Raw Chicken Linked to Paralysis in Dogs |
Wow...thanks for that info. |
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Thanks, Phil...always appreciate your reviews. BTW: I haven't had a chance to read the things you sent...just been SO busy lately |
This is one of the reasons I will never ever feed raw or recommend it. Just to dangerous in my opinion. |
I read the research article. The type of paralysis studied, acute polyradiculoneuritis (APN), is the most commonly diagnosed generalized peripheral neuropathy in dogs worldwide, and is considered to be the canine equivalent of Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS) in humans. (One of my work colleagues has GBS, so I know it's not that uncommon in humans.) It's an autoimmune disease where the body's own immune system attacks the nerve cells. APN was originally called coonhound paralysis because it was first identified in the US in hunting dogs exposed to raccoons and raccoon saliva, but it has since been found in many other dogs and in many other countries that don't have raccoons. Other than a definite association with hunting dogs exposed to raccoon saliva, little else was known about the cause of the disease, but the similarity to GBS led veterinarians to suspect similar causes in dogs, including bacterial or viral infection. Campylobacter bacterial infection is associated with 40% of the cases of GBS in humans, so the authors of this study wanted to see if there was a link between Campylobacter infection and APN in dogs. Most Campylobacter infections in humans come from the consumption of raw or undercooked poultry. Chickens are a natural reservoir for Campylobacter, and many Australians feed their dogs raw chicken as part of their diet or as a treat, so the authors of this study included a study of the dog's diet to see if feeding raw chicken was associated with APN. BUT, they studied other factors as well, including other raw meats, vaccination, contact with birds, contact with outdoor water sources, contact with pesticides, whether the dogs scavenged for food outdoors, whether they ate poop (seriously), and demographic factors such as sex, breed size, and whether they were spayed or neutered. The results are breathtaking, but we'll get to that in a minute. The authors conducted a study of dogs with APN coming in to their clinics, and the study was conducted at the University of Melbourne Veterinary Teaching Hospital, which is a world class institution. For each sick dog studied, they studied two healthy dogs that were matched for body size for comparison purposes. A total of 27 dogs with APN were studied, along with a control group of 47 healthy dogs. Many small breed dogs were represented, including silky terriers, but no Yorkies. I'll present the results with odds ratios. For instance, if the odds ratio is 2, that means that a dog with APN is twice as likely to be associated with the listed factor as a healthy dog. If the odds ratio is 70, that means that a dog with APN is 70 times as likely to be associated with the listed factor as a healthy dog. (I include the example of 70, because that's one of the shocking results.) If the odds ratio is 1, that means there is no association of the listed factor with APN. If the odds ratio is less than one (0.5 for example), that means that the factor is considered protective, because the dog with APN is half as likely to be associated with the listed factor as the healthy dog. Results: Campylobacter infection detected within 4 days of diagnosis: 12.4 Raw chicken in diet: 70.7 (!!!) Raw meat in diet: 40.0 (!!!) Contact with birds: 0.98 (no significant difference) Vaccination within the past 6 weeks: 1.98 Access to outdoor water sources: 0.51 Use of pesticides: 1.83 Tendency to scavenge food: 0.75 Tendency to scavenge feces: 0.88 Outdoor access: 0.37 Rural: 2.44 Suburban: 1.65 Urban: 1.00 Female: 1.22 Neutered: 0.50 Large breed: 2.3 Medium breed: 1.0 Small breed: 6.2 weight > 20 kg: 1.0 11 to 20 kg: 3.38 7 to 10 kg: 5.03 < 7 kg: 7.31 I'll quote some of the conclusions verbatim: Quote:
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Very interesting! Thanks LadyJane and Phil! Seems like we have to,always be on our toes to take care of our fur rabies. Love Sceptvet! |
Huh, very interesting, for sure. Thanks for sharing! |
HPP processed commercial raw pet foods. I was asked about whether the HPP (High Pressure Processing) food sterilization process used by many commercial raw food companies is effective in killing bacteria in raw chicken, so I looked into it, and the answer is yes. Companies like Stella & Chewy and Primal Pet Foods use HPP to sterilize many of their poultry products. On their websites, they only mention testing for E. coli and Salmonella, so I had to do some more research about Campylobacter. I found a research article on the effectiveness of HPP processing on killing Campylobacter, and the results are that HPP is more effective at killing Campylobacter than other foodborne pathogens like Salmonella. Here is a link to the article's abstract: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26172174 There are no published studies comparing the safety of feeding HPP processed commercial raw dog foods vs. home prepared raw dog foods that I know of, but if I were determined to feed raw chicken to my dog (which I'm not), I would go with an HPP processed commercial raw dog food, and I would definitely check out the company to make sure they use HPP processing first. |
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Why would anyone feed their dogs raw food anyway. These are domesticated pets, makes no sense to feed pets raw food. Your not doing them a favor with raw food. Merrick is great dog food and is all they need to be in great health. |
I'll for sure give this article a read. I don't know about raw chicken necks as a treat tho. Especially feeding raw outside. |
I have no real opinion on this to be honest as I dont Raw feed and I don’t have enough information but saw this article and thought I’d share the “rebuttal” so to speak. Thoughts? https://www.dogsfirst.ie/raw-chicken...lysis-in-dogs/ |
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"First, has anyone on here ever heard of APN?! Come on now, there are thousands of you out there feeding raw chicken, surely one of your dogs has been stricken down?!!!!" I personally don't feed my dog raw chicken so I can't answer that question for myself, but APN is the most common type of canine paralysis in the US. Here, it often goes by the name of Coonhound Paralysis: https://www.petmd.com/dog/conditions...ound_paralysis I don't know anyone who has an afflicted dog, but one of my work colleagues was afflicted by Guillain-Barre Syndrome, which is the human equivalent. See https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-...s/syc-20362793 . Ironically, here is a quote from the Mayo Clinic: "Guillain-Barre syndrome may be triggered by: Most commonly, infection with campylobacter, a type of bacteria often found in undercooked poultry" Now moving on the rebuttal's bulleted points: 1. "Around half of dogs normally have Campylobacter in their guts." This may or may not be true--the rebuttal doesn't purport to be scientific--but the Australian study found that dogs with APN had 12.4 times the likelihood for testing positive for Campylobacter as healthy dogs. 2. "There are so many causes of APN in dogs it's ridiculous." Umm, not really. In the US, APN was originally identified in dogs that had contact with raccoons. The state of the art at the time was such that they really didn't know WHAT about the raccoons caused the APN. The Australian study makes a compelling case that Campylobacter infection increases the risk of APN by a factor of 12.4 times. That's nothing to be sneezed at. The rebuttal argues that APN has been found to be caused by various other factors, such as vaccinations and Toxoplasma gondii infections. The Australian study looked at all of these factors, and many more. I quoted the odds ratios for these factors in a previous post in this thread, but to summarize, dogs that were recently vaccinated were twice as likely to have APN, as opposed to dogs that were fed raw chicken were 70 times as likely to have APN. As for Toxoplasma gondii, here is what the Australians wrote: "In a retrospective study investigating potential infectious origins, it was suggested that infection with T. gondii may trigger APN in dogs, 31 as previously reported in humans. 32,33 However, in a more recent study, only 1 of 14 APN dogs was positive for T. gondii Abs. 7 In our study, APN cases tested for N. caninum and T. gondii all were found to be negative." I kept the reference numbers in the quote because the rebuttal cites article number 31. That's a poster presented at an ACVIM conference in Dallas, TX in 2008. A more recent study from 2013 found that only 1 of 14 dogs tested positive for Toxoplasma gondii (cited as article number 7 in the Australian paper.) 3. "Poor sample size and poorer sampling methods." Sample size could always be larger in ANY study, but the methods of the Australian group are sound, and the results were overwhelmingly statistically significant. The rebuttal goes on to whine about the University of Melbourne Veterinary Hospital being "a veterinary university hospital that is presumably cash-sponsored by the dry food industry that most staff are on the dry food bandwagon and are thus appropriately terrified of feeding their pets any real food whatsoever. Can’t see too many of these dogs being fed raw chicken anyway!!!" The rebuttal exposes its own biases with statements like this. I can't really take statements about veterinarians being "terrified of feeding their dogs any real food" seriously. 4. "Might there be another reason dogs with APN shed Campylobacter shed in their faeces?" Perhaps, but the study ALSO found that dogs fed raw chicken were 70 times as likely to have APN as healthy dogs, and dogs fed other raw meats were 40 times as likely to have APN as healthy dogs, so there's that. "Conclusion: Raw chicken is not linked to paralysis in dogs in any meaningful way." If by "meaningful" you mean scientific research conducted at a world class veterinary school and subjected to rigorous peer review, then you're quite wrong, my friend. All I can say is... :lol tears |
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