Following on from our earlier post, What is Raw Feeding: And How to Raw Feed Your Dog, we bring you the benefits of raw feeding! Or at least all the benefits that I can type before I run out of steam. You ready? Let's go!
Their poo is smaller, more compact and doesn’t smell anywhere near as bad
I’m sorry about the subject matter but it’s SUCH a huge benefit, for so many reasons. Because raw food is optimised to your dog’s biology, they process and use most of the food they take in. There’s very little waste, and the waste they do produce is firm and compact, unlike kibble poo which (you probably know) is bloated and soft, credit to the excess carbohydrates and preservatives for that one. In addition to the poo being smaller, the frequency of it is also reduced- usually by quite a significant amount. Pet owners that are new to raw feeding often panic at the drop in poo frequency but it’s totally normal- your dog is just metabolising and using so much of their diet that there isn’t as much waste. As a pet society we’ve become so normalised to the excess waste that commercial food produces.
Cat owners: This is a lifesaver for your litter box. On commercial pet food, our litter tray required candles and window-opens for at least 20 minutes post-poo. Now we can’t even tell when they’ve been. (And I’ve checked with non-cat friends who visit, it really does not smell).
Because the poo is compact and firm, it naturally expresses your dog’s anal glands
We’re starting this post right with the fun ones aren’t we? I do kind of want to shout from the mountains about this though. For those who don’t know, your dog’s anal glands fill up with a fluid that both leaves their scent behind and aids their toileting. The glands are positioned right at the sides of their anus, so that when they poo, the pressure expresses and empties them naturally. Unfortunately, kibble poo is rarely firm enough to express them. More and more dogs are requiring their anal glands to be manually emptied at a vet’s office, and the rate of complications from those that aren’t regularly expressed is through the roof, with anal glands becoming impacted and leading to infections and abscesses.
Every time we’ve taken one of our raw fed pets to the vets they’ve tried to empty their anal glands “just while you’re here!” and been surprised to find them completely empty. It makes sense that their body would have its own way to empty them, doesn’t it?
Your pet is about to have the shiiiiiiniest coat!
Finally moving on from poo! Be ready for your pet’s coat to GLEAM. Especially if you’re adding oily fish. We regularly field compliments about how soft/shiny/pretty our pet’s coats are. We don’t have any matt-prone breeds but I do suspect that raw feeding would aid in reducing matting, as the fur would be silkier.
It keeps their teeth clean!
It just seems so insane to me that we have accepted that we feed our dogs kibble and then have to use a human toothbrush and toothpaste to keep their teeth clean. What on earth do these dogs do in the wild? Oh, that’s right, they eat raw bones. Raw bones are the perfect natural toothbrush for them, the bones scrape against the outside of their teeth, removing plaque and tartar build-up and the tendons and ligaments in the meat act as a natural flosser, getting in between the gaps.
Weight loss and healthy weight management
Commercial pet foods are often filled with carbohydrates. They bring the overall cost of the food down and fill up your pet- sounds like a dream, no? Well, honestly, no. Dogs are facultative carnivores with a short digestive tract and high stomach acid content designed to digest meat. Their body doesn’t have requirements for the high levels of carbohydrates that we see in commercial pet food and as a result, the carbohydrates they consume are metabolising into excess sugars, leading to weight gain. As raw diets have no carbohydrates and because dogs metabolise and use so much of the raw food, lots of dogs that switch over to a raw based diet will lose weight on it, while still enjoying a full portion of food. In fact, often dogs that can only have a small amount of kibble so that they maintain a healthy weight, can enjoy a larger portion of raw food.
Increased food value for training
This one speaks for itself. If you’ve read our article The Benefits of Hand Feeding then you’ll appreciate the value of using your dog’s food for their training. It is much easier to get your dog excited about their raw meat diet than it is their kibble, and you'll no longer need to have back-up options of high value rewards in your fridge- their regular food is about to BE the high value reward.
Elimination diets and allergies
Having a dog with allergies sucks. If this is you, I empathise. Evaluating everything in your life and trying every food you can imagine and still not being able to find the exact cause, while your pet is struggling, is unbelievably stressful. I’m not going to claim a raw food diet will be a magic cure-all but I do know a lot of allergic dogs who have found happy, itch-free lives on a tailored raw diet. Raw feeding makes allergy elimination incredibly easy. Because raw feeding is all about fresh, unprocessed meat, it’s easy to feed just one protein at a time, monitor any changes and gradually add in more and more proteins until you can find the triggers – and the safe foods! Commercial food is so packed full of preservatives and supplement nutrients that it’s incredibly difficult to isolate one protein or ingredient.
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