by Elizabeth Ely

Created on: April 18, 2010

The greatest benefit after going raw is the increased health and vitality you will see in your dog. In less than a month there will typically be more energy, better skin condition, a shinier coat, improved weight management, cleaner breath and teeth, and even better elimination. A healthy stool is actually often one of the first things people notice after starting to feed their dog raw food. You can even use it as a guide to ensure you're giving the right mix of meat and bone. Too soft a stool? Add more bone. Too hard a stool? Add more meat.

The stool of a raw fed animal tends to be smaller and a bit firmer than when fed kibble or canned food. They just don't need all those bulky carbohydrates that add volume but not much nutrition. Some people used to recommend grains, but that thinking is changing. Treats here and there are fine for sure, but not as a diet staple. Raw treats are worth considering too. Dried salmon ones will certainly make you very popular.

Nature really does know best. Along with raw meat, raw bones are wonderfully healthy for dogs but cooked ones can splinter and be deadly. If you have access to whole raw prey, so much the better. A whole chicken or rabbit is a veritable feast for your dog. There are also many sources now of whole ground up animals, including bison, beef, goat, elk, rabbit, turkey, chicken, and duck. They come as convenient little frozen patties just waiting for your dog. Add a few fresh veggies if you like, such as fresh greens or a bit of squash, and you have the perfect meal. By feeding the whole animal, there's not the need for a ton of supplements either.

One of the biggest problems with cooked food is just that, it's cooked. Whether commercial or homemade, cooking destroys crucial digestive enzymes and nutrients. Animals also need fat in their diet, but what they do not need, is grease. And that's just what fat becomes when it's cooked, grease. Not healthy for any of us, two or four-footed.

Dogs (and cats) have much shorter intestinal tracts than we do. They are designed to process their food much more quickly. This quicker digestion means things don't have time to putrefy in their gut the way they would in ours. Salmonella, E. coli, and other bacterial concerns that would be a problem for us, are not for them. Just think of all those dirty mud puddles they love to drink from, or those old buried bones they love so much.

We first investigated and went raw when one of our dogs had ongoing diarrhea. Fed cooked food in those days, the diarrhea would stop only as long as she was on the vet's medicine. As soon as she went off it, the diarrhea would come back. Clearly not acceptable, we sought other answers. Lots of reading later, we came to understand the importance of a raw diet for our animals. Lo and behold, no more diarrhea, and no medicine either. That was about 20 years ago, and it's been raw ever since.

We've known other dogs who were very overweight even eating only small amounts of cooked food, be it kibble, canned, or even homemade. But when they got on raw, unnecessary pounds fell off, almost like magic. It's truly amazing and almost unbelievable too, to see all the changes first hand.

Dogs are very resilient beings. Most can survive without raw food, but if you want them to flourish, to be as healthy as possible, and to live as long as they can, as vibrantly as they can, nothing can beat raw. Those glorious fangs just weren't meant for cooked, greasy, processed food.

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