25/06/2026
🐾What is healthy food for dogs?🐾
Over the many years of feeding a raw meat diet with access to plants of choice (from veggi gardenand orchard🙄) - I see species appropriate food for an obligatory carnivore as...
meat with plants added now and then.
Also the variety per season counts.
Fatter into winter, leaner in summer.
Also activity counts.
A lot of rest alternating with body stengthening action. Free running, fooling around with each other, jumping for sky raisins... Not just restricted lead walks around the block and structure damaging "fetch" at a burn-out level.
Also important is the moisture level of the food.
Raw has a high moisture content. The digestive system can work properly and the high acidity in the canine stomach keeps the dog healthy - even if he fancies "crawling" meat or rotten eggs now and then.
High dehydration and thirst from dry food and the constant water intake unbalances the whole digestive system.
Also timing matters.
Meat is a very enervy dense food.
But it also takes a lot of energy to digest this Superfood.
So after a meal of raw meat with bone - a long rest period is appropriate.
In the wild, Wolves eat as much of the prey as they can in one go since meat in the stomach can be "carried" away from an approaching Grizzly much easier than a whole shank. Slow feeding is a human invention. Canines gobble and swallow as much as they can. As fast as they can.
And then ...have a loooong digestive rest.
Meat doesnt digest properly "on the run". So an evening feeding (meat of course) after an active day leads to a solidly sleeping dog. All through the night.
Without the need to wake up, get up and drink water continuously. The access to water is a MUST (by Animal Welfare) - but gets completely ignored through the night by a dog that is fed appropriately.
Also important is that when meat is available, fruit and veggies get ignored.
Meat and fruit digest at different speeds. When meat is the main ingredient, digestion is very slow. And the plants added start to ferment. And cause havoc and storms.
When no meat is available, fruit and veggies are eaten. The mix of plants and meat is a human invention based ot the "balanced" myth. The canine eats instinctively and you wont see a wolf stopping half way through eating the deer, go for the nearest river, catch a fish, eat that half way and then walk off for some blueberries...
Thats nonsense.
Wolves have a higher food intake over winter (prey is slower (ie through snow) and less mobile and they slim down over summer, when prey can run easily.
Thus they use the secondary food mainly in summer. Short chained carbs (fruit), which can be digested in the meat oriented system.
Is raw feeding a dog/dogs difficult?
No it is not.
What is difficult is to get away from, are the human ideas of what a canine needs to eat.
And here I see
-ads for kibble chanting the MUST for balanced,
-ads and articles about how the dog is not a wolf and now can eat maize, rice, corn, beetroot pulp, peas
-ads for "Vet approved" products, -recommendations from such veterinary experts pointing at disease oriented prescription "diets"
-scaremongery that meat is unhealthy for a meateater
-bacterial horrorstories
-misinterpreted detox events after change from kibble to raw
- the prices per portion, especially when personally adjusted to the furbabies need per minute per day
-the fear of blockages (mainly caused by plastic toys or bones given while feeding kibble)
-the fear that a "missing protein" will cause disease
...these are the factors that make raw feeding LOOK extremely complicated.
Get a little freezer, buy bulk, go "special" shopping...
And at the end of the day you come up with lesser money spent on raw than you would on a high class professionally recommended bag of dust.
With the side effect that the dog is super healthy and thus has no need for high class insurance to cover checks and costly professional interventions
There is nothing more rewarding than a raw fed dog at your side .....that is healthy and happy and doesnt present with worrying problems.
Raw feeding is not ALL... but mainly everything your best mate needs to be healthy💚💚
Post inspired by a writeup by Dr. Karen Becker - Link to her post in commenrs
