Dogs on a Meat diet? No dog food?

[Amstaffer]

My sister is a farmer and I was hanging out with her this weekend and I was talking to a guy that was selling her some hay. He is a farmer that raises Beef and Chickens. He also has three hunting dogs. This guy says that he doesn't feed his dogs any commerical dog food and only feeds them beef and some chicken. He says he cooks the meat and doesn't give any chicken bones. He says his dogs do great but I thought that dogs need more to their diet.

When Athena was young I fed her liver in her dog food because she was kinda picky then and my vet warned me not too much because she wouldn't get all the nutrients she needed if she missed out on too much dog food.

Do you guys think he is setting his dogs up for trouble? Has anyone ever heard of this?

 

[Mordy]

Yes he is, and not just for the reason that boneless meat contains way more phosphorus than calcium and dogs need a calcium-phosphorus ratio between 1:1 and 2:1. Dogs can not and will not stay healthy on a diet that only includes meat and nothing else.

However, I suspect that living on a farm these dogs probably run loose and have sufficient opportunity to supplement their one-sided diet with other things.

While there is certainly no need to rely on commercial food at all when it comes to feeding dogs, there are a few critical things that must be taken into consideration or you will be setting your dog up for all kinds of malnutrition problems right down to kidney disease. Sadly it is not possible to diagnose that until most of the kidney function has already been lost and the dog actually shows signs of something being wrong.

 

[vanillasugar]

This guy sounds like he's doing exactly the WRONG in terms of a fresh diet.

I always say, if you can't do it right, don't even attempt it, it's just going to lead to problems. It's people like this that cause the problems vets warn you about. They get a dog in that's been fed like this and has all kinds of problems, and it doesn't really help them to think that feeding non-commercial food is a good thing

It IS possible to feed a diet without commercial food, and keep your dog very healthy on it! But this guy is unintentionally harming his dogs

 

[Amstaffer]

Could you guys provide a link? I will print it off and give it to my sister to give to him. She buys hay from once in awhile, maybe I (you actually) can help educate him and save his dogs from problems.

 

[greyote]

Could you guys provide a link? I will print it off and give it to my sister to give to him. She buys hay from once in awhile, maybe I (you actually) can help educate him and save his dogs from problems.

http://www.rawlearning.com

 

[Amstaffer]

Thanks for the info, I found it very interesting.

 

[usurp]

too much meat without bone is bad? I feed my dog mostly boneless meat through out the week and then on the weekend i get him a nice juicy meat on bone.. is that wrong? (i do feed him other stuff so he gets all his vitamins just curious about the too much meat with bone is bad thing)

 

[greyote]

too much meat without bone is bad? I feed my dog mostly boneless meat through out the week and then on the weekend i get him a nice juicy meat on bone.. is that wrong? (i do feed him other stuff so he gets all his vitamins just curious about the too much meat with bone is bad thing)

http://www.rawlearning.com/rawfaq.html

I believe that some percentage (15% ?) of bone is important for the calcium it provides, among other things.