Yes we had a big bag of Beneful, then someone told me it was like feeding kids McDonalds every day. So we got rid of it and DH researched dog foods, now we feed him Blue.

It's probably not the best dog food out there, but this "news" article is pretty weak. Not very journalisty at all.

However, snopes hasn't debunked it yet (though they certainly haven't confirmed it as true).

Most supermarket foods are full of fillers, so looking into it is a good idea. You want the happy medium of cost/health/tastiness! One of the issues that comes with feeding commercial foods is that several brands are usually processed in the same factory. If there is a contamination incident, then several lines of food can be affected.

We found Taste of the Wild to be rated well AND our snobby dogs will eat it. I found it at a local feed store for less than online sources. Also, the owner guarantees that your pet will eat it or he refunds your money. That's great customer service!

We've found grain-free products to make a big difference in overall health. They had terrible skin on Science Diet and I went through a lot of trials (this was about 7 yrs ago) to find something that would alleviate their symptoms and that they would eat. We went an alternative route, but having a commercial food for backup is convenient.

Check out dogfoodadvisor and dogfoodanalysis.

The consumer reports isn't accurate. Here is a link which explains that the FDA has not received anywhere near the number of complaints regarding beneful.

I don't feed it but no dogfood is perfect, they all have issues and anyone feeding kibble is taking a chance that at some point their brand will be recalled. Some have corn, some have lots of potatoes or peas or the company itself has had multiple sanitary issues which have resulted in many recalls. It is a gamble no matter what you feed and the most you can do if you feed commercial dogfood is to pick what works for your dog and what you are comfortable with.

Here is a link that might be useful: truth about dogfood fda beneful

Whole Dog Journal does an annual food evaluation that I would highly recommend.

Our Yorkie has chronic pancreatitis and is prone to urinary tract issues so we have to be very careful with her food.

We prefer raw, but we're having issues with feeding enough to keep weight on her before we got the pancreatitis diagnosis. I'd like to go back to raw/frozen (as opposed to home-prepared) because her coat looked its best then. I'm just afraid to try something new right now.

Self confessed 'dog food' snob here, but when I started reading ingredients in the food manufactured under many brands, that is when we switched to the higher-end foods (which are now found even in our grocery store, country max, pet store chains,etc. so much easier to find than when we first begain). The difference in our dog was almost instanteous. Previous ear, skin and digestive issues cleared up, and the volume of, ummm..., waste in the yard went down by at least half.

Agree with spanish's reference to the food evaluation information.

Meant to add to previous post- even "high quality" dog food can have this same risk. Diamond pet food was responsible for many deaths a while back. I guess it's just a gamble. My heart breaks for anyone who loses a pet so senselessly.

We do raw too. It is amazing what a difference it makes in their coat and in overall health.

We do raw too. It helps to have a freezer so you can buy in bulk when something delicious like chicken hearts or gizzards is on sale for .69/lb

A lot of the high end kibble manufacturers were hit with recalls when they sourced their ingredients from China and received melamine contaminated products. Raw products, OTOH, can cause salmonella. Although dogs have recently been shown to digest grains better than wolves, I prefer to use meat product dominant brands. Purina sources only North American grown raw ingredients so we feed Purina One Beyond and have been doing well with it. It actually smells pretty tasty, too.

Listed as an Urban legend in 2007:
Beneful Dog Food Safety Warning
Netlore Archive: Email flier warns that pet owners in different parts of the U.S. have reported the sudden deaths of dogs who ate Beneful Dog Food purchased at Wal-Mart in December 2006

Here is a link that might be useful: Beneful

We are feeding Blue Buffalo now after a terrible experience with worm like larvae and then moths in a bag of Purina. My husband called them and they said yeah, that happens. What ensued was a PITA. I had to get moth traps as they had already migrated to my pantry and what a mess. It has taken me over a year to get rid of every last one of those horrid creatures, not to mention opening a bag of dog food to see white wormy things is so disgusting!!! I felt so bad for my dogs and was worried that they would get worms or something. I remembered when I opened the bag a moth flew out but I kept looking in the bag and didn't see anything but then a couple of days later all heck broke loose... Purina did try to make it up to us by giving us coupons for some bags of dog food but once burned twice shy. Cost quite a bit to put things right again. BTW, the dogs were fine. I'm sure dogs eat all kinds of stuff in the wild but it worried me a lot but the vet said they were fine. They loved Beneful. It must be like the best thing ever as far as taste goes. I can't get one of my dogs to eat well. He's such a picky eater, he would eat Beneful at least for awhile before turning his nose up again. Oh well,,,sigh.

Oh gr8day, what an ordeal! I agree, dogs can handle a LOT more than us humans. Their digestive system is really efficient and quick, which helps reduce their risk. I mean, they can eat carrion and be fine. Yuck.

Lots of Raw feeders! I mentioned it on a different online forum and was taken to task for endangering my dogs. But, I researched for quite a while and take precautions to limit my dogs to potential problems. 7 yrs of excellent health after many visits to the vet that didn't solve their issues...I'm a believer.

It's funny when the vet is all praise about how good they look, great teeth, blood work is normal ( they are 10). That is until they ask what we feed. Then I get the lecture about how dangerous it is. Well, so is feeding commercial food. At least I know what goes into their bowls. It's nice to have convenience when they are being watched by someone else, so I always look for a brand that they will eat and that won't flare up any allergies.

It's nice to know how popular raw is here. I started raw when my dog was around 3 years old after hearing of its benefits. I fed raw for a few years until I moved to the country where the raw meat smell around the exterior of the house started attracting animals. Now my dog is about 11. He started having severe hip problems about 8 months ago to the point where he often couldn't move in the morning for at least a few hours. I decided to start raw again, and literally within a couple of days he was not only feeling better but also acting more energized and limber than he has in years. It's just a clear-as-day choice for me. I will never go back to regular dog food.

Don't some vets sell dog food? I did tons of reading before we started raw. Dogs have a very short digestive track so salmonella and other yucky things don't have a chance to take hold. Also their digestive tracks are acidic. my dog is a greyhound and there is a greyhound forum with of info on raw and many of people feeding raw.

alex9179 we got the same thing when we had to take my dog to a vet she doesn't normally go to (our regular vet is great and wouldn't argue). They commented how Molly was so soft and her blood work was so great and she was so healthy and then were appalled when we said we fed raw.

We are lucky to have a hunter in the family (my father-in-law) and I try to feed my pups from what he gets as much as possible so they can get the real natural free-range experience. My dogs can strip a deer or bear bone down to clean white like nobody's business (I always freeze the meat first for a few weeks).

Watching them eat the raw and hold the bones in their paws and get the meat off, it is just amazing to see the animal instinct come out, they just know instantly what to do.

This post was edited by beaglesdoitbetter on Thu, Jan 24, 13 at 21:44

Dogs have a very short digestive track so salmonella and other yucky things don't have a chance to take hold.

Actually the research revealing the overwhelming proportion of raw dog food that contains salmonella was conducted on racing greyhounds suffering gastroenteritis. Dogs do certainly get sick from bacterial contamination. You can feed your dog anything you want, but anecdote is not data, and there is really no good research showing the benefits of a raw diet. Gloss coats come from high fat content. You can follow what you believe but you are currently doing it in the absence of evidence until more studies are done.

after all the scares on melamine in dog food, and questionable ingredients, etc., we started to look for alternative ways to feed our dogs. one book I read mentioned something that really registered with me-- the fact that you can store dog food in a paper bag for months and it doesn't go bad, so imagine how many preservatives are in it.

there are many good cookbooks out there. and it surprisingly doesn't take too much effort to cook (and freeze) portions at a time - though i should mention my dog is a small bichon (who just turned 17!), so doesn't eat all that much.

I can't believe all the raw feeders here. I was going to comment on this post with something about raw feeding earlier and then didn't because I didn't feel like dealing with the flames that usually come when you mention that you feed raw.

But yeah, Beneful is bad news all the way around.

Several years ago when I was searching for the "perfect" food for my young dog I asked a long time dog trainer what she fed her dogs. She seemed to be very into holistic methods and I was hopeful for some direction for choosing a good dog food. She reported during the 30+ years she raised dogs she fed everything from supermarket brands to raw food to having special food flown in on an airplane. In this time she discovered that overall all her dogs had about the same life span and same general health. Her answer, "Don't worry about it."

I do think, however, one needs to be cautious about some of the unproven, off brands out there produced in other countries.

Freezing the food for a few weeks reduces bacterial risk. I think science absolutely supports the benefits of a natural diet. It's science that dogs are carnivores, opportunistic ones, but they were built for catching and eating prey. Their digestive systems aren't at odds with eating raw food. Kibble is a convenience, not a necessity. I don't advise people to go the raw route, though. Not everyone will research well enough to provide a balanced diet.

My vet's office sells Science Diet. That food caused skin problems with two of my dogs and you couldn't pay me to feed it to them. Vets don't have much of a nutrition background unless they make it their specialty and I've found that they don't necessarily keep up with new evidence unless you hand them an article/study that refutes what they are telling you. Which I did when our geriatric dog experienced some kidney function issues. My vet's recommendation was outdated and unsupported and I was able to stabilize his blood levels through a different diet.

I don't throw a carcass into my backyard and let them eat off of it until it's gone. We portion it out in two meals a day. Even if we lived in an area where that would be acceptable, my own weak stomach wouldn't be able to deal with it!

Interesting discussion! We've had many dogs over the years and used many foods, but haven't gone raw. I'm more aligned with camphappy's comments.

In the past few years I've had two dogs develop cancer. One died of lymphoma at age 8 and that was horrible. I can't say that his lymphoma was anything but a random disaster. However, the dog before him developed breast cancer. He was a neutered male! He was also a purebred Portuguese Water Dog, which made him pretty high risk for genetic issues; we weren't surprised that he lost his hearing and his thyroid function as he aged. We were very surprised at the breast cancer.

We remodeled our house a few years ago and put down natural wool carpeting. We also ditched the plastic dog bowls and feed in stainless steel now. I have come to feel that dogs, who spend their lives on the floor and in the yard, get exposed to environmental toxins that way much more than they do in their food. I hate it when my dog gets hot on her walk and starts lapping up drinks from street puddles, full of hydrocarbons and fertilizers etc. Food is probably the least of our problems, IMO!

On the other hand, our current dog is having skin problems. We feed Blue, but I am going to start looking into alternatives or maybe supplements to get her less bumpy and itchy.

I was recently listening to a dog program on a radio show on Sirius radio and the dog advisor (not sure of his credentials) said to feed wet food over dry food because it is less processed. I seem to worry more about what my dogs eat than what I eat...they even go to the vet more often and get a yearly physical! Thankfully for the most part I am a healthy person.

If you were going to feed store bought raw, what would it be?

Raw feeder here, too.

No, I'm pretty sure no studies show a benefit in raw but that makes perfect sense since studies are funded by pet food companies. Vet nutrition course material is often supplied by pet food companies, too.

No, biggie, raw isn't for everyone BUT there is no doubt that it is their natural diet. Dogs are not meant to consume cornmeal, wheat and soy and they certainly aren't meant to eat the preservatives and fillers. They are opportunistic carnivores which means mostly raw meat/bone/organ with some other stuff thrown in for fun (mine enjoys watermelon and small bits of Parmesan).

Is there risk in raw? Sure. Is there risk from kibble? Absolutely. Is there risk from walking down to road? Yep. Life is full of risks... you just have to make the best decisions you can with the information you have.

I agree with marcolo's take on raw food and other supposedly holistic "non preservative" foods. Dogs certainly do get sick from e.coli, salmonella, clostridium etc. There are very good canine nutritionalists and DVM's with degree's in nutrition. They know how to balance the food with proper carb:protein plus proper vitamin and minerals. Raw diets many times are not balanced and people feed them based on anecdotal statements. It is not uncommon for raw diets to also contain preservatives but they may not be required to list them , dependent on whether they fall under Pet Food legislation. As a society we can't even balance our own diets - how on earth can we balance another species diet? I always chuckle when raw meat/bone chewing proponents like to equate the success of wild canids to our domestic dogs and figure the wolves do it, so my dog can too. I guess it all depends how long you want your own dog to live as the average age of a wild canid is no where close to that of our domestic dogs. We don't see the ones that die of various diseases, and intestinal/ gastic obstruction and perforation deaths from ingesting bones.

Many, many food companies use the ingredient list to pump up their food and make it sound better than all the rest. There is nothing wrong with corn and rice being the first ingredient in a bag. It's a carbohydrate - they need it and use it for energy. It must be there! The other one is anything in a meal form - like it is a lower quality - in fact meal form (like chicken meal for instance) is still chicken , it must be in a meal form in order to formulate a dry diet. It may not be 100% meat but who cares - it is a high quality protein that your dog can use as a protein. Keep in mind though, chicken meal also varies in quality and can impact the price. Chicken meal, however can be used in a finished food at levels much greater than chicken meat. Chicken meal in a finished food provides roughly 4-5 times the nutrients as the same weight of chicken meat because of the differences in moisture.
So, a pet food made of chicken meat may only have 20% of the chicken in the final product, providing only 3.6% protein. An equivalent proportion of chicken meal would provide 13% protein.

The differences between pet food price lies in the quality of the ingredients purchased by the company - there are different grades of corn, grades of protein and grades of fat. They may all in the end have the same min % stated on the label but in fact the quality of the food is drastically different. One could meet the min % of protein with plant protein, however, the usable protein in this form is much less for our dogs than a meat protein. They could use both meat and plant protein, maybe more plant because it is cheaper but you can't tell. The other difference lies in the consistency of the ingredients as well - many companies buy their ingredients based on what is currently cheaper on the market. Again, the label on the bag will be the same but the content between lots of food will again be quite different. Finally, the quality control within the manufacturing facility itself can vary greatly. If they make several different kinds of food, the equipment may or may not be adequately cleaned between batches. Lots of reasons food from different companies will vary in price and in quality. In general, if a food is cheap, then consider the food at the low end in all the above categories.

Finally, one cannot compare the ingredient list and stated min/max % on a bag of food and draw any conclusions. You cannot compare brands of food from the nutritional list and state that they are the same or one is better than the other.

What do I do? I feed a food from my vet. It is a food company that is dedicated to pet nutrition - it's what they do. They run feeding trials and can back up their claims. There is hard, scientific evidence that the quality of the food is top notch and one bag is identical to the next. As a company, they conduct research into nutritional issues and health related problems that can be impacted with a different diet. My vet has visited the manufacturing facility, spoken with the company nutritionists and witnessed the impeccable standards to which they hold themselves.

I have been feeding the same food for 20 years. My two labs each lived just shy of 15 years. They enjoyed good health with no chronic issues. My Maine Coon cat just passed away at the age of 16 - wonderful healthy cat his whole life. None of my pets receive table food or left over scraps.

Pet food is tough because there are so many to choose from and it is easy to get caught up in unsubstantiated claims.

Used Iams for years.

My last two labs made it longer than 13 years, an one had a litter of 12 puppies.

I had a dog break a tooth on a big cow bone that some well meaning person gave her, so I'm reluctant to feed bones. Dogs can also be asymptomatic carriers of salmlonella. My dogs all seem to live into a healthy old age despite eating kibble...and probably the occasional pantry moth larva not to mention all the cat fudge they can get away with.

I think we tend to attribute a lot of problems to food that really shouldn't be. My oldest dog gets an occasional left ear infection, my youngest dog's right ear sometimes goes wonky and my middle dog never has ear problems. Nobody has had an ear infection since we switched food, but honestly, I just think that's a coincidence.

I've noticed that dog food is one of the more impassioned arguments on GW.

No, biggie, raw isn't for everyone BUT there is no doubt that it is their natural diet.

Couldn't be further from the truth. Dogs have no natural diet apart from humans. Dogs are a creation of humans. Dog domestication started something like 30,000 years ago, and after that dogs evolved very differently from wolves, in their fur, their skin, their brains, their skulls and yes, in the food they eat. When humans started breeding dogs from wolves, probably accidentally at first and on purpose later, people had already been cooking their food for hundreds of thousands and possibly more than a million years already.

Humans eat rare meat that is red and bloody, steak tartar, sushi, barely cooked tuna, carpaccio, MacDonalds, etc. My dog eats venison, free range, no anti biotic, chicken, grass feed meat, free running chicken eggs, etc. He has a gorgeous coat. He is healthy. He has nice breath and no dog smell. There's much more, but regarding kitchens, my kitchen is maple and green and he is white with a touch of brown and he matches perfectly.

Oops....didn't mean to start something here. Dumb thinking on my part. When we were feeding raw it was frozen prepared.

The other thing is water content. We moved off kibble because of low water content for the urine issues and higher fat for the pancreatitis.

After a really bad round of pancreatitis as we were moving back into the house, our dog started loosing weight on canned alone (which tends to be lower calorie than dense kibble).

Then I started looking for a low fat, lower protien, grain free kibble. Grains make her itchy in addition to her other health issues. I found a Wellness weight loss formula that seems to work.

We feed mostly a Wellness grain free canned stew with a very small amount of the new kibble. We add a powder supplement for bladder health and another one for vitamins/general well being. We have to watch quantity and feeding frequency depending on any signs of her various issues.

If we deviate from this diet to anything slightly higher in fat, she shows signs of a pancreatitis flare up within hours. I mace the mistake one day of substituting a different canned formula and she was sick within an hour. I can say its very stressful for all of us.

Lucky for us, she's seven pounds on a good day so we can afford just about anything for her. She's a rescue so I don't know her background.

"Couldn't be further from the truth..."

Eck... I hate this debate because it just devolves into a giant fight. I don't find feeding kibble objectionable but neither is a raw diet objectionable and for me, I can't get past the physical aspect of dogs that makes me believe they are meant to eat a carnivorous diet.

Rather than write out a whole spiel, I'll copy and paste someone who lays out a case better than I can.

Myth: DOGS ARE OMNIVORES.

This is false. Dogs are carnivores, not omnivores. Dogs ARE very adaptable, but just because they can survive on an omnivorous diet does not mean it is the best diet for them. The assumption that dogs are natural omnivores remains to be proven, whereas the truth about dogs being natural carnivores is very well-supported by the evidence available to us.

1.) Dentition

Look into your dog or cat's mouth. Those huge impressive teeth (or tiny needle sharp teeth) are designed for grabbing, ripping, tearing, shredding, and shearing meat (Feldhamer, G.A. 1999. Mammology: Adaptation, Diversity, and Ecology. McGraw-Hill. pg 258.). They are not equipped with large flat molars for grinding up plant matter. Their molars are pointed and situated in a scissors bite (along with the rest of their teeth) that powerfully disposes of meat, bone, and hide. Carnivores are equipped with a peculiar set of teeth that includes the presence of carnassial teeth: the fourth upper premolar and first lower molar.

Contrast this with your own teeth or the teeth of a black bear. A black bear is a true omnivore, as are we. We have nice, large, flat molars that can grind up veggies. Black bears, while having impressive canine teeth, also have large flat molars in the back of their mouth to assist in grinding up plant matter. Dogs and most canids lack these kinds of molars. Why? Because they don't eat plant matter. Teeth are highly specialized and are structured specifically for the diet the animal eats, and the difference between a bear's teeth and a dog's teeth (both species are in Order Carnivora) demonstrates how this can be (Feldhamer, G.A. 1999. Mammology: Adaptation, Diversity, and Ecology. McGraw-Hill. pgs 260.). To see a visual comparison of the teeth of a dog to the teeth of a black bear, please click here. One can logically ask: If a dog (or cat or ferret) has the dentition of a carnivorous animal, why do we feed it pelleted, grain-based food?

2.) Musculature and external anatomy

Dogs (and cats) are equipped with powerful jaw muscles and neck muscles that assist in pulling down prey and chewing meat, bone, and hide. Their jaws hinge open widely, allowing them to gulp large chunks of meat and bone. Their skulls are heavy, and are shaped to prevent lateral movement of the lower jaw when captured prey struggles (the mandibular fossa is deep and C-shaped); this shape permits only an up-and-down crushing motion, whereas herbivores and omnivores have flatter mandibular fossa that allows for the lateral motion necessary to grind plant matter (Feldhamer, G.A. 1999. Mammology: Adaptation, Diversity, and Ecology. McGraw-Hill. pgs 258-259.). Consider this quote from the previously-cited Mammology text:

"Canids, felids, and mustelids subsist mainly on freshly killed prey. These families show correspondingly greater development in 'tooth and claw'; they also have greater carnassial development and cursorial locomotion." (pg 260)

This translates to a simple fact: everything about a dog or cat's body design says they were designed for a carnivorous, hunting lifestyle geared toward killing prey. However, humans have done some major tinkering with this body design (resulting in varying sizes and conformations), but we have done nothing to change the internal anatomy and physiology of our carnivorous canines.

3.) Internal anatomy and physiology

Dogs and cats have the internal anatomy and physiology of a carnivore (Feldhamer, G.A. 1999. Mammology: Adaptation, Diversity, and Ecology. McGraw-Hill. pg 260.). They have a highly elastic stomach designed to hold large quantities of meat, bone, organs, and hide. Their stomachs are simple, with an undeveloped caecum (Feldhamer, G.A. 1999. Mammology: Adaptation, Diversity, and Ecology. McGraw-Hill. pg 260.). They have a relatively short foregut and a short, smooth, unsacculated colon. This means food passes through quickly. Vegetable and plant matter, however, needs time to sit and ferment. This equates to longer, sacculated colons, larger and longer small intestines, and occasionally the presence of a caecum. Dogs have none of these, but have the shorter foregut and hindgut consistent with carnivorous animals. This explains why plant matter comes out the same way it came in; there was no time for it to be broken down and digested (among other things). People know this; this is why they tell you that vegetables and grains have to be preprocessed for your dog to get anything out of them. But even then, feeding vegetables and grains to a carnivorous animal is a questionable practice.

Dogs do not normally produce the necessary enzymes in their saliva (amylase, for example) to start the break-down of carbohydrates and starches; amylase in saliva is something omnivorous and herbivorous animals possess, but not carnivorous animals. This places the burden entirely on the pancreas, forcing it to produce large amounts of amylase to deal with the starch, cellulose, and carbohydrates in plant matter. Thus, feeding dogs as though they were omnivores taxes the pancreas and places extra strain on it, as it must work harder for the dog to digest the starchy, carbohydrate-filled food instead of just producing normal amounts of the enzymes needed to digest proteins and fats (which, when fed raw, begin to "self-digest" when the cells are crushed through chewing and tearing and their enzymes are released).

Nor do dogs have the kinds of friendly bacteria that break down cellulose and starch for them. As a result, most of the nutrients contained in plant matter�even preprocessed plant matter�are unavailable to dogs. This is why dog food manufacturers have to add such high amounts of synthetic vitamins and minerals (the fact that cooking destroys all the vitamins and minerals and thus creates the need for supplementation aside) to their dog foods. If a dog can only digest 40-60% of its grain-based food, then it will only be receiving 40-60% (ideally!) of the vitamins and minerals it needs. To compensate for this, the manufacturer must add a higher concentration of vitamins and minerals than the dog actually needs.

Is the dog an omnivore? Its dentition, internal and external anatomy, and physiology say it is not. Even its evolutionary history (discussed later) says the dog is a carnivore. So when people tell you the dog is an omnivore, ask: "What about this animal makes you think it is an omnivore?" Make them explain their position to you before you explain yours.

http://rawfed.com/myths/omnivores.html

See, this is the part that gets me.

To be clear, I don't really care what people feed their own dogs. (Just be extra careful not to get its poop anywhere I might step on it; salmonella and e. coli are shed in feces.)

What gets me is pseudo-science.

dutty, life is too short to read somebody's pseudoscientific propaganda, and I wasn't even going to read your cut-and-pasted text, because life is too short, when by accident I noticed this:
This translates to a simple fact: everything about a dog or cat's body design says they were designed for a carnivorous, hunting lifestyle geared toward killing prey. However, humans have done some major tinkering with this body design (resulting in varying sizes and conformations), but we have done nothing to change the internal anatomy and physiology of our carnivorous canines.

Whether this individual is too stupid to know what they are talking about, or is outright lying, I do not know.

But nothing about dogs is more heavily documented than their evolution away from wolves and away from hunting. A dog's brain is far smaller and is less suited to environmental awareness and quick reaction--abilities needed for life in the wild. A dog's jaws are much, much smaller than a wolf's, and the teeth are smaller, too (the jaw got smaller first). You can't even compare the length of its tract to a cat's--the cat, a true carnivore, has a much shorter tract than a dog. A dog's behavior is different, too. They don't cooperate hunting in pacts the way wolves do, and do not make terribly efficient hunters even when feral.

The screed goes on to mix up its argument with non sequitors, talking about "canids" and hoping you don't notice it's trying to make you think it said dogs. Dogs display very great differences from the other canids, from bone structure to feeding pups with regurgitated food.

This is the kind of embarrassing mess that gives raw food such a bad name. I'm not going into line by line detail because it's a waste of time.

So, feed your dog what you want. Just leave the junk science behind. There is not a shred of evidence that dogs evolved to eat only raw meat, or only meat period--they evolved specifically to live alongside humans who cook. There is certainly no evidence that a raw diet is better for dogs; the studies haven't been done. And of course a raw diet presents documented risks. You can say, "So does a packaged diet," and that's fine, but there's no proof a raw diet is statistically safer.

I've seen too many raw diet arguments based on a big, big whopper of a mistake: that dogs were wild animals that we domesticated. No, the wild animals we domesticated were wolves. After we made them ours, they became dogs. I'm amazed at how many people don't know that.

ETA: OMG perfect timing!
WASHINGTON You know that dog biscuit shaped like a bone but made mostly of wheat? The fact that your dog is satisfied with it instead of going for a piece of your thigh may be one of the big reasons why its ancestors evolved from wolves to house pets.

A team of Swedish researchers has compared the genomes of wolves and dogs and found that a big difference between the two is a dog’s ability to easily digest starch. On its way from pack-hunting carnivore to fireside companion, dogs learned to love --" or at least live on--" wheat, rice, barley, corn and potatoes.

As it turns out, that’s also a change that human beings underwent as they came out of the forest, built permanent settlements and began to grow grain.

“I think it is a striking case of co-evolution,” said Erik Axelsson, a geneticist at Uppsala University. “The fact that we shared a similar environment in the last 10,000 years caused a similar adaptation. And the big change in the environment was the development of agriculture.”

Read more here

This post was edited by marcolo on Fri, Jan 25, 13 at 17:30

Marcolo- Are you a scientist able to determine that this is pseudoscientific propaganda? Are you so familiar with Feldhamer's work that you can make that pronouncement? The LA Museum of Natural History mammology department recommends his book. I think this discussion has gotten out of hand. My dog will continue to eat raw and if you have a dog, it will eat otherwise and I'm sure we both take good watchful care to make sure our pets are doing fine.
Laura
http://www.nhm.org/site/research-collections/mammalogy/resources

We feed raw as well. For us, it's simple, because we have access to everything needed on our own property. We are nearly an hour from the closest store that carries a high quality food, and we might make the trip once every two months, if that. Our inherited beagle is now down to a healthy weight that is easily maintained. When we rescued our lab hound mix, she came with a 50# bag of Science Diet that was supposed to be fixing a bad case of diarrhea. After a slow transition to raw, the diarrhea cleared, and so did her horribly flaky skin. Maybe it was just coincidence, maybe because there was less stress in a home situation vs kenneled at a vet clinic, or maybe it was the diet, I'll never know, but it's working for us. That being said, if we lived closer to somewhere with a quality food, I'd buy it and feed it to them.

Oh yeah, there are those flames I was expecting!

I'd like to transition my dogs from dry kibble (with human dinner meat treats) to a more raw diet.

My problem is I have no idea how much to feed them!
I've dieted on dog down from 74 to 47 lbs (she's much happier and active), my foster pug from 30 to 26, and the foster chihuahua remains stable and his fine little weight.

The vets all tell me how great my cats' and dogs' teeth are, but how they're a little too "hefty".

I have a cat whose food I've restricted for 3 years and she still tops out at about 24lbs. I have no idea how to change this. I really would like to move everyone towards a less processed food.

Just don't know how to start!

CEFreeman there are some very good groups on Yahoo that have people have been raw feeding for a long time and that are very helpful. You can join the Raw Feeding for dogs and cats! Group. Their archives have a lot of good info and you can also start threads and ask questions about transitioning, meal planning, etc.

The ideal weight for my beagles is 30 pounds each. I feed about 1.5 pounds per dog per day of food. I think most estimates suggest feeding between 1-3 percent of your dog's body weight. Not sure about cats, although I do know that there are people who have had great luck with raw fed cats.

CEFreeman-Beagles is right. There are many sites out there that can tell you how to feed raw. Good luck. I think it's well worth it.

Our 70 pound 6 y/o chocolate lab/husky mix is fed raw. Mostly chicken parts and beef meaty bones, like soup bones with some other bones like marrow for gnawing. We'll give him a breast, or a couple of thighs or about 4 drumsticks or wings if it's chicken. We just kind of eyeball it and go with what feels right. He also helps with table scraps and I'll give him a spoon of coconut oil a couple times a week... LOVES that. His teeth are gorgeous, no tartar at all. Beautiful choppers on that boy!

One thing we read that seemed to make sense was that wild dogs don't get to eat everyday, they feast when they have a kill and then may go for days without eating again. Anyway, the thought was that a fast one day a week was good for them. Gotta say that Rummy (dog) is not a big fan of this idea, lol.

Here he is fwiw:

Dry food feeders, check out this site...

Here is a link that might be useful: Dog Food Analysis

My 70 lb lab eats Blue, don't recall off-hand which one. Or Wellness. About 3 C kibble per day, split between morning and night. In a pinch we've used other brands such as Newman's Own or Beneful, and he gets itchy ears and noxious gas. When my husband dropped our two dogs at boarding for a week he forget to send food, so they fed them Science Diet. The lab was fine, but the rat terrier came home with horrible dandruff. She gets kibble in the morning and a small can at night.

We probably won't feed raw because kibble is just easier. :)

My Lab gets his dinner served in frozen Kongs. I learned about this from a book by Dr. Ian Dunbar (you can Google him). I mix kibble, cottage cheese, a bit of peanut butter and yogurt (glue) and stuff Kong's with this mixture. I then freeze the Kongs. Koda Boy gets 4 frozen Kongs each night - it takes him about 45 minutes to eat his dinner. Some think this is supreme cruelty... These folks have never seen Koda with his Kongs. :-)

My breeder recommended CostCo's Kirkland dry dog food, which is what we feed.

CF Freeman---Books that I found helpful (raw & cooked diets for cats & dogs)
The Nature Of Animal Healing-- Martin Goldstein
The Whole Pet Diet-- Andi Brown
Andi Brown does sell pet food(She sold off Halo which was her first pet food company) but also gives great recipes and a newsletter on her website. The website is very informative.
I took my adopted cat off Fancy Feast--she LOVES the "spot's Chicken(or Turkey) stew which I cook & freeze.

Here is the url to a dog focused blog I enjoy: http://www.patriciamcconnell.com/theotherendoftheleash/

In her most recent blog she has a link to the abstract from a paper recently published in the journal Nature. The authors found that dogs have enzymes for digestion that are not found in wolves. She also mentions other studies re differences in wolf and dog pups.

I feed my dogs a mix of kibble and raw - raw being mostly bones but also fish scraps of all sorts. Better than brushing their teeth :).

One thing we read that seemed to make sense was that wild dogs don't get to eat everyday,

There's no such thing as wild dogs, deedles. All dogs are domesticated, even if they're feral. They don't exist in nature apart from humans. There are things we do call wild dogs, like the African kind, but they're not only a different species, they're a different genus. So, no, dogs did not evolve to hunt like wolves and make an occasional big kill. They evolved to hang around us and eat our leftovers, especially grains. (I crack up at sites that make grains sound so evil in dog food but potatoes are ok because dogs somehow evolved to digest them better. LOL.)

Marcolo: oh, well... if that is the case, then Rummy just became your best friend. When I give him his chicken leg tonight (instead of doing the wild dog fast night), I'll tell him it's courtesy of Marcolo from Gardenweb. He will like you. I don't think he ever really bought into wild dog fast night, anyway. :)

I'll have to do a little origin of dawgz research...

Canis lupus familiaris

They are so domesticated they are not even 'domesticus' (like housecats are Felis domesticus).

They separated from gray wolves many thousands of years ago, and we have selectivity bred them into hundreds of different breeds for our purposes.

There is no reason to expect their feeding requirements to have much at all to do with present wild animals like wolves (that also have been changing in the intervening years though likely more randomly).