What dog food do you use?

[Stray Dog]

Regardless of the ingredients, the fact that the stuff is cooked to high hell until all enzymes are destroyed is enough to explain why dogs on dry food live about half as long as their potential. The oldest dogs in the world never touched processed food; they were randomly fed raw, meaty bones and table scraps. Convenience is nice, but once you've switched to real food, you'll never look back, a it's simple, quick, dogs and cats love it, and it's just so good for them.

[Battery9]

I've watched a couple of videos on Youtube about how dogfood is made..and that layer of fat that gets sprayed on ...BLERGH!

[Tigerman]

From a book I am currently reading:

As the domestication process probably began with early canids scavenging around human groups - eating our table scraps - it is a particularly silly stance to feed dogs only raw meat, on the theory that they are wolves at heart. Dogs are omnivores who for millennia have eaten what we eat. With very few exceptions, what is good on my plate is good for my dog's bowl.

Ms. Horowitz disagrees with the popular notion that dogs are descendants of wolves. Instead, she states, dogs and wolves are close relatives who share a common ancestor. This is a view held by some others, too: The implication from these lines of evidence is that domestic dogs descend from an ancestral pariah-like form which was quite different from wolves and that, while domestic dogs and wolves are closely related, they are distinct. Domestic dogs seem to have an independent history of descent and do not simply merge into wolves when the opportunity arises.

I've fed my dogs raw bones and meats, but, not exclusively. I've read that while raw foods are generally good, they can from time to time cause illnesses. Primitive man also ate raw meats, and from time to time paid a price. Once we discovered and used fire for cooking, food illnesses greatly decreased. I suspect that the same is likely, though to a lesser degree, true for dogs, too.

In any event, I don't understand why anyone feeds dog food to a dog.

[Stray Dog]

The latest research shows that dogs did indeed descend from wolves. Regardless, we don't feed raw because we think dogs are wolves (they're not), but because it's the healthiest diet for them and is based on what they've been thriving on for the last 15,000 years, except for the eighty years or so that we've forced them to eat dry, grain-based pellets. Dogs have completely different digestive systems to dogs and are more than capable of dealing with the bacteria. Of the hundreds of dogs whose diet I have overseen, we have yet to see a problem. Cooked bones are of course dangerous to dogs, but raw are essential. If you don't feed your dogs bones, they WILL get gum disease (even the 'pet food' companies acknowledges that, over time, 100 percent of dogs fed a bone-free diet will suffer gum disease). Gum disease spreads around the body and causes life-threatening and debilitating illness, including heart and kidney problems.

I've read Horowitz and wasn't very impressed.

[mooku]

Sorry for bumping super old thread. Could you explain the logistics of feeding raw to your dog? I would like to transition sometime but I really don't even know where to begin. I've seen BARF at some pet stores here but it's incredibly expensive.

I don't eat or buy any meat, and the idea of having around the house kind of grosses me out. My dog also tends to get sick if she eats things other than her normal food. (vomit or diarrhea)

[cake]

Where can one find organic chicken not pumped up with chemicals?