Trying to find information on dog food is a real minefield on Google. I've heard that cooked meat destroys a dog's gut flora, but others say the risk of parasites in raw meat is too high and that you have to cook it...
I'm completely lost.
To be more specific: the meat I give Loup isn't her main daily meal. It's just in small amounts (2 chicken breasts spread over the week) for training. It's her high-value treat (whether it's cooked or raw) and we can work well in any situation using it.
So my question is: can I cook the meat for her?
On the one hand, it's more practical because raw meat sticks to your fingers and the bag, so it's a bit of a nightmare when you're out and about...
On the other hand, my dog has a sensitive stomach and too much raw meat gives her diarrhoea.
What's the deal? Can I carry on lightly cooking the chicken before giving it to her (boiled for 5 minutes without salt) without the risk of destroying her gut flora?
Or should I just stick to dried and/or raw chicken?
Just for info, Loup is 8 months old (I don't know if that makes a difference).
Thanks!
Translated from French
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Hi Doudou. I'm just going to reduce the portions, pure and simple. It's because I've been giving her more and more as time goes on—it's the same principle as it is for us, really. They say you should eat from smaller plates because when you see a full plate, you think "Right, that's plenty."
The dog doesn't give a toss about that, obviously, but it makes a difference to the person serving the food—which happens to be me, lol. When I put it in her bowl, I felt a bit stingy, and her bowl is actually pretty big (I thought Menza would be the size of a "normal" Shar Pei). I should probably get her a smaller one so that, psychologically, I can tell myself she's had enough.
As for the meaty bones, muscle meat and offal, the muscle meat portion is a bit larger than the meaty bones; it’s not exactly fifty-fifty. I think her daily total was getting to over 1.1 lbs, so I’m going to go back to about 1 lb a day. Mind you, I still think that’s quite generous, as the ration calculator says 0.9 lbs, but I’ll do it gradually so she doesn’t start getting proper hunger pangs.
Anyway, we’re just doing what we can at the moment. I’ve been roughhousing with her, doing some jumping, and I’m trying to teach her to "sit up" and beg. We've also been doing some indoor scent games. We shouldn't beat ourselves up too much when we see our dogs just having a quiet snooze; I think we sometimes put ourselves under too much pressure to keep our pups occupied every second of the day, but it’s just not possible.
@Doudou229. Why do people stick with BARF? For the same reason I left my dog in distress for nearly three months, thinking it would eventually pass and that by following the "pros'" advice, everything would turn out fine.
I was so caught up in the whole BARF ideology even though my dog was actually sick from it; it wasn't just a simple case of diarrhoea. It reminds me of that recent video by Gaëlle Garcia Diaz where she mentioned she kept her dog on BARF for over a year and spent more than £850 in vet bills, only to end up going back to dry food in the end.
At the time, I was also following a vegan diet myself, which might seem contradictory to some, but it made sense to me back then, and being vegan never actually affected my health.
Nowadays, I'm not into either of those things anymore, even though I still reckon dogs should have a diet that's at least 50% meat, while I personally haven't touched meat or fish for seven years. But that’s my private business—my health, my dog’s health, and my own convictions. At the end of the day, everyone can do as they please.
I don’t see why it’s so crazy to think that some dogs can’t digest large amounts of raw meat, especially when you consider that in some parts of the world, dogs haven't eaten it for centuries. And like I said, there’s also the issue of the "solid" fats found in raw meat; some dogs have developed intolerances purely due to how they’ve evolved to process fats, particularly when it comes to farmed animals.
I’m a firm believer that everyone should feed their dog whatever works best for them. It shouldn't be about following a certain ideology, but simply about what's right for your dog. Back in the day, I really wanted my dog to be able to handle a raw diet. A bit of a soft stool is one thing, but if your dog is crying all night because they need to go every two hours and it’s just liquid, then there's clearly a problem—especially if it carries on for days or keeps flaring up in stages throughout the month.
I’m not someone who gets caught up in the idea that things have to be done one way and no other, or that if something goes wrong, it’s automatically the owner's fault. I move in circles where a vocal minority thinks like that, and honestly, it’s not something that sits right with me. My perspective isn't the absolute truth, and neither is the other side’s.
These days, I’m much less set on raw feeding than I used to be. I'm still not convinced by supermarket dry food, or by giving them fast-acting sugars like human biscuits. That said, if a dog digests their food well and is happy, and the owner is happy and feels at ease, I’m not going to argue with that—far from it. I won't say I've never judged in the past, but time and experience have taught me not to do that anymore, whether it rubs people up the wrong way or not.
Personally, I think we need to move away from this "BARF = natural" mindset. It’s certainly more natural than dry food, but it’s not necessarily a dog's biological diet. As @Nordic Attitude said, dogs used to eat mostly table scraps, and back then we wouldn't hesitate to eat meat ourselves that was a bit on the turn.
Dogs were mainly fed cooked food and had a more varied diet than BARF; 1,000 years ago, who was feeding their dogs 80% raw meat, apart from people in the Far North? Hardly anyone, I reckon. It's like saying there's something wrong with Asian people because many of them are lactose intolerant.
Nowadays, farmed animals are far from being 100% healthy, what with the antibiotics and pesticides they ingest and the extreme weight gain. Unless you can afford to go organic (and even then...), I have to admit I'm not as open to the idea of giving raw meat anymore. All the scandals that keep breaking are about the consumption of commercially reared meat, whether legal or not, and cooking it kills off most of the bacteria. Plus, not all dogs have evolved to be hunters. These days, I feel that even the cleanest farms aren't safe from some kind of outbreak, so I prefer to cook the meat. That wasn't my stance five years ago, but it is now.
@Kainate, back then I was on the forums every day and it was always the same old story: "the problem isn't your dog, it's you not doing the transition properly." Personally, I've heard that enough, and I've risked my dog's life enough not to want to go through it again. The person who convinced me to stop BARF wasn't even a dry food supporter; she was a BARF feeder herself. She told me she avoided the BARF community because of that attitude—pushing people to keep going and try thirty-six different things even when a dog that was doing fine on dry food has had diarrhoea for two weeks.
Personally, my dog eats a bit of everything (especially when my mum's over); he has different "flavours" of dry food, home-cooked meals, pizza crusts, etc., all without any transition except for raw meat. Does that stop him from being happy and healthy? No. And at the end of the day, if the only thing that keeps your dog healthy is sticking to the same diet, it's not a disaster. It's better than having a dog in poor health. Even if your dog can only digest something like Friskies, those bits of dry food aren't going to kill him overnight, even if they aren't the best in the world. Persistent diarrhoea, however, will. Plenty of humans develop allergies and intolerances throughout their lives, after all.
I think it’s really good and well-explained, and it definitely has a more flexible approach.
I checked out a few sections, like the interesting bits about necessary vitamins; it’ll help me top up my dog’s bowl with certain vitamins and minerals.
As for the raw feeding, I think I’ve got a bit carried away with the portions. I need to cut back a bit because I feel like she’s put on a few pounds lately. Obviously, with lockdown, I still take her out four times a day but for less time. I even do a bit of jogging with her, though nothing major as my back is telling me to take it easy... But I also think I need to recalibrate... my eyes, because after a while I just eyeball it and I tend to think "oh, that’s not much, let’s add a little extra bit", a bit here and there. Right, steady on!
And thanks Kainate for finding such an interesting website :)
@Doudou229 and anyone else interested in raw feeding (sorry Furania, I’m hijacking the thread a bit since the discussion has moved that way, but I know it wasn't the point of the post ^^)
I've just come across this site today and wanted to share it (though you might have seen it already!) https://www.nutrition-canine.fr/
It’s still under construction but it’s quite interesting as it seems much less dogmatic than most BARF sites, and it might help to ease some of the "tensions" on certain topics, like nutritional balance.
It's fairly well-sourced and tries to make a raw diet align with nutritional guidelines, not hesitating to include various additions like oats, veg, etc.
And actually, it covers that whole transition phase—how to get a dog used to digesting raw meat. The author warns against the usual advice of an abrupt switch to raw and takes into account that some dogs don't digest raw meat very well. The proposed method involves starting with cooked meat and gradually reducing the cooking time.
"If I choose to feed my dogs mostly on a BARF diet, it’s because I prefer the 'DIY' approach (as much for myself as for my dogs: I’d rather cook from scratch than buy ready-made, as I don’t have much trust in the pet food industry). It was the only diet I found that was relatively simple to set up and allowed me to skip adding a vitamin-calcium supplement (all the 'home-cooked' recipes I found required one, which didn't fit with my desire to 'make it myself'). Plus, there’s a decent track record now (more and more people have fed their dogs BARF their whole lives and can share their experiences). As it happens, my experience has been completely positive, so I’ve stuck with it, even if I’m not above giving them some kibble, cereals, etc., every now and then."
"I’m convinced that loads of dogs are stuck with a 'sensitive stomach' label for life and are restricted to kibble with zero extras (I know plenty of them) simply because people don’t know how to introduce variety properly."
Spot on.. I have exactly the same convictions..
@ Caroline -eg
The best diet is the one that suits our pets first and foremost. My dog has always digested game-style meats better with potatoes or rice. So he stays on that kind of kibble, just varying the type of game. It’s about 50-60% meat. If a dog digests BARF or RAW well, then great, but we shouldn’t treat it as a hard and fast rule for everyone.
Yes, every dog is different, I think so too..
Mine never got on well with kibble (projectile diarrhoea, gastritis, vomiting, wind, cancer, allergies).
Home-cooking worked for one (who lived to 16.5 years) but not at all for Volka (pancreatitis).
Raw feeding sorted it out.
"And the owners stuck with BARF regardless, making sure to hide any problems that cropped up."
There will always be people who don't take proper care of their dogs..
But why hide their dog’s problems? What would be the point?
"My mistake was not stopping from day one. There was no progress or anything like that—when you give three bits of raw meat and your dog is ill all night, there's just no point trying to push it. The dog's wellbeing has to come before personal ideology."
Out of curiosity, did you try a very gradual transition at the time, moving from cooked meat (which your dog tolerates since he's currently on a home-cooked diet, if I've followed correctly) to raw meat?
As I mentioned earlier, I didn't do things the conventional way with Basile. He didn't handle the sudden introduction of raw meat well either (really bad bouts of diarrhoea, and we’re talking about an eight-week-old puppy, so I couldn't really afford to play with fire).
To be precise, over a month or two, I did a very gradual transition (mixing the food in his bowl) from dry food to high-quality wet food (which is basically "tinned home-cooked meals"), then from the tins to a home-cooked diet based on white meat and rice. Then I very gradually reduced how much I cooked the meat (over several weeks!), cut back on the grains and veg, and introduced bones. Once we reached that stage, I was able to easily include everything else (other meats, fish, offal) quite quickly without a gradual transition. I imagine his digestive system was finally "trained", though I don't know exactly what changes occurred at that level.
You saw this transition to raw feeding as a battle between "the dog's wellbeing and personal ideology" because, in your case, it ended in failure. For my part, it ended really well even though it started badly, so it was a win for both.
What I wonder is whether our two dogs are fundamentally different. I mean, we can't rule it out (perhaps one produces more of a certain enzyme than the other, something like that), but it's far from certain. It could just as easily be a matter of their acquired microbiome—for example, it could simply be the way we introduced the new diet that led to a different outcome.
I think it’s a shame that this issue of "dietary diversification" isn’t studied more in dogs. I’m convinced that many dogs are labelled for life as having a "sensitive stomach" and are stuck on dry food with zero extras (I know loads of them) simply because we don't know how to handle that diversification properly.
There’s diarrhoea and then there’s diarrhoea. But when your dog has been waking you up every two hours in the middle of the night for three days, having bout after bout of liquid poo, getting exhausted and refusing to eat—well, personally, I’m not going to overcomplicate things. And that’s exactly the problem: ideology versus common sense. I was convinced that BARF was the best thing for him, but I was wrong. It lasted for three months with more or less severe episodes. I don’t panic at the slightest soft poo, but seeing your dog literally wasting away and being that ill just isn’t worth it.
At the time, I was looking for advice everywhere, on all the BARF forums, and they kept pushing me to carry on. I let myself be blinded by it all, and my dog could have died. Anyway, when Iago is ill, he doesn’t do things by halves; I have a dog who’s usually in great shape, no health issues, happy and full of life. My mistake was not stopping from day one. Because there’s no "adjustment period" or whatever when you give them three bits of raw meat and your dog is sick all night. There’s no point trying to push through it. The dog’s well-being has to come before personal ideology.
My dog can digest pretty much anything now (mind you, I’m veggie, so there aren’t really any table scraps, apart from the odd pizza crust or a bit of cheese), but raw meat... it’s not just that he can't stomach it, it makes him genuinely ill. I know there’s a recurring issue with lymphangiectasia in certain Nordic breeds from Northern Europe, like the Lundehund, due to poor fat absorption. These dogs can’t just eat anything, and definitely not BARF, otherwise they could die. It’s not something to be taken lightly, and given the geographical proximity, I wouldn’t be surprised if Swedish Vallhunds had the same problem too.
