The
topics we are going to cover today include
1. A brief history of the Barf movement
2. Problems associated with commercial pet foods
3. Components and principles of the Barf Diet
4. Switching to a Barf diet
5. Results you see on a Barf diet
6. Criticism of the Barf Diet
7. The drawbacks of feeding a Barf diet
The first thing you have to remember is that the Barf diet is neither a fad nor a trend, it is simply a return to the old ways of feeding. When I asked my parents how they fed their dogs in the 30’s, 40’s and 50’s I was not surprised to learn they fed them much the way I feed my hounds today, though my father, who lived on a farm, allowed his dogs to hunt for their own food. Gophers, rabbits, raw bones, a few eggs, apples scavenged from the orchard and whatever was left over from the butchering or the table made up the bulk of their diet. The dogs smart enough to avoid cars lived until their late teens or early twenties. They never saw a vet - there were no small animal practices in the area. My mother was regularly dispatched to the butchers for a supply of bones and meat scraps, these were fed raw along with the scraps from the human table.
Dr.
Ian Billinghurst’s first book, Give Your Dog a Bone, was published
privately in Australia in 1993. Originally it was intended to be a primer on
feeding dogs naturally for his own clients. It extolled the virtues of the old
ways of feeding dogs and condemned the widespread introduction of commercial
pet foods as being behind the influx of disease and health problems previously
unseen in the Australian canine population. Through word of mouth and the
internet its popularity spread throughout North America.
When
I last counted there were well over a hundred e-mail lists devoted to the Barf
method of feeding.
What
used to be a cult has gone decidedly mainstream
Well
what does Barf stand for...........at first it stood for Born Again Raw
Feeders, a snide reference to the almost religious like fervor of the
diet’s first disciples. Then it became Bones and Raw Food, an apt
description if there ever was any. Billinghurst uses the term Biologically
Appropriate Raw Foods - and this is now the accepted general definition.
Kymythy
Schultze’s “The Ultimate Diet” was first published in 1998, a highly
user friendly book, it overcame some of the vagueness of the initial
Billinghurst book.
Billinghurst
went on to publish Grow Your Pup With Bones in 1998, it is viewed by many
to be one of the best publications on giant breed husbandry there is.
This
is a highly volatile subject, one that I was initially reluctant to introduce,
but could not avoid. I am merely going to ask you to keep an open mind as
I proceed here. I think you should know why some of us no longer feed
commercial products and our reasoning behind it.
What
is really in that bag or can?
The
pet food industry is an extension of the human food industry. It provides a
market for slaughterhouse waste, condemned grains and rancid oils supplied by
the fast food industry.
I
am going to touch briefly on the rendering industry here. You may not have ever
heard the term, it is considered a “silent industry”. It is one we could not
live without. Otherwise our streets and landfill sites would be filled with the
rotting carcasses of thousands of dead animals rife with bacteria and spreading
disease.
The
San Francisco Chronicle published this description of what is used in rendering
in February 1990.
“The
rendering plant floor is piled high with raw product; thousands of dead dogs
and cats; heads and hooves from cattle, sheep, pigs and horses; whole skunks,
rats and raccoons - all waiting to be processed. In the 90 degree heat, the
piles of dead animals seem to have a life of their own as millions of maggots
swarm over the carcasses.”
To
their credit many renderers refuse to process companion animals. And there
seems to be a major effort by the pet food companies not to use the companies
known to do so anymore. Some of you may remember the media coverage that
Sanimal, outside of Quebec City, received when they stopped using dead pets in
their mixes a few months back. The pet food companies refused to buy their
product anymore.
Simply
put it is the process of cooking raw animal material to remove the moisture and
fat. A certain ratio is maintained between the carcasses of
livestock, poultry waste and supermarket rejects. A batch to be labeled chicken
meal will have chicken as the predominant ingredient at over 50% or more, the
rest of it could be swine, cattle
and
in some cases, roadkill.
The
mix is cut into small pieces and then transported to another auger for
shredding. It is then cooked at 280 degrees for one hour. The meat melts off
the bones. The fat or tallow rises to the top and is skinned off. The cooked
bone and meat are sent to a press which squeezes out the remaining moisture and
then pulverizes it to a powder. It is sifted to
shake
out larger pieces.
Three
end products result - tallow, meat meal and bone meal.
Pesticides
enter the picture through contaminated livestock, usually through their
insecticide patches. Antibiotic residues only partially breakdown.
Spent
restaurant grease has become a major source of added fat to commercial pet food
products. Renderers pick up the used grease, usually stored in 50 gallon drums
and stabilize them with powerful antioxidants, like ethoxyquin. These fats are
sprayed on to the end product either to make it more palatable or are used as
binding agents so that other flavoring agents such as cultivated chicken
digests can be sprayed on.
The
vegetable proteins can include ground yellow corn, wheat shorts, middling,
soybean meal, rice husks and peanut shells after they have been processed for
the human food chain. Beet pulp is added as a stool hardener. Processing strips
them of their EFAs, fat and water soluble vitamins and antioxidants.
Grains
can contain aflatoxins, a form of fungi, - peanuts and corn are the most
significant source. In the case of Nature’s Recipe over 20 million tons of pet
food was pulled from the market in 1995 after hundreds of dogs became ill or
died. A few years ago Doane Pet Foods had a similar recall in the American
Southwest.
Though
it is now known that dogs have no biological need for carbohydrates, the
extrusion machines used to produce kibble cannot operate unless at least
40% of the mixture is comprised of grain matter. It has nothing to do
with the needs of dogs - it has everything to do with the manufacturing
process.
Years
ago, before extruded kibble, grain products were generally considered to
be fillers, now they make up a majority of the product, the industry average is
at about 60%. It is far more cost effective to use grains as source of
protein - meat and bone meals simply cost more. True too, a high carbohydrate
content provides “cheap’ calories and helps bind ingredients..
The
use of grain in commercial diets is sometimes justified by claiming that
dogs would in the wild eat animals who had grains in their digestive tract -
but in a truly wild animal you would not find them, nor do dogs require the
nutrients in complex carbohydrates
It
is difficult for dogs to produce the quantity of amylase necessary for
carbohydrate digestion, as well, the proteins in grains are less digestible
than animal proteins, they irritate and weaken the digestive system which may
result in allergies and chronic immune problems.
The
demand for amylase so stresses the pancreas that some vets believe that grain
consumption is the likely cause of diabetes, pancreatitis and many other
digestive disorders.
To
make you think that the product you are purchasing is based mainly on meat the
pet food companies resort to a few gimmicks. Here are some of them:
To
list meat as the first ingredient the wet weight as used. Meat gets a lot
lighter as the moisture is cooked out. If the first ingredient is listed as
chicken for example, it means what the chicken weighed when wet - drop about
75% of its value and you will get its true position.
Carbohydrate
splitting is another trick to get meat listed as the first ingredient. Let’s
use rice as an example. On some labels you will see ground rice listed as the
second ingredient, rice bran as the third and then maybe rice gluten as the
fourth. It is all just rice - but a nifty labeling trick.
Another
trick to make you think you are getting a primarily meat based product is to
use a variety of grains in the mix, say rice, oats, corn etc..etc...
How
many of you buy a product claiming to be naturally preserved? You think
it does not contain ethoxyquin, a chemical developed as a rubber hardener, now
used as a pesticide. Truth of the matter is if the manufacturer did not
add it at their facility they do not have to list it, however it is
usually there because the renderer added it to the
spent
restaurant grease, the tallow or the meat meal. It was once estimated
that fully 90% of the pet foods claiming to be naturally preserved contained
ethoxyquin.
Another
trick is to list it as antioxidant E, so you will think it is Vitamin E.
Some labels simply list it as E.
I
should mention that ethoxyquin is listed and identified as a hazardous
chemical. Ethoxyquin has a rating of 3 in the Chemical Toxicology of Commercial
Products. The scale only goes to six. At this point only 7 drops will
cause death.
Cooked
foods are devoid of enzymes.
Raw
foods are filled with living enzymes - over 3000 have been identified in the
human body alone.
How
important are they.......if you pasteurize the milk a mother cow feeds to her
calf it will fail to thrive. In nine cases out of ten it will die.
Francis
M. Pottinger MD conducted a 10 year study on how raw and cooked diets affected the
health of 900 cats. The cats on raw foods produced healthy kittens for
generation after generation and lived long and disease free lives. They
displayed a strong resistance to parasites.
The
cats on cooked foods developed heart, liver, kidney and thyroid disease,
pneumonia, paralysis, loss of teeth, difficulty in whelping, diarrhea and
irritability. They were riddled with parasites and vermin.
The
first generation raised on cooked foods produced some kittens who were sick and
abnormal, the second generation were often born dead and in the third - well
many of them became sterile.
The
physical differences between the two groups were astounding. Upon autopsy the
cats eating cooked foods had intestinal tracts measuring as long as 72 to 80
inches. 48 inches is normal. These lacked tone and elasticity.
Hypothyroidism
was common in the cats eating cooked foods.
The
kittens born to parents who ate raw food had a large skull, larger bones, a
large thorax, a longer body, broad dental arches and excellent teeth.
Deformed
skulls, poor dentition, smaller teeth and poor bone development was the lot of
the cats fed cooked foods.
None
of the raw fed cats had thyroid disease.
When
a diet is deficient in enzymes it places all the burden of digestion upon the
animals body. It is thought that all of us receive a finite supply of enzymes
at birth. When that supply is exhausted it causes the breakdown of the
individual.
All
of the body’s systems run on enzymes. Metabolic enzymes are used by the heart,
lung and kidneys. Digestive enzymes convert protein, carbohydrates and fat into
fuel. If there are no food enzymes the body must produce additional
supplies which leads to a eficiency of metabolic enzymes.
Digestion
is the most energy draining process the body undergoes on a daily basis. Long
term exposure to undigested or maldigested food will cause gastrointestinal
tract inflammation. It may also cause food allergies, atopic dermatitis,
chronic renal disease, stone formation, IBD, arthritis and pancreatitis.
Cooking
and processing food will destroy almost all the naturally occurring
anti-oxidants - these are the nutrients which help prevent degeneration and
aging - nutrients like A, C and E. While many manufacturers add these back as
synthetic isolates.
Not
only are the EFAs in commercial pet food low - they are heat damaged and
completely out of whack - with a ratio of 20 Omega 6 to 1 Omega 3.
High
protein levels in commercial pet foods lead to kidney disease – the number one
killer of all commercially fed animals.
Just some other comments on protein here. Amino acids are the building
blocks of protein and are critical to your hound’s health. Unfortunately, over
half the amino acids in a processed food will convert to an unusable form
during the manufacturing. Heat processing can also cause proteins form
complexes with carbohydrates and certain fats which make them unavailable.
Commercial
pet foods contain from 5-9 times more phosphorus than is required. This excess,
combined with excess protein, assists in destroying the kidneys. Once
that process has started other organs become involved, the lining of the
stomach, the heart and the lungs receive deposits of excess calcium and
phosphorus which can no longer be
excreted
by the damaged kidneys
Commercial
pet foods contain anywhere from 10 to 20 times more salt than our dogs require.
Its there for palatability - not your dog’s health - excessive thirst leading
to increased urination will leach many vitamins and minerals from the body.
Hypertension is also another direct result.
Most
commercial pet foods contain anywhere from 3 to 11 times more calcium than is
required. When excess calcium is ingested it is not absorbed, it passes out
through the feces. While in the gut it binds to other minerals making them
unavailable - these too will pass out in the feces. The minerals most commonly
affected this way are iron, copper,
zinc
and phosphorous.
A
zinc deficiency will lead to skin problems, growth problems, reproductive
problems and reduced resistance to disease.
Excessive
calcium may predispose dogs to bloat. When excessive calcium is ingested the
dog responds by increasing its production of the hormone gastrin. One of the
effects of this is that both ends of the stomach thicken which makes it
difficult for air to pass.
It
costs, on average about three dollars to produce a 40 pound bag of pet food
which retails for about $40. Much of the cost that you pay for goes to
marketing.
Now
I know that some of you out there think I am standing up here and that I am
full of it. After all the government regulates the pet food industry.......here
is how it is.
The
feds set no standards for pet food except to insist that packaging identify the
product, indicate the quantity and the place of origin. There is no legislation
to mandate the detail required or demand the guaranteed analysis of the
ingredients. Agriculture Canada has little jurisdiction over pet food in
Canada. They do not even have the power to pull tainted or inferior products
off the shelf. The Ontario Government plays no role in monitoring the pet food
industry.
The
CVMA has developed nutritional standards which if met allows the company to
display their seal of endorsement. They do not monitor ingredients or
practices.
Your
dog is essentially a carnivore, a hunter as well as a scavenger. He needs
animal flesh to thrive. He can also assimilate some fruits and vegetation,
particularly if they have been broken down, either in the digestive tract of an
herbivore or through decomposition.
Lets
have a look at our hounds.
Your
hound has a wide mouth in relation to its head size. Obviously this confers
advantages when seizing, killing and dismembering prey.
The
jaw joint is a simple hinge joint lying in the same plane as the teeth. The
primary muscle used to operate the jaw is the temporalis muscle. It accounts
for most of the bulk on the sides of the head. Pet your dog, you are in essence
petting the temporalis muscle.
Open
your hound’s mouth and look at his teeth. They are discretely spaced as so not
to trap stringy debris. The incisors are short, pointed and prong like - great
for grasping and shedding.
The
canines are greatly elongated and dagger like. They stab, tear and kill prey.
Got
a lick from your hound.......that saliva does not naturally contain digestive
enzymes. Protein digesting enzymes cannot be found in the mouth - due to the
danger of autodigestion. Carnivores do
not need to mix their food with saliva. They bit off huge chunks and swallow
them whole.
Your
hound has a simple single chambered stomach. Its ability to secrete
hydrochloric acid is exceptional. Gastric pH should be around 1-2 even with
food present. This will help protein breakdown and kill the abundant and
dangerous to us bacteria found in decaying flesh food, because after all your
hound is a scavenger. It will dissolve bones.
The
small intestines are short, about five to six times the body length.
The
large intestine is short as well. It has no capacity to act as a reservoir. It
is short and non pouched, with muscle evenly distributed along the wall..
Look
at your hound’s nails and then look at yours. They have sharp curved
nails. These too can rip and tear apart prey as well as dig in to catch
it.
Look
at your hound’s eyes, note that their eyes are in the front of their heads,
making it easier to spot, chase and hunt down prey. Now think of where
the eyes are located on say a rabbit, or a deer, or even a cow - they are on the
sides, a feature which quickly alerts them to carnivore attacks.
In
1993 the American Society of Mammalogists officially designated the domestic
dog and the wolf as the same species.
While
essentially a carnivore your hound can process some plant matter as well.
Berries, fruits and vegetation can make up a small part of their diet. It is
part of their nature as a scavenger/ carnivore.
The
Barf diet is based on these principles.
Essentially
what is trying to be either replicated or fed in its entirety is the prey
animal.
Raw
meaty bones make up a majority of the diet - within a range of 60 to 80%.
Many people feed chicken or turkey wings, necks backs or carcasses - the
optimal RMB is 50% meat to 50% bone. Chicken is touted as great source of
EFAs, though for wolfhounds, the first meat of choice may very well be pasture
raised beef. What is stressed is feed a variety of meats - not one single
source. Lamb, pork, rabbit, goat and venison may also
be
fed.
Larger
less meaty bones, like knuckle joints can also be fed for chewing exercise.
They massage the gums and satisfy the need to chew.
Bones
provide the most important source for minerals, especially calcium. And of
course the Ca P ratio is naturally balanced. No worries there.
Raw
bones contain all the essential amino acids in adequate amounts other than
methionine - but that is found in abundance in the raw meat. Lysine, the amino
acid essential for normal bone growth is there in large quantities.
The
EFAs are contained in the raw fat on the bones.
The
fat soluble vitamins, A D and E are found in the bone as well as the fat.
Bones
are essential to dental health - they are the dog’s natural tooth brush.
You don’t find tartar, gum infections tooth rot or decay or abscesses in a Barf
fed hound’s mouth. Though as they age you will find some wearing down of the
teeth. You don’t have to risk their lives under general anesthesia
to clean their teeth.
Filthy
infected mouths can lead to liver and heart problems.
Cooked
bones are never fed in a Barf diet - NEVER EVER. They are harder and more
brittle and more likely to splinter. They can and do pierce the intestines,
impact the bowels or cut like fish hooks in the rectum.
The
meat supplies protein - a highly digestible one to your hound. It will also
supply the EFAs and some of the minerals. It is deficient in some of the B
vitamins, vitamin C, calcium, iodine copper vitamin A, vitamin E and vitamin
D. A diet relying solely on meat is nothing short of a disaster for your
hound.
A
pure meat meal is fine once in a while. Raw fish can be fed – just feed it
whole and avoid Pacific salmon which can contain lethal flukes. Organ meats are
an essential part of the Barf diet - for adult wolfhounds this should be at
about 15%. Liver, kidney and heart,
especially
heart is essential to your hound’s health for its high levels of taurine. Tripe
is an excellent feed for IWs and is still the mainstay in quite a few raw
feeding kennels.
Veggies
are used to varying degrees. Any can be used other than onions. Leafy green
ones are best. They must be finely pulped or minced. Juiced grasses are
an even better source of nutrition and if you can, do use them. Fruits are best
fed over ripe. Though nice crisp apples are never refused.
Healthy
oils are used as well. Salmon oil and CLO are widely used. CLO is an essential
part of the Barf diet - it facilitates the uptake of minerals. The use of
healthy oils addresses the essential EFA imbalance caused by feeding livestock
grain based diets. CLO is of particular importance in Northern climates with
long winters and little sunshine. It provides Vitamin D.
Yogurt
can be fed - as well as raw milk, if you can get it. Yogurt is fed to
increase the gut content of healthy bacteria. Dairy is considered to be
non- essential in the Shultze diet.
Eggs
are great to feed and forget that nonsense about the avidan in egg whites
blocking the uptake of biotin. Just remember to feed them whole - yolks
and whites and you will have no problems. Some people feed with the shell on.
Grains
are not recommended. As previously mentioned dogs have no need for grain.
Fats are their best source of energy.
While
the usual advice is to go slowly I have switched many dogs over cold turkey. I have
noticed looser stools in the first few days and then blessedly diarrhea is
never a problem again. I have had dogs diagnosed with chronic colitis never
have a runny bowel movement again.
Dogs
who have had bouts of pancreatitis will need to have the fat removed off their
food first.
It
is not advisable to feed kibble as part of a Barf diet.
Clean,
healthy mouths
Brighter,
clearer eyes,
The
coat does soften somewhat - takes on a less harsh more polished look. If you
have a good coat to begin with you will find it thicker though less hard.
Minimal
inoffensive stools. The Barf fed dog produces hard small movements which
will disintegrate when exposed to the elements. Yard pick up is a breeze,
if you do indeed still need to do it. It has been estimated that there is a 90%
reduction in stool volume. Which says a lot for digestibility.
More
energy. Older dogs begin to play like puppies again.
Puppies
grow slowly, with fewer spurts and awkward stages.
Arthritic
dogs generally improve.
Many
owners are reporting that dogs diagnosed with hypothyroidism prior to being
switched to Barf now have dogs with normal levels. All of this done without
medication.
Reduction
if not eradication of allergies.
Better
developed muscles and overall toning. Converts are often amazed at the
physical changes their hounds undergo - loss of a bloated look, better tuck up,
defined muscles especially in the neck, spine and hind quarters.
Bowel
problems generally disappear.
According
to a survey conducted by the Canine Health Concern your vet bills will go down
dramatically. An 85% reduction in vet visits during the first year on a
Barf diet was found to be average.
Some
owners have reported improvements in temperaments. Calmer, less hyper dogs in
some, more energetic and less lethargy in others.
Dogs
do not become nasty when fed raw meat. Though I might add that bone guarding
and jealously can be an unfortunate consequence. Always have more bones
available than hounds and the problem is solved.
Yes
a dog can choke on a bone. It is extremely rare but not in the realm of
impossibility. They have also choked to death on kibble.
Bacterial
contamination.
Much
has been made of this by vets and commercial pet food companies. But it just is
not happening.
According
to the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, salmonella exposure does
not pose any real threat to healthy animals.
.
In
a recent study it was found that ALL commercial pet foods were contaminated
with some form of dangerous bacteria or endtoxins.
Yet,
AFS, a raw diet company in the States has not once, in twenty five years ever
had a dog sicken on their food. What the Barf diet does, in some opinion,
is produce even stronger stomach acids which quickly destroy potentially bad
bacteria.
Raw
food digests twice as fast as cooked food. With a short transit time there is
even less likelyhood for dangerous bacteria to colonize and grow.
Parasites
There
seems to be increased resistance to parasites with most owners reporting much
less need it worm their dogs. One of the problems I have heard about though is
dogs contracting tape from eating wild rabbit – as I only feed domestic meat
rabbit raised in a suitable environment I have not had this problem. It must be
remembered that fleas are the principle vectors for tape.
Trichinosis
is a potential problem if wild boar or bear is fed – however this is just not
done. Most dogs refuse bear meat anyway. Raw pork is fed so long as it is
purchased from a supermarket. All of the pork produced in Canada is now
considered to be trich free.
It
is often said that Barf diets are unbalanced when in fact they follow a
principle alien to foods created in a laboratory . The Barf diet follows the
principle of balance over time. Just fall with a loose set of ratios and you
have provided a balanced diet.
Just
what does complete and balanced mean? According to the National Research
Council if a pet food contains or exceeds a specific anount of protein, fat,
minerals and certain vitamins it can be called “complete and balanced”.
But
complete and balanced as determined in a laboratory setting and what is found
in nature seems to be very different.
In
the wild dogs do not eat refined starch. It is simply not there.
The
Omega 3 EFAs are not part of the NRC guidelines, yet are present and balanced
in the prey animals eaten by carnivores (so long as they have not been fed
grain.)
There
is no distinction made between fresh, unrefined oils and the spent, damaged
trans fatty acid containing oils used in pet foods.
Friendly
bacteria is found in nature but is not included in the NRC guidelines. These
bacteria are killed when foods are cooked.
So
are the enzymes.
On
Barf diets you think food groups and general proportions of these food groups.
You feed in ranges - say 60% RMB, 15% Offal a percentage of muscle meat and the
rest is some fruit and vegetation to mimic some of what may be scavenged and
what can be hound in the stomach contents of prey animals. You don’t think 21%
protein, 20% fat, and whatever in carbohydrates and filler.
While
it costs about the same if not less than commercial pet foods a homemade
Barf diet is inconvenient.
You
need a freezer, if not several. I have three for four hounds.
You need either a juicer or a food processor to pulverize veggies – you are trying to mimic the gut contents of the prey animal .
Your
suppliers may be miles away - while the pet store is a lot closer.
Sometimes
it is difficult to find suppliers. Many of use ethnic or farmers markets and
private abattoirs.
Because
of the quality of ingredients used most commercially available Barf diets are
impossibly expensive for the average wolfhound owner. The average price is
about $2.50 a pound. A home prepared diet runs from 10 cents to 50 cents
a pound in my area - others pay more.
It
takes more time to prepare than scooping kibble into a bowel.
Where
I live I have problems with wolves, coyotes and foxes.
Your
vet may freak on you - you may have to find a vet who supports raw feeding.
Fortunately more and more do. We do keep track of the vets who support
raw feeding - as well as those more in tune with other healing methods.
You
must educate yourself. Don’t even think of doing this without reading at least
Give Your Dog a Bone or The Ultimate Diet. Far too many dogs have been crippled
or suffer from ill health because of ill-educated owners or breeders who
attempt to feed a home-based diet based on calcium supplements and not bone. Or
they devise diets based on raw meats and very little else.
It
is wise to have a mentor.
Join
IW-Barf or WhippetBarf on Yahoogroups or another raw feeding list. We will be glad to help you.