Feeding Pet Dog Raw Meat

[JLB Please excuse me, I'm a Dick. Not a moron just a Dick Find all posts View Profile Close JLB]

OK, enough of this timeshare stuff! Let's talk about the really important stuff!


Someone got on the Internet and found something saying to feed your household pets raw meat and fish, because if they were still wild that's what they would be eating, that's what their little bodies are designed to handle.

So, now all of her cats are getting salmon, not canned or dry catfood, and her little puppy is getting pork steak, complete with the bone to chew up and devour. Chicken too.

The puppy has never had an eating problem and has devoured whatever you put in front of her--Ol Roy, Puppy Chow, Your Fingers!--and the cats have just been normal finicky cats, but have always eaten, eventually, both the quality canned and dry food put in front of them.

All of the pets are healthy, and although the littlest cat has always had an eating disorder (involuntary regurgitation) and only weighs four ounces ( ), she is like 17 years old! She has never weighed more.

So, has this person gone off the deep end because of one site she found on the Internet?

PS: This person has not sent her husband out with his club to slay a saber-tooth tiger, to be eaten raw because fire has not been discovered yet, because that's what we would be doing if we were still wild(er).

[Spence Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close Spence]

Our vet recommended BARF - Biological Appropriate Raw Food. Google it to find more details.

[BoardGirl Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close BoardGirl]

Feeding raw has been around a long while. I don't choose to go that way, but don't discount reports that it is very beneficial to the pet. Sure would skip all the tainted food problems of late.

I have been known to make my own food and treats for the dog, so you could consider me off the deep end. wouldn't be the first time...

when we were actively training for agility, I found no better treat than homemade tuna brownies. I had the most alert dog ever, willing to do ANYTHING I asked of her for just a tiny morsel. Downside, tho, is she would then smell as if she'd just come from a big dinner at Red Lobster.

Who isn't totally happy after a seafood meal?!?!

[JLB Please excuse me, I'm a Dick. Not a moron just a Dick Find all posts View Profile Close JLB]

Of course, you mean Shell's.

It seems pup's diet has been amended to mostly Ol Roy and Puppy Chow, with some occasional raw meat and bones.

As I reach for the cans of cat food, I'm finding some is cat food and some is tuna or mackeral.

[Barbeque Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Barbeque]

Hey JLB dont you have any Catfish locally??? They could feed a couple of pets. Buy the way many years ago my grandpa caught an 85 pound catfish in the Missouri River.

[wackymother Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close wackymother]

We have a neighbor who feeds her dog raw food--but it's raw chicken and meat from the grocery store. (Actually, sorry, I'm horrified to say that it's from Whole Foods. I can't even afford to buy meat for MY CHILDREN from there.) Another neighbor is very shocked by this b/c she says raw meat is raw meat, that dogs can get the same illnesses that we can from raw meat, like e. coli and salmonella and trichinosis. Meanwhile, the dog on the raw meat diet looks perfectly healthy, but so does the other neighbor's dog, who eats only cooked chicken breast. And so does our dog, who eats Purina One.

BTW, I just recently read that pork bones are just as splintery as chicken bones and they shouldn't be given to dogs. Our poor dog was really, really sad the other day when we had ribs. I don't know about raw pork bones, if they're just as bad as cooked.

[JLB Please excuse me, I'm a Dick. Not a moron just a Dick Find all posts View Profile Close JLB]

Yeah, we have catfish. The biggest one I have caught was 18 pounds, but I caught it while fishing for bass in an inner tube. It dragged me around a small lake, and while it was pulling me around the lake, it started raining. A typical outing for me!

R in BARF stands for Raw. It is the cooking of the bones that makes them splintery, so it says.

Dock has been getting frozen pork steak, bone-in. The prepared BARF diets that you can order are beef patties and stuff like that. I don't know if they are delivered frozen or not, but the minimum delivery charge on one I saw was $25.

Some dog owners in the big, extended family that shares the seasonal house down the road are here this week. Dock likes to play with Thermal and Rocket. We talked to them the other night and they feed a mix of raw, too, especially bones and stew meat. They also make regular visits to the Dog Park, and socialize with 30-50 other dogs, another thing that is recommended.