[lil fu fu girl]

Originally Posted by mojo

I am curious as I have NO experience with raw nor have I really read up on it at all. Is it safe? Can they get salmonella from it? How are they not getting ill?

Feeding raw is safe, however, as with anything their are some issues to be aware of in dealing with raw meat and its bacteria. If your dog has an immunocompromised system or a chronic disease, the added need to defend against the raw-bacteria may stress and already compromised system.

However, that being said, a dogs anatomy and physiology is uniquely designed for this job of eating raw meats. Their saliva carries a distinctive enzyme called lysozyme whose job as a antibacterial helps in the fight against the bad bacteria contained in raw meat.

A canine's GI system, specifically the stomach has an extremely harsh acidic environment. This in itself diminishes the ability of the bad bacteria to colonize, which is what promotes infection.

Our pups GI tract is also short which promotes fast excrement of whatever is being digested. Your pup is most likely to excrete Salmonella than to acquire an infection from it. So their feces will be the thing that has the bacteria in it and why it is so important for owners to properly dispose of feces.

Andromeda has Lymes, so I am careful in making sure that I do not feed raw chicken to her as raw chicken usually is the culprit in containing significant amounts of Salmonella . She has done fine on raw and rarely eats kibble.

Plus the BIG issue for me is that once meat has been cooked, its chemical composition is changed. It is harder for our pups, and for us for that matter, to digest the "knots" of amino acids that cooking facilitates. When proteins like meat are raw, their amino acids are long chains which are easily accessible by our digestive tracts, both humans and dogs. That means that the meats nutrients are easily accessible, and the pup or human can digest more of them than when the amino acids are knotted.

Most people do not know that the kibble that they feed their pup has been noted to carry salmonella as well, that is why most feeding labels tell you to wash your hands after feeding; as not to acquire the bacteria.

Hope this helps......