Feeding a dog cooked vs raw food?

Question

I have a nearly 6 yr old Papillon and he has always been on a very good canned food wet diet (top of the line). We have a new player in the dog food world in Australia who sells raw food and everyone is raving about how great this food / company is. Just wonding if a can sometimes give my dog canned cooked food and sometimes raw food. I have been told by someone that I have to intoduce raw food very slowly otherwise he can get a tummy ache so that got me thinking... do I have choose which path I want to go down and stick with it or can I choose to feed him one day cooked food and the other day raw food. He has no allergies or heath issues. Thanks

Answer 1

Forget it you will only succeed in giving the dog the runs raw food is a permanent diet not a treat or one day a week diet A raw diet is a slowly introducued change and it should be permanent or not at all

Answer 2

Raw is always best



Cooked food is bad for dogs and cats, they are carnivores and do best always on what they should be eating is which is raw meat, raw bones and raw organs. They can't digest plants at all and get nothing from them

Answer 3

Lots of people think dogs are carnivores when actually they are, and have always been omnivores. Meat has shouldn't be there main and only source of diet. Raw is as natural as you can get to what they should eat, but if they have never eaten it before it needs to be gradually introduced. The stomach has to change to be able to break the food down.

Answer 4

I do not care how "top of the line" your canned food is, it is not MEANT to be the sole diet of dogs long term. Really, is is a flavoring or top dressing to be mixed INTO kibble, or to add some additional protein.



It is not really balanced diet -since every can is 75 to 80% WATER. Your dog is not really getting enough good nutrition from it; unlike an equal amount of kibble OR going to an entirely RAW DIET.



Canned food (or a home cooked diet) also still COOKS OUT the majority of nutrients. I would ONLY employ such for a sick dog or weakened immune system or one with no teeth. However, most kibble can be soaked with warm water - into a gruel format - a dog even with little to no teeth can digest.



Raw diets are as close to a natural diet as we can provide to canines - who are designed BY NATURE as CARNIVORES, not omnivores and certainly NOT herbivores. Dogs on raw diets tend to be healthier, according to MY VET who graduated at the top of her class at Auburn Vet School.



Raw diets are not a TREAT and cannot be fed "periodically' with good outcomes. if you want to move to RAW; you can either transition over or go COLD TURKEY. Dogs need to develop a more acidic "gut' and so once they do, switching back & forth is not healthy or advised. Prepared raw diets are far more expensive than home-made (and those you carefully research & control the ingredients on) but many people are too lazy to do the reading & work necessary to make their own or do not WANT to "UNDERSTAND" what is involved, so you pay the price (of THE EASY WAY OUT) if you go that route.



All of my dogs became much HEALTHIER on raw. But then, my vet helped me find the right research & reading materials & made sure I formulated good diets for them with LOTS of variety.

Answer 5

There is no difference really. Raw food is just something they'd eat in the wild, though depending on where you buy it (i.e. Raw beef from a grocery store) it can contain bacteria that can hurt and even kill your dog if left untreated. Often people will cook the raw food, but it is still considered raw because nothing has been added to it.

Answer 6

It depends on the dog.

Some dogs don't care. You can feed them one food today and another tomorrow. Others need to make the change more gradual. You know your dog better than I do.

Answer 7

I am a raw feeder but what I don't think you should ever do is feed raw 'now and again'. You have to understand the ph values / acidity / alkaline and an Australian vet says it so well. But in general, a dog that is fed kibble or wet will have an alkaline ph 7 stomach environment. A raw fed dog will lower the ph to a 2 which is very acidic. ONLY when the ph lowers to 2 will the acidity break down the raw easily enough, especially bone, and further more ph2 will repel bacteria like salmonella and ecoli. If you feed raw now and again, the stomach just won't be equipped to deal with it.



Read this, and get in touch on his facebook page if you want. This could even be the raw food seller you're talking about but Dr. Bruce is not new. Read his pages / site... it's good.



https://vetsallnatural.com.au/digesting-bones-gastric-acidity-salmonella-dogs-cats/

Answer 8

There IS no real evidence that feeding a dog raw meat is any healthier for it than feeding it kibble or canned meat etc.

Dogs have been fed on all sorts of foodstuff in the thousands of years they have been domesticated and their digestive system has evolved to cope with such.

Read this article and make up your own mind on the issue.

https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/raw-meat-and-bone-diets-for-dogs-its-enough-to-make-you-barf/

Answer 9

I'm very much for 'if it ain't broke .....' I have also read that it's not wise to use both methods of feeding. with the one dog. As with any switch, you should always mix the old with the new and I suppose this would include switching to raw feed? I tend not to run with new fads btw. and becase I have never felt comfortable enough to know I'm using a completely balanced raw died, I don't. Besides when we had numbers, I'd have been all day preparing their food which wasn't feasible, neither was the cost at a time when raw feeding wasn't quite as popular as it is today, with a lack of availability, other than to use human meat etc.

Answer 10

The BARF diet originated in Australia years ago bones and raw food that is, it works well for dogs used to it, if your dog is happy with its current diet, i would keep it on that diet. My Saluki was raised on BARF, so I have kept her on it, my other dogs are in the main on good quality kibble feed, except for my two Marremano pups which are on everything they can reach and thriving. If you do intend changing to BARF do it gradually, your dog will have to learn to digest the different foods, don't do one day on one day off, change maybe one quarter of the food for a while, then one third if he's eating it, then gradually up to full change...

Answer 11

Raw is actually done cold turkey in most cases. Do what you want.



I feed raw, there are a lot of benefits to raw. You can feed raw sometimes. Some people do. This is all up to YOU