I have never brushed my dogs teeth or taken them to be cleaned. Their prey model diet does a perfect job. Our 8 year old dog doesen't have the slightest hint of yellow on her perfectly white teeth.

No. I found mixed information about homemade, as well. While I think a properly planned and executed homemade diet would be healthy, I am not a nutritionist and there is an overwhelming amount of contradictory information out there. Truly, I was afraid of using too much protein or not enough protein, which supplements to add....I finally got overwhelmed. Then I thought about the lives of my pets (past and present). Not one (so far) has died young or suffered any long term illnesses, all have eaten commercial dog food. So I switched my focus and began researching kibble. Ginger has severe allergies, but does really well (except during spring and fall when her airborne allergies are high) on the kibble I've selected. She can't have beef, chicken, lamb, salmon, venison, duck, turkey, green beans, wheat, soy...the list goes on. Her teeth are healthy (we were just at the vet) her ears are clear, her heart sounds good, she has firm bms... Bernie has incontinency issues and can't have anything but one specific kibble that I feed on the advice of the vet. Trust me, one dropped table scrap or an accidental ingestion of one of my other dog's foods and I'm cleaning the walls:eek:

This girl is sticking to kibble:)

That's what I like to hear...no brushing...mine has had kibbles all her life too, and her teeth are fine..so, maybe we're all doing the "right thing"..Like I said, to each his own, I have my opinions on kibbles versus raw, as does everyone else..if your raw is working, that's great, but, the food I have mine on is working great for mine..as long as they all live long healthy lives, that's all that matters..

As I said, thats fine, I personally choose not to risk feeding kibble to mine :)

In Dr Tom Lonsdales book 'works wonders' he talks alot about the progression of what dogs were fed, he also says that healthy cooked table scraps have a place within a dogs raw diet, but kibble has no place. Perhaps worth a read? Its also worth mentioning that when people fed dogs cooked scraps (along with raw bones and some raw foods) dogs had more freedom, they used to go out and catch rabbits, rodents and other whole prey to consume. The progression of dog ownership means that dogs no longer have the freedom to do that.

Not to start a whole 'nother thing, lol, but if you did your research - you probably also learned that canine allergies skyrocketed and continued to do so with the advent of kibble? That allergies began in dogs when we added kibble? Don't get me started, girl! LOL.

I have to go eat breakfast, girls....you know what I'm having? Cereal! It's human kibble!!!!! LOL.

Enjoy your kibble Ann, just don't start eating nothing but it:lol tears

I can't find that quote, but did a quick google, there are a lot of great links on this site.

http://www.canine-epilepsy-guardian-...s_Raw_Food.htm

It specifically addresses your point however, about dogs eating "prey". Meat that an animal comes across in the wild is not the same as the meat we provide for them...see article, it too may be worth a read.

Keep in mind, this is what I'm sending you after 2 minutes of googling. I'm sure I'll find the holes in it myself if I keep looking into it.;)

For me, until there is actual research supporting it, I'll wait. My dogs have all lived healthy lives (kibble's all that I've fed in my lifetime)

Hopefully, the research will show us that you all have found the right diet.

Oh, and Dr. Lonsdale has something to sell:)

Not really, he has lost alot of money over the years from promoting raw, because he doesn't get endorsed by the kibble companies like most vets do. He actually gives his books away for free.

The internet is the internet, anyone can make a website. Of course there will be anti raw sites, there are also pro raw sites, there are anti kibble sites, and pro raw sites. You have to decide what is best for your dogs, I know whats best for mine.

As I have said countless times before, coming from the perspective of having fed kibble and raw, my dogs do best on raw, thats a fact. So I will continue to feed it to them :)

LOL, you are trying to start something. :) I have seen that, this is why I first research raw. I've also found research that suggest the allergies came about when we started using monthly wormers, and monthly pesticides, etc... But, again, Ginger does well on her kibble. Only seasonal allergies twice a year. Gosh, that's peanuts compared to the problems that too much protein or an unwanted parasite could potentially cause in a diet. Here's another example of why I'm saying...I'll wait and see what we know in 10 years... here's an excerpt from another site, link is at the bottom:


Raw Meat Diet - caution

When making a diet at home it is important to remember to
include all of the food groups which it seems like you are doing.
I am not aware of any proven benefits of raw meat over cooked meat in
home-made diets. The safest course of action would probably be to cook the meat to eliminate toxoplasmosis, salmonellosis and E. coli infections. These are probably the most common food borne diseases that affect dogs when they are fed raw meat, although other problems are reported.
Toxoplasmosis is a parasite whose cysts live in the muscle of cattle, pigs
and other creatures. If meat is not cooked enough the cysts live and can
infected dogs or humans exposed to them. In an immune compromised patient this is a much worse problem than in patients with normal immune systems.
E. coli and Salmonella are bacterial infections. In most cases they are the
result of food contamination by infected workers who handle the meat during processing. I am not aware of any studies that really quantify the risk to dogs of these illnesses but they are frequently implicated in food poisoning deaths in humans, we know that dogs do get infections from these bacteria and it is therefore reasonable to assume that there is a risk which probably approximates that of humans but may be smaller or even larger than the risk to people. These would also be more likely to cause serious illness in an immune compromised patient. Mike Richards, DVM


Link:
http://www.vetinfo4dogs.com/drawmeat.html

Of course this site makes "no bones" about being opposed to raw, so the opinions can be expected to be biased just as "pro-raw" sites. But as near as I can tell, he's not selling anything, so it's just one mans opinion.

Ginger, i'm not sure what you are trying to get at here but let me make this clear.

I do not care that you feed kibble, thats fine. I don't go onto threads about kibble and tell people to feed raw, why are you doing this on a raw feeding thread?

Not selling anything- http://rawfed.com/myths/

Sweetie,

First, Ginger is my dog. :) I apologize. I was concerned for the original poster's pup and simply wanted to make sure she had done her own research.

Second, I will stop. Perhaps I should not have given another side or viewpoint.

I think if you reread my posts you will see that I have been respectful and that I have admitted repeatedly on both of these threads that I may be wrong.

I certainly did not wish to cause you stress, but was just enjoying the thought provoking conversation.

Have a wonderful morning.:)


Ann,

Enjoy your breakfast kibble!:D

I did not know your name, how could I? Now I do, hello Judy :)

Its great to have different viewpoints, I just dislike it when people surf the internet and feel they can make a judgement based on that alone.

I'm sorry, I just have to say one more thing.

That is my point exactly, do your own research and decide what works for you. I hope that you have chosen the right thing. I really do.

GOOD MORNING LADIES!

Well first off i'd like to say that i do enjoy reading the debate on kibble vs raw because for the most part it was very respectful. However i do think that there should be a thread just to discuss that. I do not like when someone asks a question about something in particular and then a whole debate (which sometimes gets ugly, tho not here) springs up. Its good that people do their research on whatever it is they want to feed. This particular thread was about someone who just started feeding their dog raw and it threw up. she was worried and wanted to know what about the raw could have done it, if it was the raw at all. I think we should stick to that question and not blow up her thread.

Lastly i would like to say that i highly respect Lara's opinions on the matter of RAW, and she knows that because i bug her all the time. LOL I also highly respect Judy's opinion because she is a very nice person that doesn't like to stir the pot, and who also does wonderful work with the yorkie rescue. So i know neither of your opinions are being given just to cause controversy. With that said i do think we should start a "RAW vs Kibble" thread and share all of our information there so that more people can learn of the two diets and have a lot of information readily available if they are thinking of switching. :)

sorry for rabbling, i just woke up, and i hope everything makes sense and doesn't offend anyone. :cup:

Well, speaking for myself ONLY, I find it insulting that you think I lack the intelligence to "do my own research" before switching to raw. Does anyone else feel persecuted?