find hundreds of dogs eating it in any given area.
Any statement saying that one or few vets have seen hundreds of dogs sick from barf diet is simply a garbage, for one most of them have not seen hundreds barf fed dogs let alone sick once, and of the few sick barf fed dogs they do see what basis do they have to assume that the problem is barf related?
And majority of owners who started barf don't go back to commercial food and dogs dying and being sicker after the switch probably isn't a reason for sticking with it.

[Carina43]

Originally posted by Homerhomer

Any statement saying that one or few vets have seen hundreds of dogs sick from barf diet is simply a garbage, for one most of them have not seen hundreds barf fed dogs let alone sick once, and of the few sick barf fed dogs they do see what basis do they have to assume that the problem is barf related?

Not to mention many people who feed raw don't even TELL their vets they are doing so because it's such an oddly controversial issue! This came up on a raw yahoo group I'm on - most people make a big effort to try finding a vet who thinks it's OK to feed this way. Those that can't often just keep their mouths shut, unless the vet needs to know what the diet is for some reason.

It's disingenuous...there's a site somewhere that, in order to illustrate how awful a raw diet is, shows a stomach x-ray of a dog who has just eaten RMBs and you can see the bones quite clearly. Well duh, of course you can! I imagine if you x-rayed all my dogs after eating, you'd see the same thing. That's certainly not what comes out the other end, though. :p

[Carina43]

Just had to add this.
From this site: http://www.vetinfo.com/dogindex.html

Dogs ate cooked chicken bones

Q: I will continue my search elsewhere on the net since I note you prefer not to respond to emergengies! However - if you are online, I would be grateful if you could indicate whether I should wake up my vet (its the middle of the night here in the UK). I woke up to find my 2 7-year old dogs (12 kg and 9 kg respective weights) had, between them, eaten a small cooked chicken carcass, stripped of meat (prepared weight of bird about 3 lbs). Should they receive emergency treatment (e.g. to make them vomit?) Or should I just wait'n'see? They appear fine. In the absence of a response, I shall contact my vet at 1st light. Meanwhile, thanks for your excellent service.

A: You picked a time I was out of town, unfortunately. I hope the dogs are OK. Most of the time chicken bones seem to cause more problems when they reach the colon than anywhere else. We mostly see dogs that have eaten chicken bones and have a sort of concrete stool that they are having great difficulty passing. Stool softeners help sometimes, some dogs just go ahead and tough it out and strain until they pass the stool and other dogs we have to give enemas to or remove the stool manually. So far, in eighteen years of practice, I have not seen an intestinal or gastric perforation or other serious problem I could relate to chicken bones. Just the really hard stool problem.

Again, I hope this is a crisis past.

Mike Richards, DVM