IN an ideal world I would have
every healthy dog and cat in the
country on a raw meat-based diet.
If my, and many colleagues’,
experience is anything to go by, the
number of
dogs with
chronic
pruritic
conditions
would
plummet, the
gut, skin and
dental health
of our small
animals would soar and the
pharmaceutical consumption of the
nation’s small animals would drop in
inverse proportion to an obvious
widespread welfare boom.
I realise this is a pipe-dream as
many people can hardly feed
themselves, let alone take on the
responsibility of storing and defrosting
food overnight. However, cost, which
used to be an argument against raw, is
no longer valid as most raw feeders’
food bills are reduced when they move
fully onto raw compared to mid range
processed foods. Obviously raw food is
more expensive than super-economy
products and will never be able to
compete with this “food”.
Swapping dogs from kibble or
tinned food is relatively easy. Most
dogs will convert to raw in one to
seven days. Some owners have stocks of food they need to run down, so
changing over a month is also fine.
I find only 1-2% of dogs will
actually refuse a raw meat-based diet.
This is usually overcome by lightly
sealing the food in a hot wok or frying pan before feeding for a few weeks. I
do not give bony material to animals
until they have changed over to raw
completely.
Cats, on the other hand, are a
completely different matter. My
experience is only 10-20% of cats will
convert over as easily as dogs. The rest
require a bit of work. I find about 40%
will convert over using the principles
above, but just taking a little longer and
being careful to avoid foods the cat
dislikes, warming food, using sardines
in tomato sauce, etc.
Rewarding
Moving kibble cats gradually onto wet
food, then from wet to raw over the
months can be rewarding. The
remaining 40% require the above and a
tonne of patience. Some can take 6-12
months to change over. Some, few, will
never leave the safe haven of their
kibble or wet foods.
Clients may need support with the
changeover. In addition to a 30-60
minute consultation to initially guide
and educate them, I give preprinted
diet and fact sheets to help. I also give
a bibliography of books, starting with
the most basic (Clare Middle’s Real Food
for Dogs and Cats) to more in-depth tomes (Home-Prepared Diets for Dogs and
Cats by Donald R. Strombeck – he
who wrote the textbook on small
animal internal medicine) and many
more besides.
Clients want to understand what
they are doing and reading allows this.
The vet is there to help guide them
with the many questions that arise
from this research; a good example of
vet as health promoter, not disease
manager.
More information (too much,
frankly) is available online. Many clients
find the raw feeding groups on
Facebook very useful, but I warn them
that most opinions come from an “it
worked for my dog” perspective.
Companies supplying
raw diets usually have a
lot of information to
download and
knowledgeable support
staff at the end of a
phone line.
For cat owners,
www.feline-nutrition.org
offers good advice; for
dog owners, there are a
plethora of sites, all with
good and bad aspects.
Going with veterinary-
approved advice is a good guideline.
Quality meat is easy to find these
days. There are a number of
companies producing meat/mince and
combined meat/veg products. For
greatest peace of mind re nutritional
content and bacterial vigilance, you can
send clients to those producers who
are working to the guidelines of the
Pet Food Manufacturers’ Association,
the PFMA, whose members conform
to the European FEDIAF nutrition
standards.
Salmonella and bacteriological
contamination will be part of every introductory conversation with clients
wanting to investigate raw food.
Responsible raw meat producers are
regulated by EU law.
There are strict microbiological
standards for both Salmonella and
Enterobacteriaceae in raw pet foods
contained within the EU Animal By-
Products Regulations. These
regulations are enforced in England by
the Animal Health and Veterinary
Laboratory Agency (AHVLA). The full
details are contained in Annex XIII
Chapt II. 6. of EU Regulation
142/2011. Thus, Salmonella should be
absent from raw pet foods and the
Enterobacteriaceae level is lower than for
most human meat products.
The “bones
question” will always
raise its head at this point. My approach is to state that feeding
wet and kibble foods
will cause the build-up
of tartar and
periodontal disease,
even in animals as
young as three years.
This can be helped
by cleaning teeth, but
most people aren’t good at this and the result is ongoing
periodontal disease (associated in
humans with low birthweight babies,
cardiac, renal and hepatic disease,
among others).
Dentals will clean teeth, but there is
risk in all anaesthetic procedures and
the periodontal disease will be back on
its way within a few weeks. The very
small risk of foreign body blockage in
mouth, oesophagus or gut in the
bone/carcase eating animal is, in my
opinion, comparable, if not less than
the more usual continual barrage of
bacteria and surgery.
