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Feeding a Raw Food Diet

How to feed a raw food diet to your pet, concerns answered, and benefits described.

About a year and a half ago, my two dogs and I made the scary transition to a raw food diet. It was scary for me because I didn't quite know what I was doing. Upon reflection, however, I find that I never should have put my two dogs on the kibble that's available, as it is entirely unnatural for their systems and provides very little over all nutritional value.

Even though the kibble producers try very hard with science and the latest available information, there's still nothing really out on the market that can replace real nutrition available through real food. Dogs, even my toy poodle, have in their genes the nutritional requirements that only raw meat, fruits, and vegetables can give them.

When I first switched them over, I was terrified about giving them bones and raw meat because I was afraid that the bones would splinter, then get caught in their throat and my dogs would end up dying without me knowing what to do. Worse, they would die because I made the choice to move them to a raw food diet. It would be my fault!

I decided to start them off with very large bones. I selected beef ribs because at least that way they'd have to work at getting the bones to splinter. What I didn't realize was that raw bones don't splinter, only cooked ones do. Of course, the cow ribs were way too big for my toy poodle, though she sure gave it a good shot to break into them and get the marrow. I refused, at the time, to even entertain the thought of feeding chicken wings or chicken bones of any kind, as there's a lot of hype around chicken bones splintering in the throats of dogs in particular.

My next selection of raw meat was pork chops. Pork chop bones were much easier for my toy poodle to munch on, but I found that it gave her terrible indigestion. About that time, I found some friends who were also feeding raw food to their animals, and they have some suggestions for me about the indigestion. First, I shouldn't feed just raw meat. I needed to include raw fruits and vegetables. The only raw fruits and vegetables I shouldn't include were onions, lots of garlic, and grapes. They also suggested that I include a probiotic, a digestive enzyme, and a source of the omega 3, 6, and 9 oils. As soon as I got those into my dogs' system, all traces of indigestion went away.

It was also hard to figure out how much raw meat, vegetables, and fruits I should give my dogs. I figured it

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