Do Wolves eat Potatoes ???

 It's true, raw potato is toxic. What I feed my dogs isn't natural, by any means (farmed and supermarket meat, veggies, treats from a bag). Their lifestyle isn't natural, either. I think in all of our attempts to do things "naturally", we lose sight of the fact that these are dogs. They live in our houses. They walk on leashes. They receive top of the line medical care. They ride in cars, and they're taught to accept strangers into their packs with open arms. NOTHING about their lives is natural. Nothing.

Jennie - great post !

The skin and eyes of potatoes are toxic if they are exposed to light and begin to green up, or if the eyes are allowed to begin to sprout. Otherwise, they are fine.

Jenny brings up a good point about attempts to feed dogs like wolves. Dogs aren't wolves, and not just because they now live in houses and ride in cars. Dogs have existed as scavengers off human refuse, supplemented by the occasional rodent, complete with hair and ***, for the past 10,000 years at least. If we really wanted to feed them their "natural" diet, I think our best bet would be to drive them out to the nearest land fill, and turn them loose.

Human diets have varied greatly in different locations and over time, and it seems illogical to think the dog diets would have somehow all remained uniformly based almost exclusively on fresh raw meat. It also seems illogical to me to think that humans were somehow managing to supply their dogs with a daily diet of fresh raw meat while they were subsisting on oat gruel, boiled potatoes, wheat, rye, dairy products, rice, chick peas, various concoctions of decomposing soy beans.... Some of the nordic breeds may have evolved on heavily meat based diets, but I would think that breed that evolved in Europe, the British Isle, the Mediterranean region, and much of Asia would have been subject to pretty intense selection for the ability to process starches and other plant matter as at least a portion of their diet. That seems far more relevant to me than wolves eat.

Edited to add: Wow, the perfectly correct technical term for solid digestive waste products gets "bleeped" out here. So, where it shows a bunch of ***'s, what that means is "pheces".

You're only young once, but it's never to late to be immature - Dave Berry

jennie_c_d

 It's true, raw potato is toxic. What I feed my dogs isn't natural, by any means (farmed and supermarket meat, veggies, treats from a bag). Their lifestyle isn't natural, either. I think in all of our attempts to do things "naturally", we lose sight of the fact that these are dogs. They live in our houses. They walk on leashes. They receive top of the line medical care. They ride in cars, and they're taught to accept strangers into their packs with open arms. NOTHING about their lives is natural. Nothing.

 Well stated.
 

buster the show dog

Wow, the perfectly correct technical term for solid digestive waste products gets "bleeped" out here. So, where it shows a bunch of ***'s, what that means is "pheces"

buster the show dog

Jenny brings up a good point about attempts to feed dogs like wolves. Dogs aren't wolves, and not just because they now live in houses and ride in cars. Dogs have existed as scavengers off human refuse, supplemented by the occasional rodent, complete with hair and ***, for the past 10,000 years at least. If we really wanted to feed them their "natural" diet, I think our best bet would be to drive them out to the nearest land fill, and turn them loose.

After reading the white paper I got this image of a pack of wolves sitting around the campfire roasting potatoes on a stick... But I thought Elk meat might serve them better.... It's funny to see Marketing taken to this level.

probably the most unnatural diet you could feed a dog is any kind of dry kibble. Table scraps, chicken guts, soup bones, and the occasional self-caught rabbit  is a much more natural diet.

mudpuppy, I have to laugh because a few years ago I was reading someone was trying to come up with a way to perfect an indoor cats diet and that was adding canned mice to their food.  I haven't noticed any canned mice in petsmart recently, so I guess it bombed out!

They have mice in the freezer, over by the aquariums I think they're more for the reptiles than for the cats, LOL.
 

I've often thought that if I had a small dog that those mice-for-reptiles would be a nice addition to their diet...

Wolves normally don't eat potatos because you have to dig them out of the ground. For vegetation, wolves will eat berries and fruit from small bushes, in between kills. L. David Mech has observed this in wolves that do not live around humans.

Dogs, which are domesticated, eat whatever humans give to them, being scavengers more than hunters.

I don't think dogs or wolves can digest raw potato or most raw vegetables; raw ripe fruit tends to be highly digestible. I don't think having to dig them up would be a major impediment if they actually wanted to eat them. You should see the giant craters my dogs have dug in their designated  "digging garden". You could park a small car in one of them. 

 I know a vet who uses a meat grinder to make a "prey model" raw diet using frozen snake food. He uses it for may geriatric, diabetic, and other difficult to treat cats and according to him it works wonders. I can't think of a better prey model diet than that!

Now THAT is a cool vet!

Emma has dug up a sweet potato, to eat, before, as well as mole crickets and grubs. I definitely don't think digging for food would bother her, but she's a terrier.