Seven years ago, Olivia and I traveled to Houston to pick up Brego from his breeder. When we got to her house, she introduced us to all of her Papillons and told us about Dr. Ian Billinghurst's B.A.R.F. diet, which she fed to her dogs in patty form. She encouraged us to keep up with the diet and included Dr. Billinghurst's book The B.A.R.F Diet in Brego's puppy packet.
We ordered some of the patties and fed them to Brego for the first few weeks, but the patties were expensive, the book too science-y for us at that age, and Brego seemed too picky. Since Brego liked the kibble that the Labs were eating better than his B.A.R.F. patties, we switched him to dry food.
One year ago we started feeding raw. Here is our story and what we've learned along the way:
After battling Brego's bad teeth and breath, fondly referred to as "death breath," Olivia and I decided to look into a raw diet once more. We were inspired by a few of our agility, trainer, and breeder friends who swear by a raw diet and by the fact that our expanding pack of five all had different health needs: seasonal allergies and dermatitis, gingivitis and bad breath, lack-luster coats, not to mention digestive "issues". So began the long, exciting, stressful, time-consuming, fascinating, and over-all successful venture into raw-food land.
The first mission on our raw quest was to acquire as many books on the subject as possible. Being college students, we decided to take another crack at Dr. Billinghurst's book and found it to be a fairly easy read. Anyone with an understanding of basic biology should be able to easily comprehend everything in Billinghurst's book. The other books we acquired are: Work Wonders by Tom Lonsdale; Unlocking the Canine Ancestral Diet by Steve Brown; Raw Dog Food by Carina Beth Macdonald; and Raw & Natural Nutrition for Dogs by Lew Olson. Lonsdale's book was a very easy read but he promotes a "prey" driven diet that was not conducive to how we wanted to feed our dogs. Steve Brown's book proved to be fairly interesting but very tedious to read, it also focuses on supplementing a kibble diet rather than feeding raw. The last two books on our list proved to be the most helpful. Carina Beth Macdonald is not a veterinarian or a nutritionist but her insight and instructions prove to be the most helpful. She explains everything in plain, simple, straight forward terms--there's even a chapter about poop! The second most helpful book is Lew Olson's Raw & Natural Nutrition for Dogs. Olson is a canine nutrition specialist. She lays out nutritional values for various proteins, supplements, etc. in tables that make figuring out portions a breeze. She also outlines diets for several types of dogs from puppies to seniors.
And so, we delve into the world of raw food and BARF diets. We'll keep you posted on our progress. :)
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