This is part two of my podcast, answering many questions one of our fans sent in about raw feeding puppies.
In this episode I cover:
- AAFCO’s “Complete and Balanced” designation and why it’s relevant to kibble but not relevant to you if you feed a varied raw diet.
- Safety suggestions for feeding, sourcing, and handling raw dog food.
- Special considerations when feeding raw diets to puppies.
Visit our website, madcapradio.com for further reading.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I'm Jane Messineo Lindquist,
(00:04):
And this is a Puppy Culture
potluck podcast.
You bring the topics,we bring the conversation.
This episode is a continuationof the last one.
(00:24):
One of our followers wrote in and asked
a lot of questions about feeding raw.
So many, in fact, that I couldn'ttackle them all in one episode.
So if you want to go back
and listen to episode one, it'sthe episode before this one.
But here we go.
We're going to jump right in with complete
(00:45):
and balanced and AAFCO.
And the reason I'm starting with thisis that when someone doesn't
want you to feed your dog a raw diet,one of the first things
they're probably going to trot outis, well, it's not complete imbalanced.
(01:06):
So I think it's really importantto understand
what AAFCO and complete imbalanced isand is not.
And why, in my opinion, it'sirrelevant to you
if you're going to feed raw.
Complete and balanced
is a designationcreated by AAFCO and AAFCO
(01:29):
also created the criteria
that dog food companies have to meet
before they can call their food
complete and balanced.
So a lot of people think that AAFCOis some kind of government
agency that oversees
(01:50):
pet nutrition, and it's not.
It stands for the Association
of American Feed Control Officials.
Now, you would think that the FDA
or the USDA would bethe ones that would regulate pet food.
You would think that there would besomething sort of like the surgeon
(02:14):
general, but the veterinary generalthat is part of the U.S.
government that establishesnutrition guidelines for our pets.
But that is not the case.
In fact, very explicitlythat is not the case.
AAFCO is a volunteer organization
(02:38):
staffed by members of the biggest pet foodcompanies in the world.
Hill's Pet Nutrition. Nestlé.
Purina Nutritional.
Cargill Animal Nutrition.
It's the pet food companiesgoverning themselves.
There's no adult in the room here.
There's no government oversight.
(02:59):
In fact,
to the contrary,
the FDA, who you would thinkwould be the ones that would be in charge
of the safety of the food for our pets
has explicitly said,
we're out.
And in fact, AAFCO can do our job.
(03:19):
On the FDA's website, it says,and this is a quote,
AAFCO is vital to the continuedregulation of pet food products
because FDA has limited enforcementresources
that are focusedon human food safety issues.
So, okay, let's just start with
(03:42):
the fox is watching the henhouse.
Don't get your knickers in a tangleif you feed kibble.
I'm not saying that the fox is always
that badand we're going to talk about that,
but we do have to get it out of the waythat the pet food industry
is governing themselvesand making the rules
(04:04):
up as they go along.
So right out of the box,there's a credibility issue here
with any of their recommendations.
Again,I'm not saying that automatically means
that AAFCO designations are useless
(04:24):
or that every food that is AAFCOcertified is bad.
I'm just saying that
relying on the recommendations
of AAFCO as dispositive
on the topic of pet nutrition
(04:44):
is, in my opinion, ill advised
because of the significant conflict
of interests involved.
And I'm sorry,I'm going to hammer this a little bit
because I'm not sayingthat they're always wrong.
I'm just saying that you have to takewhatever AAFCO is telling you
(05:07):
with a grain of saltbecause of that conflict of interest.
And we're going totalk more later about that.
So back
to the complete and balanced designation.
For a food to be complete and balancedit has to meet certain criteria.
It has to meet AAFCO’snutritional guidelines,
(05:31):
and it also has to pass a feeding trial.
There is an exception for foodsthat are identical to other foods
that have already passed feeding trials,but it has to pass this feeding trial.
And that's another thingthat pet food companies will tout.
And people will say, well, you know,
I mean, they've donefeeding trials on this food.
(05:51):
So we know it's nutritious. And,
I'm just going to tell youwhat these feeding trials are.
Okay?
And then it's up to you to decidehow much credence
you want to lend to their feeding trials.
So a feeding trial has to include
eight dogs, six of which
(06:15):
have to complete the trial.
During six months
those dogs can eat only the food
that's on trial.
None of the dogs can diefrom malnutrition.
None of the dogs can lose
(06:36):
more than 15% of their body weight
and their blood is checked
for four metrics only.
So six dogs
have to survivefor six months on the food.
And I think survive is the operative termhere.
(07:01):
Okay. They can't die of malnutrition.
But listen, there's a lot of foodrelated illnesses that you can get.
So just simply not dying
of malnourishmentfor six months on a food,
I mean, that doesn't meanthat it's a healthy food.
It just means that it's not actually fatal
(07:24):
to eat it for six months.
So I'm just going to say it's my opinion
that if you are feeding
a whole food diet, well,
first of all, that feeding trial
to me is meaningless.
(07:46):
I mean, any of us are doinga feeding trial like that.
If you're a breederand you have a lot of dogs in your house,
we're doing more dogs than thatevery six months.
And our dogs are living and thrivingand living beyond
average for the breed. So
the feeding trials to me are meaningless.
(08:07):
You can form your own opinion.
Now, the nutritional guidelinesare more interesting
because, you know,you have to realize that
when they're putting together dog foods,
they're using
what they have available to them,which is the byproduct
(08:29):
of the human food industry.
So it's the sweeping off the floor, it'sfeathers, it's, you know, meal.
I don't exactly know what this meal is,but some byproduct,
it's meat meal,some byproduct of the food industry.
But again, you can look it up.
There's lots been written on that.
(08:49):
I'm not getting into it.
But what I'm saying is,when you're cobbling together
a food out of these byproductsthat are not really
the things a dog is meant to eatthat are not
necessarily nutritious
in there
because they're not a whole foodin a whole form.
(09:12):
Yeah, I mean,you need some nutritional guidelines
because otherwise
you don't know
you need some guidelinesthat you can measure this stuff
that you've put togetherand know whether it's going to sustain
a dog.
But, you know, we don't really need
(09:34):
a nutritional analysis
of whole natural foods to knowthat they sustain life because they do.
I mean, that's not,okay, I'm going to use another example
again, going like the last timeI used a human example.
So let's just say
when you are feeding your family,you know, they change food guidelines.
(09:59):
I know the foodpyramid has changed from time to time,
but basically it's the foodpyramid, right?
Your eating whole foods,you're rotating through foods
and over time,and that's the key word over
time, you're getting a wholesome, healthywhole food meal.
(10:20):
You're getting your nutrition.
There is no utility
in testing every single meal
and saying, oh, well,this meal that you're eating is
rejected as non nutritiousbecause it doesn't meet
all your nutritional requirements,because that's not how food works
in the real world.
(10:41):
In the real world, you know, you eatand you put good food
together and over time, it'shealthy and nutritious.
I mean, I suppose you could engineer
a dish of food using whole ingredientsthat truly did
meet all your nutritional requirementsin each meal.
(11:02):
But it wouldn't be very palatable.
First of all.
And second of all, it'sjust it's nonsensical.
It's not how we're designed to eat.
But if on the other hand,
you were going into outer space
and you were going to be eating foodout of a tube for six months,
(11:24):
well, you bet your bippy,they better be analyzing that food
to within an inch of its lifeand know exactly what the nutrient
components are in it because it has tosustain life artificially.
It's not a whole natural food.
So, yeah, it needs analysis,it needs guidelines.
(11:45):
And that is my analogy that I use with
kibble versus a whole food raw diet.
Yes, you have to havenutritional guidelines for kibble.
And by the way, AAFCO although they arethe fox watching the henhouse,
most pet food companies are very,they make very good foods.
(12:06):
I mean, they have a vested interestin making a food
that your dog will thrive on. So
it's not like
the nutritional guidelines of AAFCOor all pet food
companies are,it's completely meaningless and bad.
It's meaningfulif you're sort of playing in that sandbox
(12:29):
of a highly processed food that's cobbledtogether from random ingredients.
But if you know,if you're going to feed raw, complete
and balancedand AAFCO it's irrelevant to you.
At least that's my opinion.
And by the way, you can find foods,raw foods that are complete and balanced.
(12:50):
So, you know, if that makes you feelbetter, you can find them.
But to me it's not relevant.
So now let's move on to the next questionthat our fan had,
which is a questionabout the dangers of salmonella
(13:12):
and listeria and such
with raw feeding.
So I think you have to separate thisinto two parts.
One is the safety for the dogs
and the other is the safety for the humansfeeding the food.
As far as the safetyfor the raw meat of the raw diet
(13:34):
for dogs in general,there is virtually zero issue
because dogs are designed to eat meatand carrion.
They're actually designedto eat rotten meat.
In fact, the enzymes in carrion
are helpful to a dog's digestive system.
(13:55):
Now, relax.
We're not going to feedyour dog rotten meat.
But my point is,any concerns about bacteria or salmonella?
You know, dogs are designed justto make short work of that kind of stuff.
And I'll tell you why.
Their intestine
is extremely short compared to ours.
(14:16):
And their stomachs are extremely acidcompared to ours.
At one point in the digestive cycle,
a dog's stomach acid is equivalent
to the ph of battery acid.
They are carrion and bone eating machines.
(14:37):
So the whole salmonellaor listeria or whatever
other pathogen people drumup to instill fear in you,
it is totally a non-issue for a dogthat is not in some way
seriously immunocompromised.
I'm going to put up links on the show
page at madcapradio.com.
(14:58):
It's a long topic.
You can do a deep dive for yourself.
Now. Parasites are a bit more tricky.
We do freeze our raw food
solid for at minimum a month
and we keep our freezers at -15 degreesFahrenheit,
(15:20):
which is -26 Celsius.
And that does kill virtually any parasite.
I would not feed my dog food
that had not been frozensolid for a month.
Does it ever happenthat some weird parasite survives
a hard freeze process like this?
(15:42):
Sure, it can happen, but
it appears to be extremely rare.
And from the cases I've read,
it's always been unknown or unclear
how the raw food was sourced, handled
and stored.
(16:02):
That having been said,I can call out two things
that I definitely would not feed my dog
even if it was frozen solid for a month.
The first is any kind of fetus or placentafrom any livestock,
particularly cattle,
because that carriesa high risk of neospora
(16:25):
which might be resistant to freezing.
Again, kind of unclear whether
freezing at the right temperature
could really kill all neospora or not,
but I would not take a chance.
And by the way,that's an argument for going to a source
(16:45):
that uses human grade foodbecause they won't be including
any kind of placental materialin their mixes.
The other thing I wouldn't feed my dog,weird I know, is seal meat,
but if you live up north,maybe you have access to seal meat,
because the parasites that infect seals
(17:08):
have adapted to live at very,very cold temperatures
so they don't get killedwhen you freeze them solid in the freezer.
Now, that does not appear
to be a problem with fish.
It seems to be a problemlimited to seal meat.
I don't know. Maybe penguins, too,
(17:30):
but I don't think anybody sourcingpenguins to feed their dog.
So those are two
definite hardnos for me for feeding my dogs.
The other thing that I reallyI just don't do anymore is I don't feed
wild game to my dogs.
I don't do it because of the increased
(17:52):
risk of parasitic contamination.
Yes, freezing should kill those parasites,but at this time
I feel more comfortable with farmraised meat from a controlled source.
But I feel like with the wild game,you know, it's a judgment call.
So to sum it all up,
(18:14):
it's my observation and experiencethat sourcing raw food
from a commercial sourcethat's using human
grade food ingredientsand freezing that food
for a month to 15 below zero
is about as safe as you can get.
(18:35):
But no food is 100% safe.
Every time you put somethingin your mouth,
every time your dogput something in their mouth,
you're taking
some kind of risk.
Dogs die and get sick
(18:56):
from eating tainted kibble all the time.
There was that whole thing in 2007
where the dog food had melamine in itto increase the protein content.
Dogs were dying from that.
Hundreds of dogs.
In 2021, Hill's pet foodsettled a lawsuit involving
(19:17):
dogs dying from an excess of vitaminD in their foods.
There was also that sportmix foodsometime in the early 2000s
that was taintedand dogs were dying from it.
I mean, I'mnot a tracker of these kinds of things,
and I'm just pullingthree random incidents out
(19:41):
just to say thatyou're never no matter what you eat,
there's a risk something could go wrong.
I think these are not irresponsiblecompanies.
I mean, it's just it's food and thingsget into the food supply and tainted and,
you know, whether it's rawor whether it's kibble,
(20:01):
you're taking a risk when you eatsomething, but you got to do it.
It's a risk you got to take.
I actually have never heard of a dog
getting sick from something like listeria
or salmonella in eating raw food,which is, again,
what people will always say,oh, there's salmonella, listeria.
(20:22):
The dog can get sick.I've never heard of it.
And I don't know of any comparable,I've heard of pet food recalls
because of levels of salmonella,salmonella and listeria.
But I've never heard of a dog getting sickafter eating it.
I mean, I'm sure it's happened somewheresometime, but I would doubt
probably that it was fromsomething like salmonella or listeria.
(20:45):
I would be much more inclinedto think that if a dog ever did get sick
from raw food, it was probably chemical
tainted food or something else.
I mean, just not the things
that typically
people fearmongerabout when it comes to raw food.
(21:07):
To me, the biggest danger
of feeding raw is the choking hazard.
The only deaths I have known from me
or any of my friends or acquaintances,of which
there are a multitude that feed raw.
The only deaths I have known both involvedchoking on chicken necks.
(21:31):
One was a sixteen week
old puppy that was leftunattended in a crate with a chicken neck,
and the puppy didn't chew the chicken neckproperly and choked to death on it.
Probably couldn't chew it properlybecause it's sixteen weeks.
It was teethingand didn't have sufficient teeth,
but that's one case I know of.
And another case was a giant breed of dog
(21:53):
that was given a huge plate of chicken,chicken necks.
And the dogattempted to basically hawk back
an entire mouthful of chicken necksand choked to death on it.
My dogs are
gulpers not chewers,so I only feed raw mix.
(22:14):
I mean, it'sbetter to feed some chicken necks
if you canbecause it's going to clean their teeth.
But my dogs, I mean, they don't chew them.
I only give them a chicken neckif I'm there to supervise consumption
and make sure that they actually chew itand don't choke to death.
Anythingthat requires more chewing than a chicken
neck is totally off the tablefor my bull terriers.
(22:35):
But my cattle dogs that I've owned,I mean, I could give them a stripped
chicken frame and they justsystematically shred it from one end
to the other perfectly safely,perfectly sensible dogs.
They were safe with any raw bone.
They would never attemptto eat something they might choke on.
I had a bull terrier
almost choked to deathright in front of me on a chicken frame
(22:57):
because she literally cracked itonce between her molars to fold it in half
and then attempted to hockthe entire carcass back in one gulp.
So your dog's breedis going to play a lot into
whether you need to grind your raw food
or buy ground raw food.
Now, as far as the danger
(23:19):
to humans from pets that are fed raw,it's crazy.
I have no idea why it's such a big deal.
If you can prepare raw meatand fish for your family,
you can feed your dog, raw dog food.
I mean, the same food safety rules apply.
I wear disposable nitrile gloveswhen I handle food
(23:41):
just because I just don'treally like to touch it.
And I pick up the dishesafter the dogs are done eating.
It's really a non-issue
unless you yourself are immunocompromised.
Now, one of the questionsthat the original poster had asked,
and I'll repeat it because I didn't repeatall the questions at the beginning,
(24:04):
is whether she would need to washher miniature poodles face and feet
after she gives the poodle puppya raw, meaty bone.
I do wash the bedding after
my dogs have had bones, raw, meaty bones.
I pick up the boneswhen they're done with them, and I put
the bones in the freezer for another timeif there's anything left on them.
(24:26):
I have short coated dogs,so I don't wipe them off
unless there's some kind of visible bloodor meat on them.
The adult dogs will generally wipe
their own faces on the bedding,and then the bedding is getting washed.
So it's all good.
You know, if it makes you feel better,
you can wipe off your dogafter she's had a bone.
(24:47):
But honestly, unless she's visibly dirty,I don't feel it's necessary.
In my house we've survived up till now,and that's all I can really tell you.
I would not go crazy sterilizing things
because I believethat does more harm than good.
Soap and water is the best cleanserand it's not going to add
(25:08):
toxins to your environment or overlystrip your environment.
So you're not getting any ofthe beneficial flora in your environment.
But you know, I'mnot squeamish about raw food in general.
I can't even be trusted to make hamburgersbecause I'm going to be salting it
and eating some of the raw burger meatas I'm making the burgers, oysters,
clams, sushi. I love raw food.
(25:33):
If you find
raw food upsetting,you have a bigger emotional bar
to get over,regarding food safety in general.
In that case, you know,you might want to clean off
your dogcompletely after eating or restrict bone
chewing to a crate without a padand then sterilize the crate and so on.
(25:55):
I'm not recommending that.
But if that's what you needto make yourself
comfortable, I'm not judging you.
Okay.
To wrap up, let's talk about herlast question, which was feeding
raw to puppies versus adults.
So I already touched on the fact that
(26:16):
when you're feeding raw, it'sjust like when you're feeding your family
in the sense ofyou're not aiming to have a balanced diet
in every mealyou're aiming for balanced over time.
And the biggest difference with puppies
is that you want to be closerto a balanced meal
(26:39):
in every meal than you arewith adult dogs.
In other words,you're still somewhat balancing over time,
but a much shorter timebecause there are these
nutritional windows that open and closeand you want to be sure
that you're getting complete nutritionin, in all of those windows.
(27:01):
The other thing I would saythat is different with puppies
is that you're colonizing the gut biome.
So where variety is important with adults,
really variety is crucial with puppiesbecause you're colonizing that gut biome,
which it's beyond the scope of thisto explain what the gut biome is, it's,
(27:25):
there's so much written on itin the internet and you can search,
but it's really important andit's really important that it's colonized.
And the way it getscolonized is giving your puppy a variety
of whole and fermented foodsearly in their life.
While that colonizationperiod is still open.
Circling back to the
(27:48):
balancing more
or less each day instead of each meal,I'm not talking about AFFCO
and their complete imbalanced designationbecause that's their own thing
and their own guidelines,
which I think we've established, reallydoesn't have anything to do with RAW.
I'm talking about,per your raw feeding model
(28:10):
that you want to try and hit more balance
each day rather than over time.
Now, you can certainly do this yourself
if if you're really attentiveto what you're feeding your puppies.
But for me, I find it easier with puppies
(28:31):
to go to a commercial raw mix.
And the bigger companies nowall make puppy mixes, which is fantastic
because there are a few otherconsiderations, nutritional
considerations for puppies, which againis beyond the scope of this podcast.
But if you get one of thosecommercial mixes,
I keep my puppies on the commercial mixfor the first six months of their life.
(28:56):
I do also
supplement with my own fermented foodsand stuff from the garden and so forth,
but at least I use as a basethat commercial puppy mix.
So as far as resources,there are a bunch of good brands
I think I might have mentioned.
We feed BJ's Raw.
I believe they do actually havea puppy mix.
(29:19):
We have used Darwin’sas our puppy mix in the past
and I do really like their product.
Unfortunately, Darwin's
has an annoying subscription modelwhich is terrible.
If you're a breeder raising a litter ofpuppies, you have to register a pet
and then they tell you what they're goingto send you and what you should buy.
(29:43):
And you can't just order what you needas you need it.
When you're raising a litter of puppies,that's really unhelpful
because the amounts varyand the variety varies
and the needs of the puppieschange week to week.
But it's a small quibble.
I do think Darwin'smakes a very good product.
Their food is excellentand maybe if enough breeders contact them,
(30:06):
they'll change that subscription modelfor us.
If you're going to DIY your puppy food,
there are other nutritional peculiaritiesfor puppies that you do need to know.
I do recommendDoctor Billinghirst's books.
There is a group called Raw Fed Universityon Facebook
run by a woman named Ronnie Lejeuneand she's a certified nutritionist
(30:31):
and she also has a wonderful websitecalled perfectlyrawsome.
I do not know Ronnie personally.
I don't have any affiliation with her,but I have followed her group for a while
and I appreciate her because she'spragmatic and willing to work with anyone.
She doesn't freak out if someonewants to do a hybrid kibble and raw diet,
(30:53):
She always seems to be looking forthe best under the circumstances
for the pet and the owner.
So the final question is about
recipes.
And I don't haveany raw food recipes to share,
but I think with all those resourcesI gave you,
you know,that should give you a really good start.
(31:14):
And there are some recipesin those resources.
But I do have to videosthat will be very useful to you.
One is on making fermentedvegetables for dogs
and the other is on making kefir for dogs.
And you can find those bothat madcapuniversity.com,
(31:36):
click on the free resources tab
and then you'll see a free to view section
and the videos are under there.
So thanks to that listener for writing inand requesting this podcast.
I really enjoy talking about this becauseI feel like a lot of proponents of raw,
(31:58):
well people can be put
off by thembecause they tend to present it
really more as an ideology
than as just it's food, it'shealthy food for your dog.
So I hope I made this topica little more approachable for you
and I encourage you to follow
through with some of those resourcesthat I recommended.
(32:21):
If you liked this podcast,
you'll love our puppy bundlesat puppyculture.com.
We have breeder bundles,we have puppy owner bundles,
we have pet dog bundles,we have show dog bundles.
Check them out a puppyculture.com.
Well, that's it for this time.
(32:41):
Thanks for listening.
Bye bye.
I'm Jane Messineo Lindquist,
(00:04):
And this is a Puppy Culture
potluck podcast.
You bring the topics,we bring the conversation.
This episode is a continuationof the last one.
(00:24):
One of our followers wrote in and asked
a lot of questions about feeding raw.
So many, in fact, that I couldn'ttackle them all in one episode.
So if you want to go back
and listen to episode one, it'sthe episode before this one.
But here we go.
We're going to jump right in with complete
(00:45):
and balanced and AAFCO.
And the reason I'm starting with thisis that when someone doesn't
want you to feed your dog a raw diet,one of the first things
they're probably going to trot outis, well, it's not complete imbalanced.
(01:06):
So I think it's really importantto understand
what AAFCO and complete imbalanced isand is not.
And why, in my opinion, it'sirrelevant to you
if you're going to feed raw.
Complete and balanced
is a designationcreated by AAFCO and AAFCO
(01:29):
also created the criteria
that dog food companies have to meet
before they can call their food
complete and balanced.
So a lot of people think that AAFCOis some kind of government
agency that oversees
(01:50):
pet nutrition, and it's not.
It stands for the Association
of American Feed Control Officials.
Now, you would think that the FDA
or the USDA would bethe ones that would regulate pet food.
You would think that there would besomething sort of like the surgeon
(02:14):
general, but the veterinary generalthat is part of the U.S.
government that establishesnutrition guidelines for our pets.
But that is not the case.
In fact, very explicitlythat is not the case.
AAFCO is a volunteer organization
(02:38):
staffed by members of the biggest pet foodcompanies in the world.
Hill's Pet Nutrition. Nestlé.
Purina Nutritional.
Cargill Animal Nutrition.
It's the pet food companiesgoverning themselves.
There's no adult in the room here.
There's no government oversight.
(02:59):
In fact,
to the contrary,
the FDA, who you would thinkwould be the ones that would be in charge
of the safety of the food for our pets
has explicitly said,
we're out.
And in fact, AAFCO can do our job.
(03:19):
On the FDA's website, it says,and this is a quote,
AAFCO is vital to the continuedregulation of pet food products
because FDA has limited enforcementresources
that are focusedon human food safety issues.
So, okay, let's just start with
(03:42):
the fox is watching the henhouse.
Don't get your knickers in a tangleif you feed kibble.
I'm not saying that the fox is always
that badand we're going to talk about that,
but we do have to get it out of the waythat the pet food industry
is governing themselvesand making the rules
(04:04):
up as they go along.
So right out of the box,there's a credibility issue here
with any of their recommendations.
Again,I'm not saying that automatically means
that AAFCO designations are useless
(04:24):
or that every food that is AAFCOcertified is bad.
I'm just saying that
relying on the recommendations
of AAFCO as dispositive
on the topic of pet nutrition
(04:44):
is, in my opinion, ill advised
because of the significant conflict
of interests involved.
And I'm sorry,I'm going to hammer this a little bit
because I'm not sayingthat they're always wrong.
I'm just saying that you have to takewhatever AAFCO is telling you
(05:07):
with a grain of saltbecause of that conflict of interest.
And we're going totalk more later about that.
So back
to the complete and balanced designation.
For a food to be complete and balancedit has to meet certain criteria.
It has to meet AAFCO’snutritional guidelines,
(05:31):
and it also has to pass a feeding trial.
There is an exception for foodsthat are identical to other foods
that have already passed feeding trials,but it has to pass this feeding trial.
And that's another thingthat pet food companies will tout.
And people will say, well, you know,
I mean, they've donefeeding trials on this food.
(05:51):
So we know it's nutritious. And,
I'm just going to tell youwhat these feeding trials are.
Okay?
And then it's up to you to decidehow much credence
you want to lend to their feeding trials.
So a feeding trial has to include
eight dogs, six of which
(06:15):
have to complete the trial.
During six months
those dogs can eat only the food
that's on trial.
None of the dogs can diefrom malnutrition.
None of the dogs can lose
(06:36):
more than 15% of their body weight
and their blood is checked
for four metrics only.
So six dogs
have to survivefor six months on the food.
And I think survive is the operative termhere.
(07:01):
Okay. They can't die of malnutrition.
But listen, there's a lot of foodrelated illnesses that you can get.
So just simply not dying
of malnourishmentfor six months on a food,
I mean, that doesn't meanthat it's a healthy food.
It just means that it's not actually fatal
(07:24):
to eat it for six months.
So I'm just going to say it's my opinion
that if you are feeding
a whole food diet, well,
first of all, that feeding trial
to me is meaningless.
(07:46):
I mean, any of us are doinga feeding trial like that.
If you're a breederand you have a lot of dogs in your house,
we're doing more dogs than thatevery six months.
And our dogs are living and thrivingand living beyond
average for the breed. So
the feeding trials to me are meaningless.
(08:07):
You can form your own opinion.
Now, the nutritional guidelinesare more interesting
because, you know,you have to realize that
when they're putting together dog foods,
they're using
what they have available to them,which is the byproduct
(08:29):
of the human food industry.
So it's the sweeping off the floor, it'sfeathers, it's, you know, meal.
I don't exactly know what this meal is,but some byproduct,
it's meat meal,some byproduct of the food industry.
But again, you can look it up.
There's lots been written on that.
(08:49):
I'm not getting into it.
But what I'm saying is,when you're cobbling together
a food out of these byproductsthat are not really
the things a dog is meant to eatthat are not
necessarily nutritious
in there
because they're not a whole foodin a whole form.
(09:12):
Yeah, I mean,you need some nutritional guidelines
because otherwise
you don't know
you need some guidelinesthat you can measure this stuff
that you've put togetherand know whether it's going to sustain
a dog.
But, you know, we don't really need
(09:34):
a nutritional analysis
of whole natural foods to knowthat they sustain life because they do.
I mean, that's not,okay, I'm going to use another example
again, going like the last timeI used a human example.
So let's just say
when you are feeding your family,you know, they change food guidelines.
(09:59):
I know the foodpyramid has changed from time to time,
but basically it's the foodpyramid, right?
Your eating whole foods,you're rotating through foods
and over time,and that's the key word over
time, you're getting a wholesome, healthywhole food meal.
(10:20):
You're getting your nutrition.
There is no utility
in testing every single meal
and saying, oh, well,this meal that you're eating is
rejected as non nutritiousbecause it doesn't meet
all your nutritional requirements,because that's not how food works
in the real world.
(10:41):
In the real world, you know, you eatand you put good food
together and over time, it'shealthy and nutritious.
I mean, I suppose you could engineer
a dish of food using whole ingredientsthat truly did
meet all your nutritional requirementsin each meal.
(11:02):
But it wouldn't be very palatable.
First of all.
And second of all, it'sjust it's nonsensical.
It's not how we're designed to eat.
But if on the other hand,
you were going into outer space
and you were going to be eating foodout of a tube for six months,
(11:24):
well, you bet your bippy,they better be analyzing that food
to within an inch of its lifeand know exactly what the nutrient
components are in it because it has tosustain life artificially.
It's not a whole natural food.
So, yeah, it needs analysis,it needs guidelines.
(11:45):
And that is my analogy that I use with
kibble versus a whole food raw diet.
Yes, you have to havenutritional guidelines for kibble.
And by the way, AAFCO although they arethe fox watching the henhouse,
most pet food companies are very,they make very good foods.
(12:06):
I mean, they have a vested interestin making a food
that your dog will thrive on. So
it's not like
the nutritional guidelines of AAFCOor all pet food
companies are,it's completely meaningless and bad.
It's meaningfulif you're sort of playing in that sandbox
(12:29):
of a highly processed food that's cobbledtogether from random ingredients.
But if you know,if you're going to feed raw, complete
and balancedand AAFCO it's irrelevant to you.
At least that's my opinion.
And by the way, you can find foods,raw foods that are complete and balanced.
(12:50):
So, you know, if that makes you feelbetter, you can find them.
But to me it's not relevant.
So now let's move on to the next questionthat our fan had,
which is a questionabout the dangers of salmonella
(13:12):
and listeria and such
with raw feeding.
So I think you have to separate thisinto two parts.
One is the safety for the dogs
and the other is the safety for the humansfeeding the food.
As far as the safetyfor the raw meat of the raw diet
(13:34):
for dogs in general,there is virtually zero issue
because dogs are designed to eat meatand carrion.
They're actually designedto eat rotten meat.
In fact, the enzymes in carrion
are helpful to a dog's digestive system.
(13:55):
Now, relax.
We're not going to feedyour dog rotten meat.
But my point is,any concerns about bacteria or salmonella?
You know, dogs are designed justto make short work of that kind of stuff.
And I'll tell you why.
Their intestine
is extremely short compared to ours.
(14:16):
And their stomachs are extremely acidcompared to ours.
At one point in the digestive cycle,
a dog's stomach acid is equivalent
to the ph of battery acid.
They are carrion and bone eating machines.
(14:37):
So the whole salmonellaor listeria or whatever
other pathogen people drumup to instill fear in you,
it is totally a non-issue for a dogthat is not in some way
seriously immunocompromised.
I'm going to put up links on the show
page at madcapradio.com.
(14:58):
It's a long topic.
You can do a deep dive for yourself.
Now. Parasites are a bit more tricky.
We do freeze our raw food
solid for at minimum a month
and we keep our freezers at -15 degreesFahrenheit,
(15:20):
which is -26 Celsius.
And that does kill virtually any parasite.
I would not feed my dog food
that had not been frozensolid for a month.
Does it ever happenthat some weird parasite survives
a hard freeze process like this?
(15:42):
Sure, it can happen, but
it appears to be extremely rare.
And from the cases I've read,
it's always been unknown or unclear
how the raw food was sourced, handled
and stored.
(16:02):
That having been said,I can call out two things
that I definitely would not feed my dog
even if it was frozen solid for a month.
The first is any kind of fetus or placentafrom any livestock,
particularly cattle,
because that carriesa high risk of neospora
(16:25):
which might be resistant to freezing.
Again, kind of unclear whether
freezing at the right temperature
could really kill all neospora or not,
but I would not take a chance.
And by the way,that's an argument for going to a source
(16:45):
that uses human grade foodbecause they won't be including
any kind of placental materialin their mixes.
The other thing I wouldn't feed my dog,weird I know, is seal meat,
but if you live up north,maybe you have access to seal meat,
because the parasites that infect seals
(17:08):
have adapted to live at very,very cold temperatures
so they don't get killedwhen you freeze them solid in the freezer.
Now, that does not appear
to be a problem with fish.
It seems to be a problemlimited to seal meat.
I don't know. Maybe penguins, too,
(17:30):
but I don't think anybody sourcingpenguins to feed their dog.
So those are two
definite hardnos for me for feeding my dogs.
The other thing that I reallyI just don't do anymore is I don't feed
wild game to my dogs.
I don't do it because of the increased
(17:52):
risk of parasitic contamination.
Yes, freezing should kill those parasites,but at this time
I feel more comfortable with farmraised meat from a controlled source.
But I feel like with the wild game,you know, it's a judgment call.
So to sum it all up,
(18:14):
it's my observation and experiencethat sourcing raw food
from a commercial sourcethat's using human
grade food ingredientsand freezing that food
for a month to 15 below zero
is about as safe as you can get.
(18:35):
But no food is 100% safe.
Every time you put somethingin your mouth,
every time your dogput something in their mouth,
you're taking
some kind of risk.
Dogs die and get sick
(18:56):
from eating tainted kibble all the time.
There was that whole thing in 2007
where the dog food had melamine in itto increase the protein content.
Dogs were dying from that.
Hundreds of dogs.
In 2021, Hill's pet foodsettled a lawsuit involving
(19:17):
dogs dying from an excess of vitaminD in their foods.
There was also that sportmix foodsometime in the early 2000s
that was taintedand dogs were dying from it.
I mean, I'mnot a tracker of these kinds of things,
and I'm just pullingthree random incidents out
(19:41):
just to say thatyou're never no matter what you eat,
there's a risk something could go wrong.
I think these are not irresponsiblecompanies.
I mean, it's just it's food and thingsget into the food supply and tainted and,
you know, whether it's rawor whether it's kibble,
(20:01):
you're taking a risk when you eatsomething, but you got to do it.
It's a risk you got to take.
I actually have never heard of a dog
getting sick from something like listeria
or salmonella in eating raw food,which is, again,
what people will always say,oh, there's salmonella, listeria.
(20:22):
The dog can get sick.I've never heard of it.
And I don't know of any comparable,I've heard of pet food recalls
because of levels of salmonella,salmonella and listeria.
But I've never heard of a dog getting sickafter eating it.
I mean, I'm sure it's happened somewheresometime, but I would doubt
probably that it was fromsomething like salmonella or listeria.
(20:45):
I would be much more inclinedto think that if a dog ever did get sick
from raw food, it was probably chemical
tainted food or something else.
I mean, just not the things
that typically
people fearmongerabout when it comes to raw food.
(21:07):
To me, the biggest danger
of feeding raw is the choking hazard.
The only deaths I have known from me
or any of my friends or acquaintances,of which
there are a multitude that feed raw.
The only deaths I have known both involvedchoking on chicken necks.
(21:31):
One was a sixteen week
old puppy that was leftunattended in a crate with a chicken neck,
and the puppy didn't chew the chicken neckproperly and choked to death on it.
Probably couldn't chew it properlybecause it's sixteen weeks.
It was teethingand didn't have sufficient teeth,
but that's one case I know of.
And another case was a giant breed of dog
(21:53):
that was given a huge plate of chicken,chicken necks.
And the dogattempted to basically hawk back
an entire mouthful of chicken necksand choked to death on it.
My dogs are
gulpers not chewers,so I only feed raw mix.
(22:14):
I mean, it'sbetter to feed some chicken necks
if you canbecause it's going to clean their teeth.
But my dogs, I mean, they don't chew them.
I only give them a chicken neckif I'm there to supervise consumption
and make sure that they actually chew itand don't choke to death.
Anythingthat requires more chewing than a chicken
neck is totally off the tablefor my bull terriers.
(22:35):
But my cattle dogs that I've owned,I mean, I could give them a stripped
chicken frame and they justsystematically shred it from one end
to the other perfectly safely,perfectly sensible dogs.
They were safe with any raw bone.
They would never attemptto eat something they might choke on.
I had a bull terrier
almost choked to deathright in front of me on a chicken frame
(22:57):
because she literally cracked itonce between her molars to fold it in half
and then attempted to hockthe entire carcass back in one gulp.
So your dog's breedis going to play a lot into
whether you need to grind your raw food
or buy ground raw food.
Now, as far as the danger
(23:19):
to humans from pets that are fed raw,it's crazy.
I have no idea why it's such a big deal.
If you can prepare raw meatand fish for your family,
you can feed your dog, raw dog food.
I mean, the same food safety rules apply.
I wear disposable nitrile gloveswhen I handle food
(23:41):
just because I just don'treally like to touch it.
And I pick up the dishesafter the dogs are done eating.
It's really a non-issue
unless you yourself are immunocompromised.
Now, one of the questionsthat the original poster had asked,
and I'll repeat it because I didn't repeatall the questions at the beginning,
(24:04):
is whether she would need to washher miniature poodles face and feet
after she gives the poodle puppya raw, meaty bone.
I do wash the bedding after
my dogs have had bones, raw, meaty bones.
I pick up the boneswhen they're done with them, and I put
the bones in the freezer for another timeif there's anything left on them.
(24:26):
I have short coated dogs,so I don't wipe them off
unless there's some kind of visible bloodor meat on them.
The adult dogs will generally wipe
their own faces on the bedding,and then the bedding is getting washed.
So it's all good.
You know, if it makes you feel better,
you can wipe off your dogafter she's had a bone.
(24:47):
But honestly, unless she's visibly dirty,I don't feel it's necessary.
In my house we've survived up till now,and that's all I can really tell you.
I would not go crazy sterilizing things
because I believethat does more harm than good.
Soap and water is the best cleanserand it's not going to add
(25:08):
toxins to your environment or overlystrip your environment.
So you're not getting any ofthe beneficial flora in your environment.
But you know, I'mnot squeamish about raw food in general.
I can't even be trusted to make hamburgersbecause I'm going to be salting it
and eating some of the raw burger meatas I'm making the burgers, oysters,
clams, sushi. I love raw food.
(25:33):
If you find
raw food upsetting,you have a bigger emotional bar
to get over,regarding food safety in general.
In that case, you know,you might want to clean off
your dogcompletely after eating or restrict bone
chewing to a crate without a padand then sterilize the crate and so on.
(25:55):
I'm not recommending that.
But if that's what you needto make yourself
comfortable, I'm not judging you.
Okay.
To wrap up, let's talk about herlast question, which was feeding
raw to puppies versus adults.
So I already touched on the fact that
(26:16):
when you're feeding raw, it'sjust like when you're feeding your family
in the sense ofyou're not aiming to have a balanced diet
in every mealyou're aiming for balanced over time.
And the biggest difference with puppies
is that you want to be closerto a balanced meal
(26:39):
in every meal than you arewith adult dogs.
In other words,you're still somewhat balancing over time,
but a much shorter timebecause there are these
nutritional windows that open and closeand you want to be sure
that you're getting complete nutritionin, in all of those windows.
(27:01):
The other thing I would saythat is different with puppies
is that you're colonizing the gut biome.
So where variety is important with adults,
really variety is crucial with puppiesbecause you're colonizing that gut biome,
which it's beyond the scope of thisto explain what the gut biome is, it's,
(27:25):
there's so much written on itin the internet and you can search,
but it's really important andit's really important that it's colonized.
And the way it getscolonized is giving your puppy a variety
of whole and fermented foodsearly in their life.
While that colonizationperiod is still open.
Circling back to the
(27:48):
balancing more
or less each day instead of each meal,I'm not talking about AFFCO
and their complete imbalanced designationbecause that's their own thing
and their own guidelines,
which I think we've established, reallydoesn't have anything to do with RAW.
I'm talking about,per your raw feeding model
(28:10):
that you want to try and hit more balance
each day rather than over time.
Now, you can certainly do this yourself
if if you're really attentiveto what you're feeding your puppies.
But for me, I find it easier with puppies
(28:31):
to go to a commercial raw mix.
And the bigger companies nowall make puppy mixes, which is fantastic
because there are a few otherconsiderations, nutritional
considerations for puppies, which againis beyond the scope of this podcast.
But if you get one of thosecommercial mixes,
I keep my puppies on the commercial mixfor the first six months of their life.
(28:56):
I do also
supplement with my own fermented foodsand stuff from the garden and so forth,
but at least I use as a basethat commercial puppy mix.
So as far as resources,there are a bunch of good brands
I think I might have mentioned.
We feed BJ's Raw.
I believe they do actually havea puppy mix.
(29:19):
We have used Darwin’sas our puppy mix in the past
and I do really like their product.
Unfortunately, Darwin's
has an annoying subscription modelwhich is terrible.
If you're a breeder raising a litter ofpuppies, you have to register a pet
and then they tell you what they're goingto send you and what you should buy.
(29:43):
And you can't just order what you needas you need it.
When you're raising a litter of puppies,that's really unhelpful
because the amounts varyand the variety varies
and the needs of the puppieschange week to week.
But it's a small quibble.
I do think Darwin'smakes a very good product.
Their food is excellentand maybe if enough breeders contact them,
(30:06):
they'll change that subscription modelfor us.
If you're going to DIY your puppy food,
there are other nutritional peculiaritiesfor puppies that you do need to know.
I do recommendDoctor Billinghirst's books.
There is a group called Raw Fed Universityon Facebook
run by a woman named Ronnie Lejeuneand she's a certified nutritionist
(30:31):
and she also has a wonderful websitecalled perfectlyrawsome.
I do not know Ronnie personally.
I don't have any affiliation with her,but I have followed her group for a while
and I appreciate her because she'spragmatic and willing to work with anyone.
She doesn't freak out if someonewants to do a hybrid kibble and raw diet,
(30:53):
She always seems to be looking forthe best under the circumstances
for the pet and the owner.
So the final question is about
recipes.
And I don't haveany raw food recipes to share,
but I think with all those resourcesI gave you,
you know,that should give you a really good start.
(31:14):
And there are some recipesin those resources.
But I do have to videosthat will be very useful to you.
One is on making fermentedvegetables for dogs
and the other is on making kefir for dogs.
And you can find those bothat madcapuniversity.com,
(31:36):
click on the free resources tab
and then you'll see a free to view section
and the videos are under there.
So thanks to that listener for writing inand requesting this podcast.
I really enjoy talking about this becauseI feel like a lot of proponents of raw,
(31:58):
well people can be put
off by thembecause they tend to present it
really more as an ideology
than as just it's food, it'shealthy food for your dog.
So I hope I made this topica little more approachable for you
and I encourage you to follow
through with some of those resourcesthat I recommended.
(32:21):
If you liked this podcast,
you'll love our puppy bundlesat puppyculture.com.
We have breeder bundles,we have puppy owner bundles,
we have pet dog bundles,we have show dog bundles.
Check them out a puppyculture.com.
Well, that's it for this time.
(32:41):
Thanks for listening.
Bye bye.
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