Raw Diet For Dogs – BARF Dog Food – Raw Bones For Dogs

OK, so you’ve decided against a raw diet for dogs.

Now what?

You already know that there’s plenty of choice out there when it comes to dog food, whether it’s dry or canned / wet food you’re looking for, but how do you ensure that the food you buy for your pet is a healthy dog food?

Our preference is for dry dog food, and that’s what we’ve given our dogs for many, many years now.

Most people will go to their local supermarket and pick up whatever catches their eye and/or is the cheapest price.

Some will go for the so-called “premium brands”, thinking that they’re doing their dogs a favour by giving them a better quality food.

But the sad truth is that, almost all commercial dog food (i.e. the type you’ll find at most supermarkets), is really not that good for dogs – they contain ingredients that range from unnecessary to downright dangerous and even potentially lethal.

When we’re looking for a good dry dog food for our own dogs, then we make sure that none of the following ingredients are anywhere near the top of the list: -chicken or turkey (in any form), corn, soy and wheat, not to mention chemicals with unpronounceable names.

Why?

Poultry products are well known for harbouring dangerous bacteria such as Campylobacter, Salmonella and e.Coli. It is because of the risk of such bacteria that we never recommend feeding any chicken, turkey, duck, goose or other poultry products, in any shape or form (e.g. no broth, no eggs, no baby food), to dogs suffering from Canine Parvovirus, or even any other ailment.

In the course of helping to treat over 4,510 dogs for Parvo, we’re seeing more and more cases where they develop Parvo-like symptoms, except it turns out to be Campylobacter, which they almost always contract from eating some form of poultry, whether it’s a raw food diet or whether they’ve been digging in the trash and finding meat that’s going off. (And, by the way, if you treat a dog that has Campylobacter the same way you would treat it for Parvo, then it’s the wrong way to go about it and it can cause you to lose your pet.)

Corn is hard for dogs to digest, while soy and wheat can often cause allergies, which you obviously want to avoid.

If you check the labels on many popular brands, then you’ll find one or more of these ingredients right at the top of the list.

Here are some of the well-known brands of dog food that people are reporting having problems with:

• Alpo
• Beneful
• Blue Buffalo
• Canidae
• Del Monte
• Diamond Dog Food
• Iams
• Kirkland
• Nutro
• Ol Roy
• Pedigree
• Purina
• Royal Canin
• Science Diet

One of these dogs foods, Nutro, was even contaminated with the deadly bacteria Campylobacter, which in our experience, is even more lethal than Parvo.

The list of dog food brands above is not exhaustive, so if you want to see if the dog food you are using has problems you weren’t aware of, then check out the Consumer Affairs website.

One of the problems seems to be that the big corporates (e.g. Proctor & Gamble, Colgate Palmolive, Mars) are buying up smaller, independent dog food manufacturers, and because profits come before anything else, the ingredients are being changed so that the food costs less to make so that the company can make more money.

There is, of course, a victim in all this – and that’s your dog!

If you really want to know what sort of junk and toxic chemicals you are feeding your dog, then we highly recommend reading “Dog Food Secrets” – you will end up being both educated and angered that companies can get away with feeding dogs this sort of stuff.

Did you know, for example, that they even “recycle” dogs who’ve already died of dangerous viruses and bacteria such as Parvo and Campylobacter?

Such dogs are frequently sent to the rendering plants, where they end up back in the dog food.

That’s right – your dog could be cannibalising the processed remains of diseased dogs! (And the scary part is that they may not have cooked the dog food high enough or long enough to kill of the bacteria, which is why brand new bags of dog food may already be contaminated with bacteria such as Campylobacter.)

However, this doesn’t just affect dogs – cats are also experiencing major problems with many cats foods as well, and some are even dying!

So, you’re probably wondering what food we give to our own dogs.

Well, after plenty of research, we went for a dog food called Triumph – we found no bad reviews of it, the ingredients all looked reasonable (although, of course, we use the lamb and brown rice flavour – not the chicken one), and so far, it’s been working out really well.

But whichever brand you choose, please do your research first, because your dog’s life depends on it.