Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Beth on February 26, 2010 at 12:15pm

Oh, agreed 100%! As a human example, for instance, adults of African and many European descents tend to be lactose intolerant. Adults of Nordic descent tend to not be, since traditionally their diets included lots of dairy.

Part of digestion is physical structure, which takes ages to change. But a big part of digestion is enzymes or gut flora, which can evolve very, very rapidly. In the case of gut flora, it can change within days or weeks (for a natural example, they have autopsied white tailed deer who literally starved to death with a belly full of corn because their gut had already switched over to "winter" mode of surviving on bark and twigs and stuff. Deer in the same environment who are supplemented with corn and hay from autumn, before the switchover, do just fine. Those who are already switched to bark mode and suddenly fed corn can't cope with the quick adjustment).

Dogs have lived with us and been fed by us or supplemented by our cast-offs for tens of thousands of years. That can and does impact digestion. For a wild canine example, some populations of coyotes have a diet that is predominately prickly pear. :)

Permalink Reply by Rachael & Waffle on February 26, 2010 at 9:25pm

http://www.thehonestkitchen.com/

My breeder has been feeding this for 6 years, and I will be doing the same when I get Waffle. It's human grade--they went to court to be able to put that label on the bag. It's made in a plant that makes human food. It's dehydrated, and honestly, reading the description makes me want to eat it too. It's better than how I eat! D: It's expensive, but it rehydrates to a LOT of food. Think about it.

Permalink Reply by Sky and Lyla on February 28, 2010 at 8:05am

This is great food, Waffle will love it. It is very expensive though, that's the drawback. I feed it is only part of my guys diet for that very reason. They love it though!!

Permalink Reply by Beth on February 27, 2010 at 11:57pm

I'm curious about the flea/tick/parasite thing. My understanding is the huge majority of wild animals, including carnivores on a natural diet, have heavy parasite loads.

So I am curious as to where the information comes from that feeding a certain way will help the immune system and therefore increase parasite resistance.

By the way, I take medication that is immune-suppressing and the mosquitoes don't go anywhere near me (and never did, even before the medication). My husband has never had more than a cold in the entire time I've known him and they just love him to death; I've had them fly past me to attack him. :-) I'm not so sure they are sizing up our immune systems... If you think about it, our immune systems do not fight or attack external parasites (and don't do a good job on larger internal parasites, like worms), so parasites would have no reason to evolve a method of detecting an immune system in a potential host which will have no impact on them. Of course an animal with a weakened immune system already can be more likely to succumb to other things if a heavy parasite load weakens them further, so perhaps that is what you are referring to.

Please don't take it the wrong way because we all feed what we think is best. :-) It's just people keep making these claims and I haven't seen any links to any studies, so I am genuinely curious where the information originates from. I have spent several hours on line looking for anything to back up the assertions and have yet to find a single thing, so I'd love to be directed to any major studies that support this.

Permalink Reply by Beth on February 28, 2010 at 10:04am

Thank you for all your hard work! I'm sorry that I guess I wasn't clear. What I was looking for was not the opinions of proponents of a certain plan, but studies that show the results they claim. A study would be, for example, "we fed 300 dogs diet x and 300 dogs diet y and then exposed them to pathogen A. The dogs fed diet x got sick at a percentage of abc, and the dogs fed diet y got sick at a percentage of def. The results were statistically significant."

Because when doctors and researchers make diet claims in people, those are the sorts of studies they use. Or they use self-reporting studies where, after the fact, they ask people to list in detail what sort of diet they have been on, and compare rates of different illnesses.

I could talk about heartworm and the way disease prevalences concentrate in areas where animals (or people) are in close proximity, if you like, but I'm not sure you want to wander down that road. :) To make a long story short, wild carnivores defend territories bitterly from outsiders. Coyotes don't meet in the coyote park like dogs meet in the dog park. You are much less likely yourself to catch the flu if you stay home for a week then if you spend a week on a cruise ship during the height of flu season. The reason isn't that cruises are inherently illness causing, but that you have increased exposure. We put domestic dogs and cats in unnatural situations every day by keeping them in much higher concentrations per square mile than they would ever exist in a natural state. WIld predators don't routinely make close social contact with other wild predators. In cases where animals come together in large groups regularly, disease most certainly wipes out huge numbers; the West Nile Virus you mention has wreaked havoc on the populations of certain highly social birds, such as crows. http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2007/05/16/westnile/ says that nationally, about 1/3 of all crows have been wiped out by the virus. I presume they are primarily eating a "raw" diet.

And here's one study about why mosquitos are attracted to one person more than others (it also mentions flies on cows). They don't mention immune systems.
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/19125.php

Permalink Reply by Beth on February 28, 2010 at 11:49am

I was just going to post something and saw your answer!

This is from the WIki article already cited on the Pottenger cat study:

"One study used by many people feeding pets a raw diet to back up their claims of raw food being superior to cooked food is Francis M. Pottenger, Jr.'s study of 900 cats over a period of 10 years from 1932 to 1942.[52] His results showed that cats that were fed 2/3 raw meat, 1/3 raw milk and a small amount of cod liver oil were disease free and healthy while those fed the same food with the meat cooked developed degenerative diseases and reproductive difficulties, with new generations plagued with health problems. The study was done before the importance of taurine in a cat's diet was known and it has been suggested that the group of Pottenger's cats on cooked food simply suffered from taurine deficiency as heating or cooking food causes a reduction in taurine content.[53] Pottenger himself concluded that there was likely an "as yet unknown" protein factor that may have been heat sensitive.[citation needed] In a study on feline maternal taurine deficiency, the group of taurine-deficient cats exhibited symptoms similar to the Pottenger's cats on a cooked diet.[54]"

There are lots of sources out there that make similar claims regarding human diet. As I said, Atkins or Dr. Ornish: totally opposite diets, both have studies to back their claims, at least.

Permalink Reply by Ashley and Copper on February 28, 2010 at 4:20pm

You mentioned this was from 1932 to 1942 for the cats study. I'm sure this was true back then, but what about now? I agree completely with you, Beth. My question goes out to "Love Biscuit". Don't you think that things have come a LONG way since then? Look at how different the world is today versus then. I was actually just talking to my great grandpa about this an hour ago. He was born in 1920 and we were talking about how drastically everything has changed. Don't you think pet food would have changed also?

Permalink Reply by Ashley and Copper on February 28, 2010 at 9:46pm

I do not know why everyone has to get so ridiculous about this subject. Honestly, I do not. I came asking for opinions and advice. Not for everyone to start telling me what was better and that basically what I feed my dog is junk. I am really open minded but when everyone started getting persnickety, I started doing my own research and I personally cannot find anything that states one is better than the other. I try to counterargument things. I try to look at both sides of everything but when people start to get mean, I get defensive. I didn't start the discussion looking for a fight. Just insight and maybe some knowledge. I think this got blown wayyy out of proportion.

Permalink Reply by Ashley and Copper on February 28, 2010 at 11:57am

This is to everyone in general in this great debate lol. I just had to pick someone to reply to and this is where I chose. The first thing I would like to educate everyone on is while checking out Wikipedia, don't believe everything you read. We just had a big discussion in one of my classes discussing how that site is not a very credible source as anyone can go in and change information. Just wanted to give everyone a heads up on that.:) Now moving on to the next thing. I have searched and searched AND searched about raw vs. kibble. I changed the words in my searches to many different things and so on and so forth. I can't find anything that truly gives you insight into which is best. I did find a site that said while raw food does well for some dogs, other dogs cannot handle that type of diet and can become low or deficient in the key nutrients to keeping a dog healthy. This study came straight from two AKC veterinarians; thus, making it hard to believe they just tried one way and called it quits. Some dogs thrive on a raw diet but I found some more information that states that the troubles with raw diet are that the bacteria that comes with a raw diet can cause serious health problems to people who have "not so great" immune systems and it could send them to the hospital or cause death. This includes other animals that are around and not on a raw diet or other animals that the raw diet is not good for. I'm not going to sit her and say "If you feed your dog a raw diet, you will die" I'm not here to do that at all and while I have also found that feeding a raw diet does help with certain dogs' healths by keeping nice teeth, shiny coats, great stools, and high energy and muscle mass, my question still remains: is it right for my dog? I'm not sure who it was that had mentioned it earlier but someone said "of course your dog is going to have all of these characteristics from kibble because the dog food producers know this." How can they make food that disguises these things? I'm not being smart. I would love any input as I'm just trying to educate myself further in this. I did find earlier in an article that dog kibble is not what it used to be, it's better. They are now making kibble that provides essential nutrients and vitamins that are great for our dogs. I guess we could argue this into the ground and over and over and over again and we will probably all come out with the same opinion that we walked in with. It's not that I'm against the raw diet, it's just that I don't think it's something I want to give my boy because it would be my luck that it wouldn't work for him and I would end up with a BIG mess and a lot of stress on my hands. I also wanted to bring up the immune system comment. I have never heard of that. My great grandpa who is 90 can sit outside all day and night and not get touched. I can sit out, being almost 22, and get a little bit but my brother who is 14 will get covered in them. That kid is in sports, eats fruits and vegetables like they will be banished from earth tomorrow and rarely ever gets sick and he gets it the worst. I've had mononucleosis which is said to weaken your immune system to where it will never be as strong and I don't get eaten up really. Maybe 10 bites a year at the most. I also know that where I live, sand fleas come a dime a dozen. Even before I started giving Pooh the flea preventative, he never got him and all I was feeding him was the most hated Iams. lol I also want to say that my vet is quite possibly one of the most informative and intelligent people I have ever met and he is SO wrapped up in animals. I have a hard time believing that he would offer me something that would harm my dog like the flea and heartworm preventative. He doesn't shove it down my throat or tell me I have to buy it or I can kiss my dog good bye, he simply informs me of the pros AND cons and lets me make my own decision. I have never had a dog react badly to it and they don't get fleas, ticks or heartworms which = healthy and stress free for me. And last but not least, our dogs are not wild. They don't have to go out and hunt their own food, they don't have to starve to death all winter or switch their diet because the food is harder to find. They are pets. They are exposed to a lot of things that wild animals are not and also wild animals have been doing this for hundreds of thousands and some even millions of years. They have become immune to a lot of things that could kill our domestic animals in a second. Our dogs don't have to become immune to the dangers that wild animals do because they aren't exposed to the factors of the wild. If we pulled a coyote into our household and started feeding them a certain diet and so on and so forth, we would probably have a LOT of problems and also risk exposing ourself to some dangers. I also have one more question just for the sake of the argument. I'm not sure on the answer and I have to leave here so I don't have time to really research it, but I will later. Does an animal in the wild survive with rabies? How would our domestic animals take it? It all boils down to the fact that we don't live, love and take care of wild animals. What works for the animals who rely on themselves in the wild doesn't mean it's going to work for our animals. We also don't hang around wild animals so we are also less likely to be affected by some of the diseases and things that come with those animals. In the wild as well as the household, they are completely different ball games.

Permalink Reply by Aber, Ragnar and Kelso on February 28, 2010 at 8:28pm

This is a really long post, so I wanted to pull out the part to respond to. You say: "the troubles with raw diet are that the bacteria that comes with a raw diet can cause serious health problems to people who have "not so great" immune systems and it could send them to the hospital or cause death. This includes other animals that are around and not on a raw diet or other animals that the raw diet is not good for."

If this is true, then people with compromised immune systems can never be around uncooked food, and can never cook their own food--in fact, every morsel of food that enters their home must be pre-cooked, so by extension, they would have to live on carry out?

I'm really a little confused by the fear surrounding raw food. People who sterilize their kitchens after handling it and feeding it, yet what is the difference between putting some raw chicken in a bowl for your dog and putting some raw chicken on a cutting board for yourself before sticking it in a pan or in the oven? Why when it's for you and it gets cooked later is it somehow less scary, but if the dog consumes it raw there's such greater handling concerns? It's still raw at some point in your hands. But if you're that frightened that your raw food is crawling with e-coli and salmonella etc, then you probably don't want to eat it after it's been cooked either. Maybe some of the issues with raw come from the food deriving from factory farms where the living animals dwell in their own feces.

Permalink Reply by Ashley and Copper on February 28, 2010 at 8:36pm

I was not speaking of just the process of feeding. The site I was reading on ( and I found a couple, I bookmarked one) talks about the feces other animals could get into and think of it this way, You throw a piece of raw chicken in a bowl, your dog eats it and then goes and licks your child in the face, or the child's toys, and there's a transfer. It talked about about elderly people as well. I'm not a freak about raw food at all, that's not what I was talking about in general. I was just providing facts there but like I said, I'm not going to feed it to Copper and if people want to feed their dogs a raw diet, Great! I'm not judging, just saying that kibble isn't the devil lol

Permalink Reply by Ashley and Copper on February 28, 2010 at 10:37pm

I agree. I know you didn't say that but it was stated earlier in the convo and it riled me up a bit. Earlier when I asked about things coming a long way, I wasn't trying to be mean or vicious, I was simply asking your opinion because I was honestly curious. I sometimes take offense to what people say when they type because I cannot hear how they say it. You didn't offend me it just sounded like you got a little testy also. I honestly started the discussion because I wanted to hear what everyone else thought about it and then it just got bad from there! lol It's okay. I agree to disagree I was just trying to say that Iams is good for Cop and that works for me. I said a bajillion times, I salute those who feed the raw diet and it works for them and their dogs. I really do! But it would be my luck that something bad would happen or I would screw it up or Cop would have a bad reaction and I would rather skip all that lol

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