"Raw Meat: A Dangerous Fad"

To be honest, I'm personally not a believer in evolution, but that's just IMO.

Can you elaborate?

I would say the coyote's would definately go with raw flesh before dog food!

A coyote would definately eat dog food.  Its free.  They are scavengers by heart.  Sure they hunt but by nature they tend to eat whatever is easiest.  Now if you were to throw a side of beef out beside the dog food its a no brainer as to what they would choose.  Wild canids are able to gorge themselves so that they can withstand the hard times.  They may very well go out and hunt down a few rabbits afterwards but they would not turn up thier noses at a free lunch.

The argument that dogs and wolves are evolved to eat this diet isn't quite accurate. Dogs and wolves are different species, for one. Secondly, animals in the wild are not perfectly evolved. Evolution is an ongoing process.

 
1.) Dogs and grey wolves are classified as the same species, with dogs being a subspecies of grey wolves. When/if the majority of zoologists agree they are seperate species, I will agree with you.
2.) My argument is not that wolves and dogs require the same diet. My point was that I can't believe what this guy has to say because he doesn't, IMVHO, have a good grip on reality.
3.) No, evolution isn't perfect (as there is always room for improvement). But there will be no blunder in the manner this guy is talking of. If a raw (wild) diet  was so absolutely unhealthy for wolves, evolution would have taken a seperate direction. Someone stated it quite frankly; the species would not persist if it was as horrid as this guy makes it out to be.
 
Two and three are the reasons this guy cannot be taken seriously, IMVHO.
 
Finally, slightly different henotypes within a species does not indicate a seperate specie. The peppered moth in england is an excellent example.

ORIGINAL: paulaedwina

1. By bait them do you mean catch them or poison them?
2. Don't you think the influx of coyotes has something to do with your dad's habit of throwing offal into the field? It's a free lunch.

Paula

1. Neither, he just likes listening to them eating, howling and just going wild (I kind of think it's neat too). I guess I shoudn't have used the word "bait" because that kind of made it confusing.
2. No, the field where he throws the by-products is next to woods, which is hooked up to a lake. It's a 50 acre farm and he dumps the by-products in a place that's not close to the house. You can hear coyotes from a pretty far-away distance. The coyotes have always lived here, long before my dad started raising chickens.

ORIGINAL: ozzie72

To be honest, I'm personally not a believer in evolution, but that's just IMO.

Can you elaborate?

I would say the coyote's would definately go with raw flesh before dog food!

I'm a Christian. I believe all the creatures were made by a loving God. I don't think he gave them to us to use for our personal advantage. I think he wants us to take care of them [] ....btw, I also think the coyotes would go for the raw stuff!

I would say the coyote's would definately go with raw flesh before dog food!

 
That's another thing I see a lot here.  There is no way possible to say what every coyote would or wouldn't do.  There are things Willow will leave that other dogs would eat up in a second.  It's generalizing and you can't say "definately" by any means. 

1.) Dogs and grey wolves are classified as the same species, with dogs being a subspecies of grey wolves.
 
Wolves in the wild have an average lifespan of 6-7 years of age. Captive-born Wolves and Wolfdogs live an average of 12-14 years of age. In studies of Captive-born Wolves and Wolfdogs, it was found that 80 percent of their owner's fed their canines kibble supplemented with meat.

Sorry, Huskymom. Having been in a few of these discussions before, I,  like Christine, use abbreviations and acronyms.

GIT - gastrointestinal tract. Mechanisms and abilities by which a dog or wolf can absorb the food that is eaten. Wolve stomachs can hold up to 20 lbs of food and they may need to as it may be another 2 or 3 weeks before another kill. Also, their stomachs can hold onto bone and hide until the bone is wrapped in the hide, then it is passed. And yes, some wolves get bowel obstructions but there's not enough data to show if they are dying from it. It's very hard to track them in the wild. It might be a day or two before a tracker has found a wolf dead. By then, scavengers have messed up what could have been a decent necropsy. Dogs do not have the ability in their stomachs to hold bones and let them get wrapped in hide. Many dogs don't necessarily eat hide. There are differences in skull structure, primarily the coronoid process as it fits into the zygomatic arch. In English, the hinge point of the mandible, or lower jaw, is different between wolf and dog. This hinge point fits in bone arches and the muscles that operate the mandible must pass through this arch.

mtDNA is mytchondrial DNA, nDNA is nuclear DNA. nDNA contributed by both parents determines some of the looks of the off-spring. mtDNA provides a lot of the control of the animal, such as physiology, metabolism, and , to some extent, temperment. Example, if you have a siberian husky female mate with a lab male, you will have a siberian husky with husky/lab appearance. There is a genetic difference between dog and wolf of 1 to 4 percent. Part of that 1 percent is 26 differences in the mtDNA, the control region. Evolution has yet to weed out the gene similarity that allows inter-species off-spring. Just the same, I wouldn't try to mate a wolf with a pekinese. There is less than a 2 percent difference between man and chimpanzee, yet we do not have viable off-spring with them. That is, we are genetically closer to chimps than dogs are to wolves yet we cannot mate with that species. So, I would hesitate to say that the ability to produce off-spring is an indicator the closeness of the species. It's a fluke.

Others do not understand the full nature of evolution. 20 years ago, I had seen a new vision of evolution in a few textbooks that evidently hasn't made wide enough circles. It is that evolution is not radially adaptive. That means, we don't evolve something because we need it. It means that some mutations survive, some don't. For example, we have an appendix that we don't use or need. But there hasn't been enough humans born without one that survived as well or better than we have to take over species procreation, so it is still there. Evolution is not perfect and it does not have a guiding force or plan behind it. It's a fancy way of saying "crap happens."

You might try emailing a request for the study documentation. As for taking in a healthy animal, they might have a special use permit from time to time. And even the healthy ones are likely to have fleas and worms and may be malnourished to some extent. Sick ones brought in might be injured or suffering a parastic infection or mange. The health of the animal at the time of intake does not affect the objective view of evolution.
 
As for eating raw. some humans can, some can't. I have a friend who can't eat any corn product. Just because chimps eat primarily fruit doesn't mean that I will do well on just fruit. A chimp is smaller and needs less to sustain itself. I, OTOH, am 6'6" and 235 lbs and I don't have time to eat plant matter all day to get the required protein. So, I eat meat, cooked in order to kill parasites that would put a damper in my day.
 
 
Evolution doesn't make mistakes but it doesn't consciously do everything right, either. That is, we can't anthropromorphize genetic mutation to assume a directed path like the way that humans think. Some mutations survive better than others. In a surviving mutation, there may be other mutations that are inperfect or debilitating but not immediately so. A species can survive with a crippling mutation, such as hip dysplasia if they survive long enough to procreate another generation. That's not evolution "at its best." Crap just happens.
 

There are several mentions of wolve sanctuaries in the article..and he seems to speak of them also in his study. He doesn't seem to be just making his opinion on his own.     
As the article says, "the raw meat controversy will go on for years." I'm not against it, but for me, I'm not comfortable enough to do it for my dogs.   I do think that it could be good for some dogs and not good for others, just like any specific food.  As a poster said above that they want documented evidence, I've never seen any on raw feeding either. I have read tons of good experiences from message boards, but I have also seen dogs that are fed raw have the same illnesses and problems many other dogs have. So in the end, maybe raw isn't as bad as some of us think, but I'm not sure that it is as good as some of the others think.  For me, I'm just not comforable enough with it.

Most dogs in our society don't die from choking on bones; they die because they are unwanted due to behavioral problems. uppies raised on diets deficient in omega-3 fatty acids (i.e. that lovely "100% nutritionally complete kibble", which is always deficient in unstable nutrients such as omega-3 fatty acids) have been shown to be difficult to train and have behavioral problems like inability to pay attention and hyperactivity. Therefore the most dangerous diet you can feed your dog is a super-processed, preserved,  commerical diet. The number of known esssential nutrients that are destroyed by heat is long, and growing ever longer. If you feed your dog nothing but commercial kibble you can be 100% sure that your dog is malnourished. If you must feed kibble, please add a good cold-pressed fish body oil; and occasional meals of green tripe, raw heart, and raw or lightly cooked liver.
Do you put your dog through a yearly "tooth cleaning"? which requires general anesthesia? which kills more dogs every year than have ever died from choking on bones? well, guess what. You can avoid that risky, stressful procedure by feeding raw meaty bones. Once again, the more dangerous diet is the kibble diet.
 

Do you put your dog through a yearly "tooth cleaning"? which requires general anesthesia? which kills more dogs every year than have ever died from choking on bones?

 
Again---This statement is not necessarily going to be true for ALL dogs.  Willow has near perfect teeth at age 5 and she's never had a raw bone.  There ARE other ways to clean a dogs teeth, the groomer does an amazing job with NO sedation and I keep up with it at home with chews and cleaning her teeth. 

SUSHI!!!! WOOHOOO, I LOVE SUSHI!  And raw oysters! Actuallu DH and I eat sushi a few times a week.  So I guess I eat a lot of raw meat )  YUM! 
 
I figure the risk is about the same in dogs, actually probably less because their stomachs can handle things differently than ours. 
 
But like someone said, we know the risks and we eat it anyway, and most of the time everyone is fine.  Yeah, every so often someone gets sick, but not so that everyone quits eating raw food.  Same with dogs I figure.  But they have negative reactions and certain recalls on contaiminated dry store food too.  Cant be protected against everything no matter what you do.
 
Oh and I would like to mention as I was reading I got scared it was soon to become a religion war, but was pleased to see that nothing more was said of that, this is about raw food right )

Yeah, I hear what you say about anesthesia and teeth cleaning, I sure don't like that either. That is why I try to give Bubblegum a bone here and there..and hated that fact that she chowed down the chicken neck with hardly a chew!!!\
However, I'm not buying this statement:
Once again, the more dangerous diet is the kibble diet.

  Jessie is 7 and has beautiful teeth. She has never had a tooth cleaning by a vet. I brush her teeth and give her a cooked shank bone with some beef on it once a week. She chews all the beef off and works around the edges of the bone. I, like Dyan, understand and respect the reasons why those who feed raw choose to do so, but am not comfortable with doing it myself. Wild animals immune systems are strengthened because the healthiest survive to breed and pass their genes to the next generation. Those who are less healthy succumb to predation and the elements. Domestic dogs live a comparatively pampered life, so even those with less than perfect immune systems survive and are bred, passing their weakened immunity to their young. As a result, future generations can have even weaker immune systems. This may be why we're seeing so much cancer in Goldens and Boxers, and allergies in Shepherds, Labs, and other breeds, as well as mixes like Jessie. We know all too well about the presence of bacteria in raw meat, and freezing does not kill it, but makes it go dormant. Once the meat is thawed, the bacteria is active again. A wild canid with a healthy immune system may be able to easily handle bacteria injested in raw meat, but our dogs do not have the same immune system as a wild canid. Also, there is the threat of the parasite toxoplasmosis in raw meat, and if your freezer is not at 10 degrees farenheit or lower, the parasite will survive.
        [linkhttp://www.crvetcenter.com/images/Newsletters/crvcnewsletterDec02p1.pdf]http://www.crvetcenter.com/images/Newsletters/crvcnewsletterDec02p1.pdf[/link]

  I feed Jessie a kibble that is 40% meat meal(duck), and supplement that with homecooking, which is mostly meat with a small amount of vegetables added. I do believe the dog is an omnivore. The shape of the coronoid process of dogs that Ron spoke about is different from wolves and other wild canids, but shared by bears and raccoons, which are omnivores. However, I think that a dog's diet should be mostly meat, which is why I supplement Jessie's kibble with cooked meat.

Others do not understand the full nature of evolution. 20 years ago, I had seen a new vision of evolution in a few textbooks that evidently hasn't made wide enough circles. It is that evolution is not radially adaptive. That means, we don't evolve something because we need it. It means that some mutations survive, some don't. For example, we have an appendix that we don't use or need. But there hasn't been enough humans born without one that survived as well or better than we have to take over species procreation, so it is still there. Evolution is not perfect and it does not have a guiding force or plan behind it. It's a fancy way of saying "crap happens."

 
Okay, I completely understand this.
 
I own one of the text books that explain the new ideas of evolution; it's the third edition of Animal Diversity. Adaptive radiation, is, however very much a part of evolution (Darwins Finches). Adaptive radiation is not when an animal selects its niche, but rather when one species mutates several variations better fit to survive several niches.
 
I did not say evolution chooses its own path... though. I basically stated that an animal species will not survive on a diet that makes them unhealthy. The same goes for the hip displaysia example... yes, they could survive and breed, but a whole line of hip displaysia ridden wolves would be outcompeted by healthy wolves and would not survive. That's the whole idea of natural selection. Beneficial mutations persist (we hope []) while non-beneficial mutations cease to persist.
 
I tried to post this morning about the domestic vs wild wolves life span, I'm not going to go into the details I wrote earlier, though. You can't base that argument soley on diet. Wild wolves face way more things than diet than can and will affect their lifespan. The comparison is flawed, at best.
 
As for the research... a good scientist (whether or not you have a degree is irrelevant) will present all of his or her findings happily. I shouldn't have to go asking for them. My point of view is critical; I won't take what he/she says as fact without proof. If I do decide to go raw... there is plenty of documentation. I am one of those who considers dogs and wolves of the same specie; there for, a study on the natural diet of wolves will do for me.
 
Anyway, that's my peace. I'm getting too worked up 'cause I keep getting words put in my mouth (I.E. the health of the animal was not so as directly linked to evolution in my post as it was made out to be by another poster), so I'm going to back up take a deep breath, and move on.
 

Oh and I would like to mention as I was reading I got scared it was soon to become a religion war, but was pleased to see that nothing more was said of that, this is about raw food right )  

 
lol, I seriously thought about it, but that is a debate best left alone (as it's too personal). I will say, though, I am a Christian who happens to believe in evolution.