Myths about Raw Feeding

I thought this was quite interesting and informative

http://www.rawfed.com/myths/index.html

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Melissa and Franklin! on November 18, 2010 at 12:18pm

one reason I've chosen not to go raw (or rather to go back to kibble) is that as I've done more research I am seeing that the myth that dogs don 't get Salmonella and other bacteria because they have a different digestive system is totally unfounded. I knew this to be true deep down because at the vet I worked at we FREQUENTLY had dogs and cats being hospitalized due to their raw diets (testing positive for E. Coli, Salmonella, and Campylobacter). As I read more and more about raw feeding I started believing the hype....shame on me! All these "myths about raw feeding" type sites really need to list all their sources and they need to be scientific sources and not from Dr. blabbady blab who has his own raw food line. It wasn't until I started reading information from anatomists and geneticists and vets (with links to scientific journals) and saw how frequent these bactertial infections are in dogs and cats that I realized the stuff these raw feeder information pages were writing was based on some 100,000 year old dog model, and not our current pooch. You can't tell me that after 100,000 years of evolution where we've drastically changed not only physical features in our dogs, but also things like how the retina is formed, and how our dog sees, we haven't changed one single bit of their digestive system.

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Permalink Reply by Aber, Ragnar and Kelso on November 21, 2010 at 11:15am

I never said "nasty rotted unclean raw food", now did I? So I didn't assume you did such a thing. You are not even misquoting me--you just made that up! I did say that if your dog got worms from the food, you fed it wormy food---there had to be worms from some source, and perhaps your dog already had worms and they showed up after the raw feeding. By the way, I just used "chicken" as an example. I"m sorry, I didn't realize I had to enumerate all of the potential meat sources when posting on a friendly recreational sort of forum for enthusiasts, not scientists.

And in turn, why would you assume that I haven't done research and I don't know that salmonella harms people and not dogs? Did I say anything to that effect? I do know that and that's part of the point as well. We seem to place our human dietary needs and restrictions on dogs when they are not human, so it's never an apples to apples comparison.

Like the "chicken" example, I was drawing comparisons between hysterical or half-informed fears about raw feeding and hysterical and misinformed fears about unpasteurized milk and cider. I'm sorry you couldn't draw the connection. I hope that makes it clearer.

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Permalink Reply by Aber, Ragnar and Kelso on November 21, 2010 at 11:42am

Sorry---I meant to say that I never told her she fed "nasty rotted unclean raw food". I hope you can all understand my frustration. I'm also on a British forum for all sorts of pets, and lots and lots of them feed raw all of the time. There's genuine interest and acceptance and curiosity and when anyone asks a question or offers any info on raw feeding, the immediate responses are helpful and openminded and actually informed. In this country, where we over-prescribe antibiotics for everything, including viruses, and we spray everything with anti-bacterial cleansers (and we thus create super-bugs we can't kill), somehow the responses are an immediate "oh that's so unnnatural", or "oh that's not right". We can't even have a discussion about something because we just naturally polarize. I posted a link to myths about raw feeding and not a soul said it was useful to them, because I presume nobody wants to have their set opinions challenged. But someone else posts a rebuttal and all of a sudden everyone's all happy, thanking them for the useful information that, I can guess, just backs up their already settled opinions. It's terribly frustrating.

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Permalink Reply by Beth on November 21, 2010 at 12:20pm

Sorry, it's just not that way. In the past, in fact, we've had several raw feeders on here and the food threads are sometimes overrun with people saying nasty stuff about kibble. I think you just hit it at a set time.

The fact is, though, that ALL food was originally raw (and organic) and we (humans) are just as biologically set up to eat raw food as dogs are. We started cooking it because we found it made us sick less often. Cooking kills parasites and bacteria that abound in raw food. And from a practical point of view, a wild animal is a huge success if it lives 3 years and has 2 surviving offspring before it dies, so just because something is natural does not make it better. We would never tolerate mortality rates in our pets that even comes close to mortality rates among free-ranging animals.

The huge majority of pet owners don't feed raw, and your experience (with everyone being interested and openminded) is in part based on the fact that those who think raw is risky are so used to being shot down in forums that we frequently just sit on the sidelines and keep our mouths shut.

The link you posted had no real science to back it up, just someone's opinions. You may "presume" that no one wants to have their "set opinions challenged", yet look at your own response to the Delta Society's position. Methinks you don't like having your set opinions challenged any more than anyone else does.

My husband is British, by the way, and we have family over there and while in some instances I prefer many things they do, in the area of food handling I can't say they have any sort of upper hand. Mad cow disease (let's feed ground up cow to other cows) and hoof-and-mouth epidemics due to crowded farming practices are two things that instantly come to mind.

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Permalink Reply by Melissa and Franklin! on November 21, 2010 at 12:57pm

Just a note, I just posted the link of responses to myths about raw food because I felt it would be a more balanced discussion, not as a rebuttle, because I myself was really hoping to get into raw feeding because it did seem like a good idea. I ran across that article with responses to the myths that actually had scientific research to back it up and then it put me right back on the kibble side of the argument, strictly due to lack of scientific research and it had nothing to do with my own personal opinion, in fact when I found that article I was in the process of trasitioning my dog to raw, but now have decided to wait until I see more support from the scientific/animal health community. So just to clear things up, I just want whats best for my dog, whether it be raw or kibble and its responses like these, and postings like the raw food myths that make me lean more towards kibble. I just want a reputable source, JUST ONE, that doesn't have something to gain from promoting raw. I will look at that source with an open mind too, not just to find the faults. I want to further educate myself about raw, I just find that all the sources I have come across have no real education themselves, just reading a books written by authors who are selling a product and some internet searching. I would even take all the anecdotes people supply as long as I knew they were giving both sides, when everyone says things like "not one single dog in 30 years has been sick from me feeding raw", I know this can't possibly be true because the short time I had worked at my previous vet we saw 20-40+ cases of illness from raw feeding (not including the bone related injury/obstructions), and these weren't people running out and buying their pets crappy rotted meat, and this was a very small family practice with maybe only 10% or less of the patients feeding a raw diet, so I just wonder why so many pateints got sick there, yet nobody on ANY raw forum I can find will report an illness or bone ingestion injury.