What is Raw dog food?
What is Raw food?!
This is a question I get asked a lot.
Raw dog food is made up of raw animal meat, offal & bone. A rough guide will be 80% meat, 10% bone & 10% offal. But this can be adapted to suit your dogs needs. Muscle meat has all the essential amino acids a dog needs to thrive.
- Tryptophan: An essential amino acid found in muscle meat
- Methionine: An essential amino acid found in muscle meat
- Lysine: An amino acid found in chicken, which is high in this amino acid
- Valine: An amino acid found in lamb
- Isoleucine: An amino acid found in lamb
- Histidine: An amino acid found in pork
- Arginine: An amino acid found in beef
Offal is animal organs that are packed full of essential nutrients and minerals for your dogs. Liver, Kidneys, pancreas,
- Vitamin A: Helps with organ function and metabolism
- Vitamin B12: Helps with red blood cell formation and brain and nerve cell function
- Vitamin B6: Helps with breaking down proteins, carbohydrates, and fats
- Vitamin C: Found in kidneys
- Vitamin D: A fat-soluble vitamin found in offal
- Vitamin E: A fat-soluble vitamin found in offal
Ground bone is usually added to a dogs raw food, but can be fed separately using recreational meaty bones for chewing and enrichment for your dog.
Calcium: A mineral that helps maintain healthy bones and teeth, and is also important for muscle contraction and heart health
Phosphorus: A mineral that's important for bone growth
Magnesium: A mineral found in bones.
Dog's anatomy is that of a carnivore. They have a hinge jaw which means it only moves up and down, not a side to side grinding motion like a Cow.
Their teeth are sharp and jagged designed to rip chunks of meat from their prey and crunch bone into smaller pieces to swallow. Not flat molars designed to grind down vegetation as a cow would.
High acidic stomachs designed to break down raw meat and bone, kill bacteria & parasites.
Short intestinal tract designed to extract all the goodness from their food and get it out quick. Unlike herbivores that take longer to digest vegetation before it leaves the body.
Understanding your dogs anatomy and how their body uses the food they eat makes it easier to understand why raw/fresh feeding is so important to their over all health.
Our dog's may not catch, kill and eat its prey anymore, but their bodies are designed to thrive on fresh food. There is a lot of media attention at the moment surrounding processed human foods and the dangers to our health if we consume too much of it. But not enough attention/information is given on the highly processed pet foods that are on the market. (Mainly because it is a malty million pound industry and they don't want you to know the health risks, or you wouldn't buy it!)
Sadly studies over the past 10 years have shown an increase in cancer and other serious dieses in dogs, and a decrease in their life expectancy. It is believed this is due to a highly processed diet and the effects it has on our dogs health.
A raw/fresh food diet for your dog is really easy. Most of my customers will buy a mix of different brands, some have fruits and vegetables added, while other brands will be a 80-10-10 (80% meat, 10% bone, 10% offal)
Some fresh food is better than none.
So if you do feed a kibble food just make sure you add some fresh ingredients a few times a week. Fresh veg (not high sugar veg for yeasty dogs) raw eggs, fish, meat etc. They will thank you for it :)