FOOD FURPHY No. 2: : Dogs and cats should live on raw meaty bones.
Feeding raw bones to pets is a controversial topic and as it is Dental Month I thought I should tackle this issue.
On one side are the RMB (Raw Meaty Bones) lobby who preach both the virtues of a raw diet, popularised by the BARF diet and the evils of commercial food. At the other end of the spectrum are, not surprisingly, the pet food manufacturers who espouse the wonders of their product and the dangers of feeding raw meat and bones. Who is right?
My belief is that, like most things, the truth lies in the middle. The RMB lobby claim too much for the virues of raw food. There have been studies to show that there is no difference in the nutitional value of raw and cooked meat. The other factor they fail to grasp is that many, if not most people in today’s society want convenience when it comes to feeding their pets (and themselves) and are not prepared to do the necessary preparation to ensure their pet receives a balanced diet. In other words, they don’t want to reinvent the wheel.
Feeding a natural diet requires a knowledge of nutrition if nutritional imbalances are to be avoided. It can be done and we have a number of clients with dogs on natural diets that are very healthy. We also have had a number that developed nutritional diseases because of an unbalanced diet.
We recommend raw bones only because they are a practical way of keeping a pet’s teeth clean, not because of their nutrional value. In Nth America, most vets do not recommend bones at all because of the risk of both fractured teeth and bacterial intestinal infections. However, they seem to be better at persuading owners to brush their pets’ teeth than we Aussie vets are so we still recommend the judicious use of raw bones in most (not all) cases.
The commercial pet food industry, on the other hand is not there just to ensure the well being of your pet. They are there to make a profit for their shareholders. There are lot of questionable products used in some pet foods and we would see many more diseases attributable to pet food than to raw diets. (Of course many more pets are on commercial food). Many additives such as colourings (obviously not for the dogs as they have poor colour vision), preservatives and miscellaneous chemicals are responsible for skin and intestinal problems. Fortunately, there are some very good commercial products available which are scientifically balanced and good quality.
One problem with commercial foods is that they do not provide enough abrasion to keep the animal’s teeth clean (except for a few dental diets) and so they need to chew on something else. Our longstanding recommendation has been to feed a good quality commercial diet along with raw bones or rawhide to keep the teeth clean. If in doubt about what bones are suitable, give us a call
