barf diet

[brandy]

any one feed their dog a barf diet?
am thinking about starting bubbles onto it.. as she is loosing weight and turning her nose up to dry dog food. she will eat wet easily enough, and steal anything she can, but i want her to eat healthily!
so any advice would be welcome!

[teenybash]

Bubbles is telling you something.......'I don't want the dried up nodules......'
Why not feed her good quality tinned such as Butchers or good old fashioned Chappie to start her off. they are both full of all the needed nutrients and for a bit of crunch Bakers complete.
A diet of died food is so unatural..........it's less for us humans to do but, I good mixed diet has always worked for my dogs over the years.......... Remember she wants to eat healthy too................

[justine]

take the dog for a long walk before each meal and make it work for the food and she will eat anything. Dogs are not naturaly picky, we make them that way by giving in to them when we think they have had enough of one type of food.Make them work for meals..easiest solution to any eating problem in a dog unless medical conditions make for special diet.


I have to ask though, what the heck is a Barf Diet, sounds like a bulimic nervosa for dogs.

[brandy]

a barf diet is a bone and raw food diet. basically meaty bones and raw meat and veg. i was feeding her mixed dry and wet but had tried to put her back to dry as i was told wet wasnt good for them. she has a craving for cat food which we have had to solve by putting the cats bowl away when shes not eating.. which the cat hates as she has always been a grazer! and because bubs is now on a hunger strike she is theiving everything she can! has even went and snatched things off the table! which she got a good row over! i think i scared about 3 years off her for doing that with the waving arms and high pitched screaming! *G* i was not impressed! im quite happy for her to have butchers bones i just dont like the idea of them being in the house laying in the floor... wonder if i can get her to keep them in one place and keep the kids from playing with them!
ahh well can only try! will have to make my way to the butchers tomorrow for a few bones!

[justine]

cheers brandy, ive never heard the saying before. We gave bingo wet and tried to change him back on dried, no way. we did everything that was explained by the vet and he lasted nearly three weeks of refusing before WE gave in, and put him back onto wet with mixer, we compromised.
Tank has mixed and bones and if he could anything he would eat. he loves
grapes, apples, bananas, strawberries in fact anything that keonah-Jade may throw off her high chair at lunch time, he gets a pretty balanced diet which we had to do after him being neutered, was getting podgy to say he least.Good luck and hope all works out fine.

[Liz]

I can highly recommend Naturediet which is a wet food. A lot of people who feed their dogs on a raw diet use this from time to time.

You can get it from Pets At Home.

[Julia]

My two are on BARF diets, they thrive on it, after all it is what nature intended. They eat minced lamb, pork or beef, tripe when I can bear it, chicken legs and wings (only cooked chicken bones are a hazard) and butchers bones. Everything they eat is fed to them raw. www.barfworld.com

Justine - I noticed you feed your dog grapes or raisins, they are very bad for dogs and can make them really ill or even kill them as grapes can cause dogs to develop sudden kidney failure.

More info can be found here or just google 'dogs +grapes'

[Ash]

Justine - I noticed you feed your dog grapes or raisins, they are very bad for dogs and can make them really ill or even kill them as grapes can cause dogs to develop sudden kidney failure.

More info can be found here or just google 'dogs +grapes'

i was gonna mention that aswell
great minds think a like


but like julia said this is very dangerous

[brandy]

yeah!!! tried her today on her barf diet... gave her tripe and mince with carrots and rice.. and she loved it!!
finished the whole bowl in a couple min.
she wasnt too sure to begin with but after the first bite.. YUMMY!!
she was even munching down on the carrot chunks that was left in the bottom of the bowl!
hubby is freaking as im picking up an ox heart on wed. with her bones from the butchers.
have to admit the tripe is very smelly.. ughh..
but i will percivere!

[Julia]

Tripe stinks! I buy the frozen tripe mince from pets at home, it's less smelly frozen and easier to handle.

I'd try a wee bit of ox heart to start with as it's very rich, the rest can be chopped up, bagged and stored in the freezer.

[Margaret M.]

I researched the BARF diet pretty thoroughly at one time and there is much for and much against it. It takes a lot of effort to feed a raw diet to ensure that it is nutritionally sound and balanced. That and the possible downside of feeding raw bones swayed me in the direction of a high grade canned food. A couple of snippets:

"Barfers' typically concentrate on ingredients and ignore nutrients. All the BARF diets tested had nutritional deficiencies or excesses that could cause serious health problems when used in a long-term feeding program. Of equal concern is the health risks associated with bacteria in the raw food diets, especially the homemade diet that yielded E. coli O157:H7. Although owners feeding raw food diets often claim that dogs are more resistant to pathogenic bacteria, we are not aware of evidence to support that claim." This from Drs. Freeman and Michel in the work they published in March 2001 in the AVMA Journal.

"The feeding of raw bones to domestic dogs is an integral part of the Barfer diet fad. Proponents claim that no harm will come to any dog fed a raw bone. Never mind the literature and veterinary clinics that have seen countless cases of impacted bones, torn stomachs, and other internal organs as a result of this practice. What Barfers' fail to recognize is that the wolf and other wild canids have developed a unique process to accommodate raw bones, a process which domestic dogs as a result of 100,000 years of natural selection cannot duplicate. Debbie Davidson, wildlife biologist with the International Wolf Center in Maine describes that process. "Wolves, and likely the other wild canids that you mentioned, have a mechanism that protects their internal organs when they pass the bones of wild animals through their systems. :snip: Because they often eat the entire animal that they kill, they ingest a lot of hair. Towards the final defecations involving the same kill, hair can be seen in the feces actually wrapped tightly around any bones that are passed through. This seems to protect the organs/passageways as the bones are eliminated."

[justine]

[quote=Julia;456139]My two are on BARF diets, they thrive on it, after all it is what nature intended. They eat minced lamb, pork or beef, tripe when I can bear it, chicken legs and wings (only cooked chicken bones are a hazard) and butchers bones. Everything they eat is fed to them raw. www.barfworld.com

Justine - I noticed you feed your dog grapes or raisins, they are very bad for dogs and can make them really ill or even kill them as grapes can cause dogs to develop sudden kidney failure.


JULIA
More info can be found here or just google 'dogs +grapes'[/quote
No! i dont feed him these, he nicks them if keonah or one of the others drop one. He gets nothing but meat and bones and dog food off me,i know grapes are bad for dogs and if he does get a grape then its one or two maybe, but no more than that.

[dragonfly]

JULIA

whoa!! turn the volume down a bit...........that was a bit of a blast

Think Julia was only trying to let you know, in case you didn't already know, that grapes/raisins can have very serious effects on canines

[unicornleather]

I put my 3 dogs on a BARF diet about a year ago and have never looked back, their helath, teeth and coat have improved beyond all recognition, I would NEVER go back to tinned knowing what I know now about what is in processed food .
I use landywoods they were on about starting deliveries in Scotland and if I move up there which I hope to do in the next fews years I will be needing them!
You will be hard pushed to find cheaper or better meat and bones.
Look for yourself www.landywoods.co.uk and make your own mind up, Oz

[Margaret M.]

I would NEVER go back to tinned knowing what I know now about what is in processed food .

Tinned pet food at one time was rubbish -- now there are some excellent human grade canned foods available.

[binbob]

Tinned pet food at one time was rubbish -- now there are some excellent human grade canned foods available.

have to agree with that....i know folk who do use barf and their dogs are very happy and healthy.
i do not use it...but i think it is a good thing.

[Liz]

Tinned pet food at one time was rubbish -- now there are some excellent human grade canned foods available.

Totally agree. A good place to get quality canned foods for both dogs and cats is www.zooplus.co.uk

Just because we are not feeding a BARF diet to our pets doesn't mean we are feeding them on rubbish!

Benjy has been on Naturediet since he was a puppy and at nearly 7 years old he has lovely clean teeth (quality wet food does not stick to teeth),a shiny coat and boundless energy.

[brandy]

natures diet has been recommended to me by several people.
had a look at the natures diet but all the packages ive seen are geared to smaller dogs.
well the pacaging looked tiny at any rate!
i find it just as easy getting up in the morning.. making enough food for her for the whole day and then popping it in a tupperware bowl and dishing it out at feed times..
this morning she had mince rice and carrots.
tomorrow she will get a bit of ox heart and a lovley marrow bone to chew on.
will grab some more veg when im out to throw in with her meal.. and more rice.
its working out pretty cheap as well... just a few pounds for the mince and i already have everything else in the house ... so not a big increase just another portions worth.
also the kids love watching make bubbles breakfast! they think its great!

[teenybash]

My two elderly girls are fed with commonsense food that they both enjoy and keeps them happy and healthy. Sometimes they will have tinned, sometimes cooked meat.beef, chicken, liver etc. Rice also plays a part in their diet to keep ageing tums in good order.
Though both are now 13 years plus they have perfect teeth and gums.
Although the 'diets' are all very good our own commonsense is best of all and usually much cheaper resulting in happy healthy doggys and owners not paying over the odds and feeding company profits.............

[smoo1604]

my border terrier is fed on raw food. if you google border terrier world and go onto the forum, there is a brilliant section on raw feeding there. the first part has had to be archived as its about 15 pages long but you should try and have a read through it, lots of food ideas and all that on there!!