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results of raw feeding


sunnyrocks
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Hi there!

 

I started a partial raw food program a week ago. I know that it's supposed to take about a month to see results but I can already see some! I went outside yesterday and found white poop!!!! Plus 2 of my dogs teeth seem a bit cleaner, the one with bad teeth I think will take awhile to see results. Plus their behavior is much less rambunctious! Pooh has stopped eating the back door. I have also noticed that they are rarely eating the Science Diet food, they wait for dinner time. So I may in the future switch to a complete raw diet.

Heck even the cats seem happier!!

Anyway I just wanted to report this to someone!!!!

Teri

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What got me hooked was after doing the raw diet for 2 months I went back to kibble and noticed all the nasty effects kibble brings.You really notice the body odor then and corn smelling burps.EEuuuww.I've been total raw since last summer now.You'll get hooked.

 

Sue Barta

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All dog poop turns white eventually. Raw fed dog poop turns white faster. Not sure why or whether it's necessarily a superior thing. Though I love it as it makes yard cleanup for six dogs wonderful! No stink.

 

There's no doubt about the benefit to teeth - and I think it has a lot to do with the low-carb approach as much as the crunchy bones. I recently started a low-carb diet and noticed an improvement in my teeth.

 

I have two dogs for whom raw feeding has made a vast improvement in their lives. For the rest I see a visible positive difference in each one.

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>

 

It does?? I've occasionally seen white dog poop, but I've dealt with or observed literally tons of dog poop, I bet, and most of it darkened and disintegrated without ever turning white. Over what time period does this color change occur?

 

Also, in what way have your teeth changed? Still white, I assume? :rolleyes:

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My mother brother and myself all live on a low-carb diet (we're all hypoglycemics) and I can't say that there is much difference in my teeth when I'm off or on my diet. Refined sugar makes a difference but not carbohydrates such as you would find in corn, potatoes or rice. Mom says she has more trouble with her teeth (as far as tartar goes) when she is on her diet.

 

I feed kibble, my dogs teeth are very clean and they don't have bad breath. I give them things to keep the tartar down and scale them a couple of times a year.

 

As for white poop, yes it will turn white after some time. As for the length of time, it does seem to depend on what you're feeding.

 

I have heard wonderous things about the raw diet but I have also heard horror stories. Mind you, the good stories do outweigh the bad.

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I'm feeding 12 dogs, 2 of whom and soon a 3rd I will be putting on a raw diet. However, this diet is Morigins, already prepared.

 

After what I've seen, with lab work to back up my claims (as if the change in the dog wasn't enough), I must say it's made a believer out of me. I'm considering BARFing the others, so I am really interested in hearing about the "horror stories" of raw fed dogs. Anyone care to share those stories?

 

Vicki

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I've heard about dogs whose hair fell out and had various digestive upsets that persisted.

 

The worst story I heard though was from a friend of my mother. Her daughter put her basset on a BARF diet and at first all things seemed fine. After a bit the dogs hair started to fall out and then it began to develope a blistery rash all over it's body. It was about this time the children started to develope rashes on their arms and faces. Then the mother got a rash and realized it was only where the dog had been licking her.

 

With this info the vet discovered that the dog had developed excedeingly acidic saliva and told her to get the dog off the BARF right away. Within a short time, neither the dog nor the family had rashes any more and the dogs hair began to grow back.

 

Like I said the good stories I've heard are more prevalent than the bad, but since the bad exist one should consider them carefully.

 

I never asked how she was mixing her food, it was my understanding she was following a specific recipe from someone who was supposed to know what they were doing.

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A friend missed four days of work last week. She and her dog both had food poisoning. Both required medical attention. Both had eaten steak tartar (raw steak). Not in a restaurant, by the way. The meat was purchased from an upscale meat shop and prepared at home. I had a lot of sympathy for her dog, but not much for her.

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White poop: My belief is that very dry, compact poop may turn white when it dries out completely. However. I've been feeding my three mature dogs a raw diet for about three years now. In this very dry climate, their poop does not turn white for DAYS. The only time its really white is after major bone consumption. I'm not really doing the Billinghurst BARF diet, because I don't do a lot of bones. Partly, it's the "fear factor" of those nightmare stories - of dog's intestines, etc. being punctured by sharp pieces of bone. And partly its because one dog doesn't do particularly well on bones.

 

On the "good" side, its been night and day for one of my dogs - who had persistent intestinal distress, even on the best kibble (and I tried several of the best, according to Whole Dog Journal). I can't say she's 100% now, but she is definitely about 90%+ better!

 

As for the poor Bassett, one does have to wonder how religiously the person was following the diet. I just found a web site (not marked, sorry) from Dr. Pitcairn (whose diet I'm following), with the appropriate amounts of additional bone meal to add to each of his many recipes, to provide the calcium/phosphorus balance needed. Whew! It does take some care to get everything right. (That's also why I'm a bit leary of Billinghurst's plan - its so flexible, it seems to leave a lot to "common sense" which may not be appropriate for everyone.)

 

diane

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I wonder about the Bassett too & how committed the owners were to doing it properly. The raw diet I feed to 2 of my dogs is based on a zoo carnivore diet. Both of these dogs have had health problems in the past, which disappeared or greatly lessened with the raw diet. Lab work for one bears out the fact that the improvement I'm seeing isn't just my imagination. The other one, we'll be doing her lab work in May. She's been severely epileptic since 9 months old. She'll be 10 yrs. old in April. A year of raw feeding, her seizures are not as violent & she appears to be going longer in between seizures.

 

The other 10 are on a quality kibble, but I am seriously weighing the cost of BARFing the rest.

 

The raw diet isn't a cure-all. It just makes the most of an individual's immune system. It's not a miracle, but I've sure seen some miraculous results from it!

 

I think problems crop up if not done properly and it certainly takes a committment on the part of the owner.

 

Again, knowing the problems others have had, can help in my developing a diet that's right for my dogs. That's why I think it's important to know the down side of BARFing. (I have had absolutely no problems on Morigins, the the pups I've sold that are on it look phenomenal!).

 

Vicki

 

Carnivores in zoos are fed raw. I don't see the problem feeding the same to cats & dogs.

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The downside you talk about-hair falling out,,is actually the body detoxifying the kibble out of the system by way of shedding and if you persist the coat comes back shinier and softer.If you slowly introduce the raw diet you have less detoxifying going on but it does happen to some.Some dogs in the beginning may have occasional diarrhia but it's all how you introduce the diet.My one used to have a sensitive intestinal problem and that went away on raw.Of course you learn like with Crystal,she can't eat ground beef.Two of mine had seasonal allergies that went away.(this is because allergies are actually from the yeast build up of kibble).Two of mine used to be too slim-burned their calories and kibble up.Now they are well built and muscled up.As far as horror stories-my worst was from stupidity and mixing a rice(grain)with raw chicken and the majority got a bacteria infection because the rice isn't digested and held the raw chicken in their gut to cause the bacteria to grow.Live and learn.The basic of their diet-raw chicken backs(bones and all) in morning and ground meat with whatever at night.I also feed turkey necks and pork necks and they never have a problem digesting the bones.

 

Sue Barta

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Here's a website to check out: http://rhallenbeck.tripod.com/sander.html

 

Also, my rescue partner's dog was diagnosed with Lupus and he was dying in front of her. She was devestated. But she refused to give in to the allpathic vet's diagnosis (certain death) and went holistic; found a good vet, swtiched Tobi to raw ... and it's been three years. He is competing in agility and flyball now. When I saw him after he was diagnosed he was a walking skeleton. He looks great now.

 

With this info the vet discovered that the dog had developed excedeingly acidic saliva and told her to get the dog off the BARF right away.
I guess the plausibility of this depends on how much respect you have for allopathic vets who, BTW, receive almost NIL with respect to nutritional training in school. And what they do get is taught by the pet food companies. Most allopathic veterinarians have no faith in a raw diet because they don't understand it at all and it's hard for some people to see what's in front of their nose because they are too busy looking at what they firmly beleive to be true.

 

My basenji could not touch me with her mouth or I broke out in terrible hives. I have never had an allergy to a dog before or since. This was a decade ago, and she ate kibble ... can't blame that on a raw diet.

 

It's pretty simple - those of us who feed it know it works. My dogs are in fantastic shape, I don't need the nod from anyone else to tell me that it's okay. I do find it strange that people hang on to kibble though, given kibble is nothing more than a fake food. Why we put so much faith in a company that also makes razor blades and laundry detergent is mystifying to me. As if they have your our dogs' best interests at heart.

 

RDM

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If you're going to quote me, RDM, use the whole quote.

 

With this info the vet discovered that the dog had developed excedeingly acidic saliva and told her to get the dog off the BARF right away. Within a short time, neither the dog nor the family had rashes any more and the dogs hair began to grow back.
I have no idea what was wrong with your Basenji, but it was obvious that the problem with the Basset was directly related to the raw diet he was on.
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I think what RDM states very well is that when you learn and truley learn about the raw diet and do it,you see the differance and YES the typical vet is not educated in nutrition like you think.On another forum well kown we got into a huge discussion about it from all kinds.Those who do and those who don't and one of the moderators is a vet who claims she was taught fully the nutrition aspect but yet promotes Science Diet.Let's see,Science Diet,one of the major companies camped out at the slaughter house.As far as saliva-My dogs lick my face daily,Belle is very very kissy and it's her routine to give tons of love and yet in the last year I have never gotten a rash.I handle raw meat twice daily and never worry about the bacteria or problems.And I work in a human hospital to know the signs too.Bassetts are notorious for major skin problems and maybe the dog was detoxifying the kibble garbage by way of skin and hair,sheeding and rashes.If only they stuck it out.Sometimes the problem is sticking it out and talking to yor vet.The solution is sticking it out and then let the vet see your dog 6 months to a year later.Hell my vet is jealous of me now and saw the differance and is very open minded as opposed to last year and her skepticle scolding.

 

Sue Barta

Bartas Border Collies

www.bartasborders.com

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Most vets have nothing good to say about raw feeding, even when the proof that a raw diet works is standing in front of them. I had to take the initiative on my own to change my oldest BC's diet to raw from a vet-recommended diet, and that was done after I came to terms with the possibility of losing him. The results have been phenomenal. Both the vets that I used while my old boy was sick agree that he now looks great, but say nothing when I tell them what I feed him. Nutrition certainly isn't a priority in vet school, nor apparently in practice. And most people won't question, just blindly follow. I'm still a little upset that I'm the one who had to make the decision to take him off the kibble the vet had him on, in spite of the fact that after 4 weeks on it, he looked like his flesh was melting off him.

 

Vicki

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There is no doubt that vets in general know pick all about dog food. That is one point I would never argue on. I wasn't arguing with RDM either I just didn't like my words being taken out of context. I also never said that all dogs came down with rashes and blisters and caused rashes on people. I simply said this was the worst case I'd heard about and people should consider such things.

 

If it was because the diet was out of balance then it's a good thing to know such problems could happen. As for sticking it out.. how long should a person let their dog suffer while it detoxifies (if that is indeed what was happening)? The dog had been on the raw diet for several months. Things didn't just happen over night. I can tell you right now that if my normally healthy dog started loosing all it's hair and was in agony that went on for some time while the vets were trying to figure it out and I suddenly realized it was the diet I'd go back to whatever I was feeding as fast as I could regardless of what other people were saying.

 

Now, before this gets taken out of context as well, I'm not knocking the raw food diet. If it works for you and your dog, awesome.

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Does anyone know of any scientific studies (as opposed to anecdote) comparing a sizable population of dogs fed BARF to dogs fed commercial dog food? Preferably double-blind and not sponsored by commercial interests on either side? I have to say that "detoxifying the kibble garbage by way of skin and hair, shedding and rashes" doesn't sound too biologically credible to me, but I would certainly be interested in any scientific data.

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Eileen-if you want scientific proof or links why don't you go to a forum that has nothing but years and years of experts and rawfeeders and ask the question.That way I don't have to spend hours hunting up proof for you.Go to www.egroups.com and for "find my group" type rawfeeders.

 

Those of us who switched to raw don't need scientific prooof because it is obvious in how our dogs look and act and the thought of feeding pure raw natural foods we ourselves eat only makes sense.Those of us who switched had done so from tons of info gathered either on line or talking to people in person at trials,schools and such.And of course the ultimate is reading that one webpage called Polluted PetFood which will really turn you off.

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Originally posted by Shawna:

I wasn't arguing with RDM either I just didn't like my words being taken out of context. I also never said that all dogs came down with rashes and blisters and caused rashes on people. I simply said this was the worst case I'd heard about and people should consider such things.

I didn't, actually, suggest you did say that, nor did I take your quote out of context. I only quoted a mere sentence for brevity's sake. My point was, and I did think this was clear, that I have suspcions about this example being a cut-and-dry case of a raw diet causing such a health problem. For example; recently a friend of mine's dog (raw raised and fed) came down with Campylobactor. The veterinarian immediately blamed it on the raw diet. But that's a gross assumption, given that I have had other pets with Campylobactor myself (long before we heard of the raw diet) but they contacted it through bird feces in the park (where we have a wild goose and duck problem).

 

Yes, it conceivably could have been the diet, but it's just an assumption. I could have blamed my basenji's hive-causing saliva on kibble, but that would be equally presumptuous.

 

And for the record, I do not agree with Sue that hair loss is a detoxing side effect. I have never seen or heard of such a thing myself. Maybe it is, but in my experience, this is not the case.

 

I can tell you right now that if my normally healthy dog started loosing all it's hair and was in agony that went on for some time while the vets were trying to figure it out and I suddenly realized it was the diet I'd go back to whatever I was feeding as fast as I could regardless of what other people were saying.
My point was, again, that allopathic veterinarians are so underschooled in nutrition, and many are so quick to blame the raw diet, that it's presumptuous to say the diet was, definitively, the cause of the problem. "Acidic saliva" has never been a side effect of a raw diet that I am aware of. If that is a problem, it's likely a problem with the diet, not necessarily the *raw* diet.

 

No diet should be fed without fully understanding what is going into it. This also goes for kibble - but since it is virtually impossible to know what goes into kibble, it's not something I would consider especially safe to feed.

 

And as for horror stories of the raw diet - sure they exist. So do the stories on kibble, like levels of sodium phenobarbital found in pet foods - the drug that is used to euthanize animals. Or the batches of kibble that sold contaminated and cause illness and death in dogs. Or bloat, which is so common in large breeds fed a kibble diet. If viewed objectively, there is no more reason to fear a raw diet than a manufactured one, yet people always want to point out the horror stories of a raw fed dog they heard went bad.

 

I am not one of those people who preaches raw to everyone. I don't think everyone should feed raw; the lazy, the ignorant ... they can do more harm than good. I agree that you should feed whatever works for your dog. But I also think people should keep an open mind and not hold up sketchy examples as gospel.

 

 

RDM

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Hair loss is one thing. Profuse shedding is another. If a dog of mine was dropping hair to the point of sparsity of coat, I would reexamine everything I was doing with him. When I changed my 2 over to Morigins, they did shed a lot, but that's the detoxification that was referred to. That Bassett had something else going on and personally, I would question the methods of it's owner in feeding raw, rather than blame the raw diet itself. And then again, it might just have been something with the individual dog.

 

Don't know about scientific studies---unbiased, but I certainly do have the numbers in lab work to back my case up------again though, as if the proof in the dog's appearance & behavior wasn't enough.

 

But I think even if there was such a study out there, it would be picked apart & would not ultimately change anyone's opinions.

 

And that's just my opinion.

 

Vicki

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"But I think even if there was such a study out there, it would be picked apart & would not ultimately change anyone's opinions.

And that's just my opinion."

Vicki.

 

Yes it's going to be -to each his own-.Dr.Billinghurst said in his original book that after a few years,I believe,on raw he went back to kibble and saw alot of bad effects come back.And many who did switch to raw like me and then went back to kibble for lazy reasons also saw the effects.I guess that is our scientific study.Just like many who can tell success stories switching over to raw.When I talk about hair loss above I am not talking excessive hair loss but typical shedding by some but not all.In my six,only 2 shedded as a sign of detox.Some had teary eyes for a short period,some had mucous stools for a short time but no one ever showed signs of suffering as stated above.I always run into someone who wants to pick apart the diet I choose even at work.There will be those who are open minded and listen and question and realize it sounds sensible and there will always be those who are skepticle,close minded and not open to a change for the better.Years ago I would have been one of the skepticle.I had heard of this diet years ago and like many thought"hell I'm not going to go that far,dogfood is dogfood".But as far as scientific studies I guess you learn by talking,reading and learnng from others experiences and seeing the real proof.I guess also maybe many people really don't know the gross details of how dogfood is made or realize the impact it does have on a dogs body.I learned the hard way.As far as scientific studies Eileen maybe it would be good for you to attend a seminar given by Ian Billinghurst or Lew Olson and you can find that info at www.barfworld.com or www.b-naturals.com

 

Sue Barta

www.bartasborders.com

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