Holistic for Dogs!

Posts Tagged ‘raw meat’

So as I’m sure every one can tell, until now my main doggy menu consisted of home cooked meals of starch, veggies, and protein.  Truth be told, I was struggling to find foods that made my dogs less itchy.   Rice= scratching, sneezing,and stomach aches.  Cooked chicken = scratching excessively.  Certain foods made my poor puppies immediately and incredibly itchy.  But there has been a low level of itch that has persisted in spite of my best efforts.

This whole dog allergy situation really reached a head a few weeks ago.  Emmala began scratching so vigorously that she was leaving open sores along her mouth and behind her ears.  She has a dime sized bald spot behind her ear.

So after a lot of thought, I decided to try all raw meats to see if that offered relief.  I would consider this basically an attempt at a raw dog food diet.   As a biology major in college, I thought about the nature of cooked meat.  When proteins are heated they begin to denature.  The proteins break apart and no longer have the three dimensional shape that they had when they were being used by the body.  As protein is the real culprit that cause immune response, I thought could it be that the denatured proteins matter?  Even in potatoes and rice, protein in those foods are the culprit for allergies.
I’m not going to lie.  I don’t really understand how my dogs were not more itchy when they were eating kibble as that is all obviously cooked.  Maybe they weren’t allergic to the corn in the food?  Perhaps the percent of the protein in their food was less.  I’ve even considered giving up and going back to kibble! (Briefly)

Any way, I began feeding my dogs all raw meats raw dog food diet.  If they are going to eat it I have to be willing to eat it so everything comes fresh from the grocery store.  I began feeding slabs of raw tuna, some hamburger, raw chicken, and raw organ meat.  I still supplement with raw veggies and an occasional cooked potato but I feed them their meat all rare.

The dogs really love this new raw diet.  But don’t really prefer the gizzards and livers.  (I wouldn’t suggest stocking up until you know your dog will eat it.)  I am giving them a varied diet of body parts and animal types.  There is a whole movement called the BARF (biologically appropriate raw food.. I believe) diet.  The diet consists of entirely raw meat with the philosophy that raw animals are exactly what a wild dog would eat.
After a few weeks of raw meat, low and behold my dogs are no longer pink all the time.  They are still scratching a little but this seems to make a world of difference.  No more swollen lips or scabs.  I will keep you updated.  But so far that is looking really good.

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