Ever thought what wolves had or have for dinner? Kibbles, processed meat or canned food? Don't think we have those in the woods. In this post, I'm going to talk about a type of diet that has been having mixed reaction, BARF.
BARF, aka Biologically Appropriate Raw Food or Bones and Raw Food, is a diet plan where dogs get the most basic and simple type of food, raw food. Today, we have the most convenient type of dog food, kibbles and canned dog food, which we can easily get from in the local stores. However, there has been reports that some of these processed foods, no matter how well they are promoted, are causing problems to our dogs. Why? Some of the ingredients might have problems, nutrition imbalance and allergy just to name a few general reasons. Don't get me wrong, there are some brands that are good and provides the best quality but they might be a pricier than the more commercialized, low priced brands.
I believe in the past few months or years, we have heard or read about disturbing rumors or news, questioning the production of processed foods for humans. The sausages that you ate this morning, in general understanding, the sausage we eat should be all meat. What if I told you, there were feet, bones, beaks, eyes, brains and whatever a chick has, is all mixed together to produce that sausage? Nobody can really prove this, but this leaked information had also been floating around the net for quite some while. Same goes for pet food, some say that even dog meat is mixed into the canned foods dogs eat. But again, no actual solid proof had been presented. No being able to identify what we feed our pets are already a big concern here, as far as we know, there could chocolate in their foods (chocolates are a big taboo for dogs).
Let's assume we're in a perfect world where the meat is normal meat, chicken breast, beef, mutton, salmon and so on. Another issue we need to worry about is nutrition. Although in the package, the balanced nutrition chart is presented to show how much of protein, calcium, Vitamin A,B,C etc is being given to your dog, but how sure can you be? We all (including myself) have no choice but to use their products and believe what they offer, although there's no real way to prove it.
And don't bother to ask your vet or your pet store's advise on which brand is better. In my opinion, they will only say which is better based on how much profit they will gain. As they have a business to maintain, they might put their profits in front of their actual advise, because, hey, it might all be the same, but this brand is raking in the numbers. So it's much better to research on your own.
Now, BARF is about raw food, so don't bother trying to look for it in the super market. It's a combination of raw food based on your picking, some examples like pig, cow or goat bones (ribs or leg bones), raw meat, vegetables, egg etc. Remember, all these need to be raw, not cooked AT ALL! The reason why we have this is because, it is a more natural way for the dogs to eat, biting off meat from the bone, cleaning their teeth in the process as the friction between the teeth and the bone would help with cleaning. Eating raw food would also help with digestion too. Imagine yourself eating nuggets all the time and steamed chicken breast meat, yes the taste might be different, but you might feel that the natural chicken breast would be better for your own body. Again, we go back to the wolf theory, in the woods, the only thing they had were wild animals. Did they produce kibbles themselves? NO! They could only eat the meat raw and off the bone, which is the best thing for them to survive.
Now, some owners have their doubts about BARF, saying that raw meat has bacteria which might cause dogs to fall sick or die. My counter would be this, did wolves set up a fire and roast their meat? No! Besides, we have had dogs eating out from the garbage, going through all kinds of bacteria infested food, yet they can survive on the streets. But one of the main weakness on BARF for me is, since you can't get much of these in the pet stores, and you have to pick up the ingredients yourself, nutrition imbalance might be a problem. Too much meat for a dog could be not enough as well, they might need some form of vegetables, eggs, Omega 3 and other vitamins as well. This might be the tricky part, hence, constant observation is required to see whether your dog is feeling well or not, any allergies, observing the stool ( I know it's gross, but it's useful) and other health symptoms. And for this you might need to do the extr homework of researching on the net and also consulting your vet if he is OK with the BARF concept. Again, not everyone can accept the BARF concept.
I've tried it every now and then on my girls, and they've given quite encouraging results, their fur is shinier, they have less skin itching, their stool is powdery and less odor (as opposed to the previous wet and stinking ones). And because BARF is natural food, it's not dry hence, the dogs drink lesser water and have less pee. Good enough for me :)
We're about to move out from our current house to our new home in a few months, and I'll be starting to spend more time at home then. I might begin using the BARF diet fully by then, hence I'll post more pics on it in the future. Hope everyone enjoys!
See ya next post, Woof!
