"My dog has X-Y-Z and can't handle a raw diet." I've heard this several times lately. Does that statement have any credibility behind it? I would like to explore that today.

I started feeding my dogs a raw diet about five years ago to help them maintain their good health, and it did so much more than that. It turned them into vibrant dogs who have been truly thriving ever since. 

However, what happens when a dog needs to REGAIN their health? If they have allergies, GI abnormalities, an autoimmune condition, or even cancer? Would it be wise time to start a raw diet then? Those unfamiliar with a raw diet usually will say, no, "they can't handle it," "it's too rich,"  "it has bacteria," etc. I believe, and I've observed it myself in many dogs, that there is never a more crucial time to begin a raw diet.

If I ever question what I should do, I think back to what comes naturally. A kibble diet is not close to anything that we'd find in nature. It is processed and rendered so much and at high temperatures that the proteins become denatured and carbohydrates become caramelized. All live nutrients are killed, and some additionally produce carcinogens from the heating process (1). This product looks and tastes so far from a food source that pet food manufacturers have to develop flavor sprays to put on the kibble after it is made to make a dog readily eat it (2). Does this sound like anything that will help your dog's body heal? Does this sound like anything they are physiologically meant to handle?

A raw diet has all the nutrients, untouched, alive, and balanced, just as their bodies are designed to recognize and handle them. As for bacteria, your dog's stomach has a pH of about 1 to deal with any bacteria in the food. They have a short digestive tract that is meant to quickly digest and eliminate foods that go rancid quickly. As for "being rich," the only thing it is rich in compared to kibble is nutrients. For those of us who feed raw, we also know that our dogs will utilize most of the nutrients from this diet simply by observing their small stool size compared to the stool of a kibble fed dog.

Take this example, about a lab named Nigel, who had developed hemangiosarcoma of his spleen. A hemangiosarcoma is typically known as a silent killer in dogs that is usually found when it is too late. This was the case with Nigel. He suddenly became extremely weak and displayed labored breathing. The vet didn’t have any options, the tumor was too large and had progressed too far. Nigel wasn’t going to make it past that week. The owner and I decided to work together with a last ditch effort to try and help Nigel. We switched him over to a prey model raw diet immediately. By the end of the week, he made a turnaround and continued to improve. We almost couldn't believe our eyes. You couldn't tell he had cancer. He spent the next eight months with his owner with a quality life, swimming in the pond, going on walks, playing, doing everything he loved with the people he loved. After the eight months, Nigel started to show signs of his cancer with some weight loss and lethargy, and the owner decided it was time. They had a nice last moment together, and he was thankful for the last several months he had with Nigel that both of us know wouldn't have been possible with his raw diet.

It is so much easier to maintain health than to regain it. The best time to start a raw diet is when your dog is healthy. The most crucial time is when they are ill so that they have plenty of beneficial nutrients to support the healing processes of their body. Every decision we make about food comes down to this: food can fuel health, or it can fuel disease. The nutrient rich building blocks of a raw diet or the nutrient dead rendered product of a kibble diet... which one supports health and which one supports disease? Thinking through each diet and the physiology of our dogs, the answer is simple.

Sources:
1 http://www.thewholedog.org/artkibble.html
2 http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-03/chemistry-kibble 

If you have watched my welcome video on my website, you'll know that back when I first started out as a health professional for animals, I began doing massive amounts of research on finding the BEST kibble for my dog and cat patients. (I know, I know, all you long term raw feeders are laughing at that statement. I do too now.) That research led to the complete opposite... wanting to have nothing to do with kibble.

I'd like to share a conversation that happened in my clinic recently:

"If you had to, what kibble would you feed your dogs?"
"I would never feed kibble to my dogs."
"But if you HAD to, no other choice."
"That's not a real life situation; there's always other choices."
"Ok... thennn... if it was the END of the WORLD...?!?"
"If it was the end of the world and my dogs and I were still alive but ran out of food, I'd have to turn into a hunter/gatherer to survive, so my dogs would get REALLY fresh raw then! Certainly kibble processing plants would be unable to run at that time."

I'm not sure my client was happy with my answer!

She feeds raw and was asking for someone else. I'm pretty sure she knew I wouldn't budge, but still tried.

This isn't the first time a conversation like this has occurred. People want an answer, but it's not going to happen from me. Why? I made a decision a while back that I want the best for my patients, and that means taking myself completely out of the kibble world, as I feel it would be a disservice on my part to lead people to the "best" of the worst foods for their pet. 

There are plenty of other pet resources out there who would gladly give a kibble recommendation to those looking for it. If a client needs that answer, I am positive they can find it elsewhere - no problem. I will not take part for any consequences from feeding such food.
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Keep in mind, besides being a carnivore nutrition consultant, I am also an animal chiropractor.  Do I have chiropractic patients that are not on raw? Yes. They are seeking my chiropractic services, not nutrition. Does diet come up? Yes. I explain my views and why, how it benefits dogs and cats, what I feed my dogs, etc., but as the owner of their pet, they make the final decision. I never would force anything on my clients, whether food, harnesses, toys, etc. It's my job to share my knowledge; it's their job to be their pet's best advocate and decide what to do with it.

Anyone who has asked me about kibble will tell you that I do not offer support on processed diets because I know processed diets do not allow for optimal health. Sometimes when I explain this, that I feel recommending a processed food is doing them a disservice, they realize that it could be contributing to their dog's problems, that they won't heal as quickly on a processed diet, or that just like if they (the owner) can't be healthy by eating fast food or cereal every meal of each day, their dog couldn't be fully healthy with a processed diet either. From continuing my education into carnivore nutrition and educating on the topic, I have had a lot of clients decide to switch their dog(s) or cat(s) to raw and it makes me REALLY happy to see all the great changes... and they are usually quite happy too!

 These chronic diseases can be anything from allergies, yeast, arthritis, gastrointestinal conditions, and much more.

In a healthy colon, there are about 100-1,000 billion beneficial bacteria per milliliter. Crazy, huh? One of the main functions of the microbiome is immune regulation, and 70-80% of the body's immune cells can be found in the intestinal mucosa.  In today's world many of our pets are eating foods they aren't actually designed to eat, rather, foods that are more convenient for us; and antibiotics get handed out on a regular basis in veterinary offices. These two things alone wreak havoc on the normal gut micro-biome of our pets.

Probiotic literally translates into "pro-life." To understand how The Royal Society of Great Britain can make such a claim regarding chronic disease and micro-biome health, here are some of the functions of probiotics:

•Regulates immune system function
•Helps with nutrient absorption
•Manufactures B vitamins
•Regulates blood cholesterol
•Produces natural antibiotics
•Improves intolerance and sensitivities
•Stimulates anti-oxidant activity
•Inhibits the growth of certain yeast strains
•Removes toxins as waste products
•Helps with energy levels
•Helps regulate hormone levels
•Reduces inflammation

I'm sure after reading the above list, which is certainly not all inclusive of the functions of probiotics, you can now understand why an imbalance in the gut micro-biome or a depleted micro-biome from a processed diet, antibiotics, and prescription drugs can lead to chronic health issues.

Supplementation through live bacteria in food can have a much greater and quicker impact on re-balancing the gut micro-biome. That is where raw green tripe comes in. Raw green tripe is one of the stinkiest foods you can feed, but the benefits greatly outweigh the smell. Dogs LOVE it! The stinkier, the better.... RIGHT?!

Getting past the smell, raw green tripe has an abundance of probiotics as well as digestive enzymes that can help improve your dog or cat's gut micro-biome which helps improve overall health. If your pet is already on a prey model raw diet, ask your supplier if they have tripe. You can also check local pet shops (not the big chains) as many, at least in my area, have started carrying tripe.

I typically feed a meal or two of raw green tripe to my dogs each week. I have clients that will add 1/2-2 tablespoons of ground tripe, depending on their dog or cat's size to each meal, which works too. Some clients have a hard time with the smell. Tripe does have that barnyard-on-a-hot-day smell. If this bothers you, try to get past it for your pet's sake. However, a way to decrease the smell is to freeze small portions of ground tripe in ice cube trays. Just be sure the tray is ONLY used for tripe (or any frozen raw summer goodies you make) and that any house guests know where your actual ice cubes are. For additional dental benefits, some suppliers offer tripe in a "chunk" or "strip" form for dogs to gnaw.  Some will also do a mix of tripe within a ground prey model raw product. There's many options! The more ways you try, the more you'll figure out which way your pet likes best. You'll know if your pet is getting too much tripe if their stools become a little loose. If this happens, decrease the amount. Sometimes when first given tripe, the body will utilize those nutrients to purge toxins from the body, this could cause some loose stool when first introducing this food as well.

Grocery store tripe is typically bleached for human consumption so it does not contain any of the benefits as raw green tripe.

Tripe is arguably one of the best sources of probiotics and digestive enzymes for our pets and a great addition to their species-appropriate diets. If you have difficulties accessing tripe, another favorite probiotic source of mine are Pet Flora soil based probiotics (note: link says for cats, but it is for cats AND dogs). If you've ever seen your pet nibbling on select pieces of grass, there is a reason for it. They are attempting to get soil-based organisms (SBOs) out of the earth to help balance their micro-biome. However, they usually don't get very much as our soils are depleted of nutrient content they once had. The link above is a probiotic supplement that is cultivated in soil.

If you would like a more cost-friendly, but still high-quality supplement option, many of my patients also take Wholistic Digest All+, which contains live bacteria and is not derived from and does not contain soy, dairy, wheat, or corn.

(As a side note, I often hear people reaching for yogurt or kefir to supplement probiotics. While yogurt and kefir DO contain live bacteria, remember that they both are a dairy source. This greatly outweighs the potential benefits of the probiotics and could actually be contributing to allergies, yeast overgrowth, skin conditions, and ear infections.)

I hope this article was beneficial to you and that you'll consider adding tripe or soil based probiotics to your dog or cat's diet. Do you add tripe already? How does your pet like it and have you seen any benefits?

One of the most noticeable changes that I usually hear about with changing a dog to a prey model raw diet is the change in stool. I like to tell people that the "proof is in the poop!" Once a dog has become accustomed to a prey model raw diet, the stool becomes much smaller in size, as the dog is now absorbing and their body is utilizing most of the nutrients of what they are eating. It also has hardly any smell compared to a kibble fed dog's stool and it certainly isn't the soft serve consistency that you'd get stuck on the bottom of your shoe if you step in it!

I made the video below to show exactly that! What prompted me was that I was at a dog event the weekend prior and stepped in a pile of poop that someone didn't clean up. As I felt my foot sink into it, I knew right away, it was NOT from a raw fed dog! Yuck! As my husband came walking up to me I said, "oh man, I stepped in poop, and the poop of a KIBBLE FED dog!" My husband completely understood what I was talking about, other people in the area... not so much! Ha! Maybe the aggravation of cleaning a bunch of mucky poop off of and out of all the tiny crevices of my shoe wasn't totally pointless (you never do realize how detailed your shoe is until THIS happens!) as it sparked the idea to film myself stepping in a prey model raw fed dog's stool!

As I say in the video, if you've ever been in a forest or any preserved natural land, have you ever seen stool from any of the creatures who call that area their home? No! There's a reason we don't have pooper scooper programs cleaning up these areas, and that's because the stool of these inhabitants is crumbling and being absorbed back into the earth, just as nature intended.

Hope you enjoy the video!