24/09/2018
To continue with our "regularly scheduled " informational posts...
Food is fuel. When you get a new car, one of the first things they tell you during the "walk through" is what kind of fuel to put in it. This is also true with each species of animal. The right fuel powers that being's body successfully. The wrong fuel might run the body, but it doesn't work right. Malfunctions are more serious and more frequent, repairs are more extensive, and the lifespan of the body is shorter.
In this article, I'm referring primarily to the food needed for carnivores. People with pet herbivores and birds seem more in tune with the feeding requirements of their species. However, I might remind you that grain isn't species specific for horses, and birds should be eating fresh food and seeds of only the highest quality.
It is in carnivore nutrition, however, that we've lost our way. Feeding out of a bag or can has become the norm, so there are some people reading this who have never seen dogs, for example, eat anything but commercial food. Their parents fed their pets this way, and they've never thought about an alternative. But, there are those among us who remember the days before leash laws when our dogs accompanied us in our daily lives. They did their own thing, often hunting and eating their prey. Humans fed them "scraps", which were leftovers from human meals. These dogs usually lived long & healthy lives.
I have an extensive article on my website (clink link below) which I do not want to reproduce here. What I want to cover right now is the progression of how we complete the circle from letting our carnivorous pets fare for themselves, back to feeding them a species appropriate diet.
Apparently the first commercial dog food was introduced in England about 1860 by an American named James Spratt. After that, it has been the same old story of a company trying to make money in bigger and bigger markets by increasing the advertising, and decreasing the quality of the product. I'm not going to spend a lot of time talking about commercial foods. I just want you to know that due to more and more dissatisfaction with the way pets fared on these foods, people began to look for healthier alternatives.
In the beginning of what became the raw food movement, people only took a few tentative steps outside of the "box". I consider two people in particular to be credited with this first step: Richard Pitcairn, DVM, and Wendy Volhard. Each of these people developed diets for people to prepare at home. Unfortunately, both of them modeled their diets after the commercial foods. They didn't go back to nature and ask what wild carnivores should eat. They asked how to improve on the substandard commercial foods. Each of their diets is better than something manufactured in a far-off plant from sub-standard ingredients, but neither is species appropriate. If you are beginning your journey into species appropriate feeding for your animals, and you happen to start with one of these authors, in my opinion, you are starting back in the very early evolutionary time of changing to a proper diet. It is my opinion that you should skip ahead to more modern thinking.
Next, Ian Billinghurst, B.V.Sc.(Hons), B.Sc.Agr., Dip.Ed., an Australian veterinarian came on the American scene. He toured the US, and made hundreds of pet owners aware of the idea of raw feeding. His diet is called Bones And Raw Foods, BARF for short. His dietary recommendations seem to me to be the transition phase between the homemade kibble idea of Pitcairn & Volhard and current thinking about raw feeding. His diet consists of bones without enough meat and a lot of vegetables as well as other foods that wild carnivores would never have available such as cottage cheese. In my opinion, Dr. Billinghurst did a tremendous service to our pets in introducing the concept of feeding "raw", but he didn't go far enough.
The next step is exemplified by Dr. Tom Lonsdale, another Australian veterinarian. His book, Work Wonders, http://www.rawmeatybones.com/ makes the transition from Billinghurst to a 'raw prey model' way of feeding.
After Lonsdale, in the evolution of raw feeding is Mogens Eliasen, a Danish chemist, thinker, and dog trainer. His website is http://k9joy.com/ . If you're looking for a straight-talking book to guide you on the path to raw feeding, I recommend you buy his ebook The Wolf's Natural Diet .
After doing your research, if you have questions on how to start or personal help, I am also available for consultations, and am happy to help you convert your dogs, cats & ferrets to healthier lives through raw eating.