Feeding Raw vs Kibble

[Joeyman]

hmmmm i've never seen the blue bag before. At the store where I get mine all they carry is puppy brand Blk bag and yellow bag

[Spini Boys]

hmmmm i've never seen the blue bag before. At the store where I get mine all they carry is puppy brand Blk bag and yellow bag

The Blue is the High Energy (24/20), they didnt carry it here either but I asked them to get some and they did. Black Gold has about 8 or 10 different formulas.

[TheLittleBlackBook]

I think one way people get off track is in thinking dry dog food has been around for many years and feeding raw is new. Nothing could be further from the truth. Hounds have been fed meat for as long as there have been hounds, thousands of years. Dry dog food is new. In the UK, most hounds are still fed "fallen stock" and nothing else.

This is exactly right. Most people have the misperception that "feeding raw" is new. The simple truth is the exact opposite: animals have been eating raw since the beginning of Time (or at least since the beginning of Life on Earth). It is feeding kibble which is new, as doing so is an invention of man which has only been going on the last 50 years or so. Again, the only reason kibble was invented was for human convenience, not optimal canine nutrition. This same truth applies with fast food franchises: these outfits too were likewise invented for human convenience, not optimal human nutrition.

That is all kibbled feed is: "fast food for dogs." Kibble was invented in order to get the chore of feeding dogs over with. Essentially, it was invented to save time for owners who don't feel like doing the work of feeding their dogs properly. This same truth applies for fast food: fast food businesses exist because many people are too lazy, or are too pressed for time, or who don't really care about taking the time to prepare a truly optimal meal for themselves. Fast food joints sure weren't invented to be "the best we can do" for our own diets; they were simply invented to save us time in eating, but it is always AT THE EXPENSE of the better and more nutritious possibilities that we "could" do for ourselves at home. Kibbled dog food is the same way. It sure as heck isn't the best a person can do for his dogs, and it doesn't matter what the ingredients bag reads: ALL kibbled food has been de-valued via the very drying/kibbling process itself, just the same as McDonald's French fries have been devalued in nutrition from what the original raw potato used to be.




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I've fed raw for a week, and what i've noticed was there wasn't hardly any waste. I think when i feed this dog food out i'm going to go raw.

Exactly. That is what all raw feeders experience right off the bat, and that is hardly any waste after they feed raw. And, plainly and simply, this is because most of the food gets utilized. All of the moisture, the natural enzymes, and the full amino acid profiles are intact in raw flesh for optimal utilization, as is what nature intended.

By contrast, when you feed kibble, there is NO moisture any longer, and there are NO more natural enzymes to aid in the digestion: these things have all been obliterated by the kibbling process. This is why there are huge piles of waste to greet the kibble feeder every day, compared to the raw feeder, because most of what gets fed does NOT get digested by the dog.

Here is an analogy to help illustrate this fact: did you know that pasteurized (heated) <B>milk</B> canNOT sustain the life of a calf? As you well know, when milk comes out of the cow, it has all of the natural flora and enzymes present, and in this raw and completely natural state milk is biologically-designed to sustain the life of a calf, by itself. However, when that same milk is heated by meddling man, that milk will no longer be able to sustain the life of a calf. The heating process DESTROYS the delicate balance of micronutrients to the point where that milk can no longer sustain a calf's life by itself.

Now, just think about that for a minute, and then think about how much MORE heated and MORE "processed" the natural meats and veggies get in order to turn good nutritious food items into the little brown pellets we call "kibble." The kibbling process simply DESTROYS what was once rich foods. Those lost nutrients are WHY any form of kibble is a shell of nutrition compared to an all-natural, balanced raw diet. It's the same principle why McDonald's French fries are likewise terrible when compared to a natural organic potato.

It really shouldn't take any special education for a person to "get" the simple truth of the facts presented here; it should only take a person who has some basic horse sense to think about it for a minute.




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LittleBlackBook, I see you posted again with the same reasons for going raw but you didn't vote..........I need to see at least one vote up there for an all raw diet.

Why do you "need" to see a vote? Do you honestly think the truth about what is best to feed is a matter of a popularity contest? Buddy, all you need to do is think a little, and just be honest with yourself, and the truth pretty much becomes self-evident.

If you're looking for a popularity contest or to be a follower of the herd, heck, I can tell you right now that most people feed kibble. But does the fact most people do something make it "the best." For that matter, most people have "pets" that can't do anything. Is that what you want too? This simple truth is, most people are satisfied with mediocrity, and the reason most people feed kibble is simply because most people are ignorant about canine nutrition and are too lazy to bother to learn about it. The other truth is, most people who have dogs and breed dogs have and breed useless pets that can't do anything also. But this doesn't mean that all dogs are useless, nor does it mean there aren't some really top-quality animals out there bred by people who really know a good dog when they see one.

The thing that always hurts the most is THE TRUTH. Tell a person that his beloved "pet" is essentially useless, and you will get a very defensive response ... as well as a big, long story about how "great" his dog is, when (in point of fact) the truth is his pet is a very ordinary animal. If you want to follow what "most" people do in dogs, you will never achieve excellence, and that is because most people who have dogs in general know nothing about dogs, and so they don't have the perspective to judge a dog as truly "great" or not. They love their doggie, so it "must" be great.

If you want to follow the crowd, most dog owners are pet owners and have never seen a truly great dog "do his thing," and so most people don't realize that their beloved "pets" really can't do anything at all very well, when compared to a top-shelf, performance-bred animal. This is why every city is full of retrievers that can't retrieve, pointers who don't point, beagles that can't hunt, guard dogs that don't guard, etc., etc. Most people simply know nothing about dogs and so all any doggie has to do to be "great" is wag it's tail, come when called, and snuggle-up to them on the couch. So if you're looking to "take a poll" on the matter of what "most" people do and feed, welcome to the world of mediocrity.

As fanciers of sporting dogs, we are supposed to have HIGHER STANDARDS if we want to keep and breed dogs that are supposed to "do something." As fanciers of sporting dogs, we are supposed to get more and more serious and particular about what we want out of our dogs, and we're supposed to begin to realize that not every doggie out there is a "great" doggie, just because it wags its tail and licks our face. In other words, we should begin to get some PERSPECTIVE on what truly is (and isn't) great.

What most of us DON'T realize is the same principle applies with feeding dogs. While most people who start getting serious about dogs, thereby start looking for better and better dogs to feed, but for some reason they don't ALSO look for ways to feed their dogs better and better. Thus while their knowledge of "dog quality" begins to get better and better, their knowledge of feeding stays at the "pet-owner ignorant" level.

The truth is WE ALL start out ignorant about both dogs in general as well as how to feed them. We simply see that "everyone else" just gets a pet and just feeds kibble, and so we do too. It really is a "monkey-see, monkey-do" kinda thing. Hell, every neighbor I have still feeds kibble. And when I started out in dogs everyone I knew fed kibble. That is why I too (in a monkey-see, monkey-do kinda way) used to feed kibble to my very first dogs as well. And, if you're honest with yourself Mr. Blaster, that is only reason YOU feed kibble, is because of the same monkey-see, monkey-do kinda thing. Everyone YOU know feeds kibble and so "you too feed" kibble. You sure as heck didn't invent kibble. Nope. The truth is, you feed kibble now ONLY because everyone you knew when you first started fed their dogs kibble, and so now you do too. You are simply conditioned to think "kibble is the proper way to feed dogs," WITHOUT GIVING A SINGLE THOUGHT to the FACT that dogs are really biologically-designed to eat RAW WHOLE ANIMALS, not grain-based kibble. This is not a matter of debate, Mr. Blaster, it is simply a matter of FACT.

The truth is, until recently, you haven't really thought about this fact too much, just like (when I first got my dogs) I really didn't think too about it much either. Like most people, I too just fed my doggies kibble. At the time I fed Diamond Green and getting my dog food "for $15 a bag" was my big goal as a feeder. I was simply clueless and ignorant. Hell, I know people who have had dogs 30 years that are STILL as ignorant about feed (and many other things), because they never bothered to QUESTION conventional thinking.

With me, I have never been satisfied with "second best," and unlike a lot of people who have dogs I really did (and still do) read as much as I can about dogs, so that I can continually do a better job than the next guy. And I have also fed enough dogs, for enough years, to have learned a thing or two beyond the typical monkey-see, monkey-do level of feeding and owning dogs. In more than 20 years of always being a proactive kinda guy, who has interacted with countless dogmen (or all breed types), I have seen countless dogs suffer from food allergies, from inexplicable hot spots, from inexplicable hair loss, from inexplicable loss of fertility ... and I have seen countless dogs that are forever itching and scratching, that get lymphatic cancer at an early age, etc., etc. ... which many years ago prompted me to go a lot deeper into these problems than to buy a jar of Nu-Stock or to "go see a vet." I wanted TO UNDERSTAND what was causing these problems, so I could avoid them, rather than just look for a "magic pill" or "magic shot" to make these problems "go away." As an interesting sidenote, the people who are always looking to "feed quick" (rather than to feed RIGHT) are likewise the ones always looking for a "quick fix" to their doggie problems (rather than actually looking to address the TRUE CAUSES of those problems).

At any rate, what I found out was MOST dog problems are the direct result of the animal being fed something that it was never designed to eat in the first place, namely dry kibbled feed, and on top of this most dried, kibbled feeds are made with ingredients (corns, wheats, glutens, soys, beet pulps, etc.) that dogs wouldn't even eat raw, and that actually CAUSE problems. From autoimmune disorders, to chronic mange, to hot spots, to premature cancers, to lost fertility ... you name it ... most of these outward problems are just the dog experiencing BREAKDOWN because it is forever being fed something it is not really equipped to process, and which (even if it was once, when raw) that has been turned into a form (dry kibble) that invariably is nutritionally-devoid of many of the micronutrients it should possess, which thereby simply accelerates the dog's decline in life.

And you will see people complaining of ALL these maladies everywhere you see people talking about dogs.

I did check with a local butcher shop that'll give me beef scraps so I'm gonna try some and we'll see.

Well, there you go, you are already starting to admit the basic truths of these basic concepts to yourself. However, while it is good you are thinking about raw, unfortunately adding beef scaps to kibble is not an optimal diet. If really you want to see a drastic difference, why don't you do some real reading on the subject of feeding raw, and really feed an optimal raw diet, because then you really will see something. The fact is, you simply won't see much of a difference when you haven't "changed much" of what you're doing already. In order to get drastic results, you have to make drastic changes.

I do wanna say one thing again though.........kibble may not be optimal but according to what you state all of my dogs should be near death on a regular basis because of a lack of nutrition and water.........I still say keep it in perspective.

I do have it in perspective. Kibble is not optimal, and so because I know it is not optimal, if I want optimal results then I "ought not" feed kibble. Again, this is basic logic. If a person is satisfied with mediocrity, in either his dogs or his results with those dogs, then he would have no reason to get either the best dogs he can nor to feed those dogs the best he can. Such a person can simply get a doggie out of the paper and stop by the feed store to feed it, and he will remain blissfully unaware of how far off he is from having the best or in doing his best. But if a person really does want the very best dogs, and if he really does want to do his very best for them, then that person must be very selective in the dogs he gets, and he will likewise be very selective in what he feeds them.

Regarding your own dogs, I never said they should be "near death," so it would be beneficial for the discussion for you to stop building a straw man to knock down. I assume your dogs have a water bowl around at all times, and so they don't dehydrate (like they would without water). Try this though: measure exactly how much water your dogs drink when fed your precious kibble. Weigh the water each day in the morning, then weigh what's left of that water in the evening. After doing this for a week, then switch to a completely proper raw diet, and I guarantee you will notice your dogs don't drink 1/5th as much water when fed raw, maybe not even 1/10th as much.

Regarding that word "perspective," the thing to remember about the dog is IT IS AN OMNIVORE. The dog has survived because its diet is more adaptable than most. Thus, while a dog is primarily a CARNIVORE ... he is adaptable enough to be able to "survive" on nibbling other things (even plant matter) in between his preferred meals. This flexibility in diet is why a dog can "tolerate" kibble, but the flipside is he will never thrive on it, like he would on raw, whole animals.

If you think about it, all animal species evolved based on what they eat. Every animal on the face of this earth is a specialized eater of "something." Whether that "something" is grass, insects, rodents, fowl ... whatever ... the whole function of ALL animals on this planet is predicated on WHAT THEY EAT ... and all animals eat their specific food items RAW. At least they're supposed to. This is simply a biological fact of life. The intelligent dogman, who has proper perspective (there's that word again), will simply take this biological fact of life and apply it to his dogs by feeding them mostly RAW MEATS, ORGAN MEATS, AND BONES.

Meanwhile, the guy who likes to cut corners, will take advantage of the fact his omnivorous dog "can survive" on substandard food items, and will relagate the his dogs' whole existence to being fed these substandard food items, in the form of dry kibble. Thus such a person's dogs can "live" on kibble, but they will never truly thrive compared to a group of dogs fed a proper raw diet.

Riddle me this......how many people have the time or availability of ingredients to go raw like you suggest? How many are true "professionals" when it comes to owning our dogs and how many of us do it as a hobby that we enjoy. Should the dogs suffer??? No, but I don't think that's the case either.

Again, most people are content with with just getting by, both in the dogs they feed as well as what they are willing to feed those dogs. As far as who has the time, we all have the same amount of time in each day: 24 hours. It's simply how we choose to spend that time that makes a difference. The person who gets up earlier to feed right is spending at most an extra hour feeding his dogs than the guy who feeds kibble. I think any time a person takes on the responsibility of keeping and raising animals, then he should try to do his best to keep those animals in as good a shape as is possible. More than that, if a person really wants the best out of his performance animals, then he would be better served to use best practices and not second-best practices.

What dogs do you own if you're feeding 25 on a daily basis? And how do you find the time to get them all out? Just curious.

I have bulldogs, and I don't get them "all" out at any one time, and when I was actively using them I simply rotated them. At this point, however, I have sold off most of my dogs and pretty much just have a few older animals that I feed.

However, what breed of dogs I have (or you have) really doesn't make a difference. These truths apply to sled dog racing animals the same as they apply to grey hounds, the same as these truths apply to beagles, the same as they apply to pointers and retrievers. Regardless of the breed, we are still talking about all dogs, and NO dog is better-served fed a diet of kibble. All dogs are simply better served fed a raw diet of meats, fats, organ meats, bones, etc.

I am simply passionate about dogs in general, and dispelling a lot of myths and assumptions that people have about keeping and feeding dogs. I am making a "Sporting Dog Blog" as I write this to save myself the time in having to re-write everything on message boards, because this kind of dialogue is time-consuming. If you choose to keep feeding kibble, that is of course your choice. Like most dog authors, I write the things that I write to let people know there are simply better alternatives than feeding kibble (as well as with many other subjects that relate to dogs). But whether I can get the proverbial "horse to drink" is a whole other matter.

It is my hope, however, that at least some people see that there are better ways to feed than merely feeding kibble and that they take the extra step in their day to ensure the very best for their dogs. With that said, I am done here.

Thanks for reading,

Jack




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[bucks better beagles]

I have always heard that "arguing is a pooling of ignorance". No offense to anyone but this discussion is bordering on the ridiculous and I have tried to read it all. Somehow, I am to understand that good dogs happen because they are fed raw meat and you will never have optimum performance if you do not feed raw meat and, if you feed dry food, you should feed only the very expensive kind, and anyone that does not follow this regimen is doomed to have substandard results and also be not very smart. Come on gents, the cheapest dry food works for many people. Some of the best dogs I have ever known were fed very cheap food because their owners could not afford anything else.

A beagle is a dog, bred to do a certain thing. Whether it does it good or bad has little to do with the food it is fed but more to do with training, breeding, care, etc. When I was a kid, we used our dogs to catch the food that we ate. Often there wasn't enough food for 9 kids and two adults so the dogs got whatever we had. They still performed and were glad to get it.

[NorWester1]

Buck, sometimes dogs do good in spite of how their owners and handlers treat them.
No doubt there are dogs out there that any 6 year old kid with a bag of "farm feed" and a pail of water could win with or at least do well with
But that's still not doing the best for the dog and you won't get the best out of your dog by approaching the subject in that manner regardless how much more talented the dog is than it's peers.

[cspot]

Can you mix up a lot of raw and freeze it, so you would only have to thaw it out. I have a huge freezer and this would save time if I could make a big batch. Is there a recipe that a dog will get all of the nutrients and vitamins it needs? Can you use venison?

[madcatter]

craig yes you can,and if you are gonna travel you can carry them in a cooler.a nice hamberger sized patty with a bunch of goodies like egg,chicken leg with bone,some greens,a chicken liver ,some fish oil and yougurt--etc or even some total cereal(to help solidify the stool)add some rice etc.
blend it up and grind--shape--freeze
alot of folks are just lazy,some dont want to bother,others think dry is better.
i have tried it and had poor stools,watery,smelly---tuff to clean up.so now i just feed raw a couple times a week or so,seemed to help keep them solid enuff so i can toss them into the street for the neighbor hood kids to walk through

its the great debate

[MasonsBeagles]

i feed kibble.

I think Purina has forgotten the working man there food is too high. The Beneful is junk. SportsMix is what I feed now.

[bucks better beagles]

OK, I plan to be asking my friends this but, of the people on this site who regularly win or know of people who regularly win Field trials, how many feed straight raw meat? I know of no one. Maybe, of course, I am just uninformed.

[Bunnyblaster]

Jack, it's the preaching that ticks me off to be completely blunt with you. The reason for the question about how many dogs you own and how often you get them out is simple........anyone that owns 25 dogs of any kind and has a real job cannot do them all justice in a 24 hour period, there just isn't the time. So while you preach about giving a dog everything it needs to be at it's optimal performance level my guess is those 25 dogs are sitting in a kennel somewhere hoping to get out sometime soon. They may be getting the best feed in the world (raw) but what good is it doing them sitting in a kennel. I know you are sitting there saying to yourself right now, boy this guy is an ignorant s.o.b., the truth is I'm gonna find out for myself. But you still can't answer my questions about how all the really great dogs are still alive being fed kibble, how all the field champs are still winning trials being fed kibble, how all the great rabbit hounds....bear hounds.....yote hounds.....etc are all still doing what they love and the whole time they are forced to choke down dry kibble as a replacement for what they "should" be eating. If straight raw is the answer then why do people still add supplements??? Fish oils, eggs, vegetables, calcium tablets, etc??? Your information would be much better received if it didn't sound like a sales pitch every time you decided to put your fingers on the keyboard. I may look back at this post in the morning and decide I should have waited to make my post but like I said before keep it in perspective. And along with that you've heard the old saying about catching more bees with honey...........or something like that.............change your approach, a real salesman would have figured that out by now..........and that goes for anyone trying to pass along important information in an informational manner. It is amazing to me that any dogs have managed to survive until the raw purists came along.

Don't judge people until you know them.....same goes for me, and we don't know each other that well.

At this point I'm done, I'll just read the responses..........you sure know how to turn somebody off, I'll give you credit for that. I can see why you wrote a book though.......you're longer winded than I am and that's no small feat.

Oh, one last thing..............the reason I asked for the vote isn't because I need to have people on my side to validate my decisions. It's to ask yet again why your superior dogs aren't the norm??? If what we do is so bad then how do they survive and compete and excel??? No answer, I would guess not. If the truth hurts and people don't like to hear it which is true........here's some advice. Brush up on your personal skills.........you'll get a lot farther with your info and your book. You have managed to turn me completely off from it all together because of your approach to others.

[kybeagler]

I wasn't thinking about the price when posting. Im lucky enough to get it for $6 a bag. I didnt realize purina pro plan is $45 in stores. But it is really good feed if you can afford it.

[Spini Boys]

I wasn't thinking about the price when posting. Im lucky enough to get it for $6 a bag. I didnt realize purina pro plan is $45 in stores. But it is really good feed if you can afford it.

You are lucky! I would feed it if it was even close to competatively priced like $25.00 to $30.00 for 40lbs. I would preffer 50lbs though. I get a discount on Black Gold and have had good luck with it ($23.00 for 50lbs.).

[Richard]

Jack, you say kibble was not around 50 years ago. I beg to differ, I was around 50 years ago and I was 17 years old. We fed kibble ( dry feed) back then as I do now. My dad had fox hounds and they would run all night on fox and were in great shape on dry feed. I have fed dry feed all my years of having dogs, coon dogs, bird dogs, beagles, and curs, (around 60 yrs) and they all did good on it. I don't feed anything else to my dogs. I feed black gold 26/18 or diamond 26/18 and my dogs are slick and in great shape.

[bucks better beagles]

I submit for you all to consider. Dry dog food is perhaps the one great invention which enabled people to own more dogs. When people started moving off the farms, meat products became less available so...dry became the staple food for industrialites. I am having trouble grasping the point in this discussion. I don't agree that raw food is best for dogs or for that matter, human beings. Is this discussion to persuade more people to feed raw over dry or just to stick doggedly (sorry for the pun) to a point? If it is either, it is losing its luster.

[madcatter]

hahahha
these internet forums are one of the best forms of entertainment around.
folks think they need to seek approval for what they do,folks think they need to approve what others do or dont do.
fact is if i fed a diet of stools and liked how my dogs did on that diet,whatever the experts here say-i will continue to feed stools.
whats next-- i feed only center cut while you feed shank?

some dogs could be fed no-bu beef or kobe beef and still not be worth a turd in the feild,others will eat what they catch
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_a ... 690266.ece