18/07/2025
Okay, before you roll your eyes or dismiss this as âtoo extreme,â can we just start by agreeing on one small thing?
You do know that dogs are carnivores, right?
Not âcarnivore-curious.â Not âomnivore on Wednesdays.â Real, live, meat-eating, bone-crunching carnivores. Yesâeven your fluffy, bow-wearing, couch-snoozing, tutu-tolerant poodle. Beneath all that elegance is a set of molars designed to shear flesh, a stomach with acid strong enough to melt bone, and instincts that could humble a hawk.
And I get itâthis topic can make people squirm. Whole prey? Like⌠with the fur still on? With eyes? With tails? Yes. And before you clutch your pearls, just know: itâs not about being wildâitâs about being wise.
Now that weâve got that out of the way and hopefully softened the shock with a smile, let me tell you how everything changed when I stopped begging my dogs to eat⌠and started feeding them the way they were actually made to eat.
Why Puppies Should Be Eating Whole Prey: From Ancestral Wisdom to Modern-Day Poodles
There was a timeâtoo many years, too many shows, and too many vet bills agoâwhen I thought feeding finicky poodles was just part of the package. Iâd stand over the bowl with a spoon, or worse, a ball of raw beef and oats pressed together with a prayer, hoping my beautiful but dainty show prospect would take a few nibbles. Satin balls, baby food, freeze-dried toppings, hand-feeding, and whispered negotiations were my norm. Iâd chase my poodles around the house with their meals, all in an effort to get them to gain a few ounces before the next weekendâs ring.
Now?
Now Iâm the one being chased.
It all changed when I began feeding them the way nature intendedânot just âraw,â not just balanced âratios,â but whole prey. That is: fur, feathers, glands, sinew, eyes, tails, bones, and blood. The real thing. And the shift wasnât just in appetiteâit was in their eyes, their coat, their stamina, their immune system, their behavior, their joy.
Because hereâs the truth: the body knows whatâs real. The body remembers what it was born for.
The Ancestral Blueprint
Dogs are not wolves, but they are of wolves. They evolved to scavenge and hunt, to pull meat from bone, to crack cartilage, to lick marrow from the crevices of a skull. For thousands of years, wild canids and early village dogs survived on the whole of an animal: nothing removed, nothing âformulated.â The liver wasnât isolated. Calcium wasnât measured in teaspoons. They simply ate the whole rabbit, the whole mouse, the whole bird. And in doing so, they didnât just surviveâthey thrived.
We forget that our poodlesârefined as they areâstill carry those same digestive enzymes, jaw structures, and instincts. When we hand them back their inheritance through whole prey, we do more than nourish the body. We awaken something sacred in the gut, the brain, and even the spirit.
Why Whole Prey Works
Whole prey isnât just a meal. Itâs a miracle of biological harmony. Nature doesnât portion out nutrients the way human math does. In a whole animal, the ratios of calcium to phosphorus are self-balancing. The vitamin A in the liver is tempered by the zinc in the heart. The manganese found in feathers and fur balances joint development and ligament strengthâan element completely missing in boneless grinds and most supplements. The eyes, the brain, the thyroid tissueâall offer bioavailable nutrients you cannot replicate synthetically.
And for puppies, this matters tenfold. Theyâre not just growing muscle and bone. Theyâre forming immune patterns, establishing neurological networks, calibrating hormonal balance. Every cell is learning what health feels likeâand the raw materials of that future health are coded into every inch of a whole animal.
The Benefits Iâve Seen Firsthand
Let me tell you what changed when I began feeding whole prey to my poodlesâstarting with the youngest.
Puppies weaned onto fur-on, feathered, gland-rich prey became bold, eager eaters who never skipped a meal. No more coaxing. No more toppers. No more panic over growth. Instead, I saw glowing coats, strong teeth, lean muscle, and vibrant energy. Their eyes were clear. Their p**p was perfect. Their drive was balanced. They slept deeply and grew evenly.
Even my adults, who used to ignore food when in season or under stress, began greeting meals like they were the highlight of the day. And trulyâthey are.
Their instincts return. Their bodies remember. And mine do too.
From Survival Mode to Thriving Terrain
Weâre not just feeding to avoid deficiencyâweâre feeding to cultivate resilience. In a world full of environmental toxins, emotional stress, and immune dysregulation, our puppies need every advantage. Whole prey builds a terrain that doesnât just resist disease, but transcends it. It trains the body to adapt, to repair, to know itself.
You canât supplement your way into that kind of wholeness. You have to feed it, as it was designed.
A Final Thought for the Skeptics
Is it messy? Sometimes. Is it unconventional? Absolutely. But the first time you watch a puppy rip into a quail with joy in their bones and satisfaction on their muzzle, youâll understand. This isnât crueltyâitâs connection. This isnât about reverting to the wildâitâs about restoring the wisdom weâve bred out in pursuit of convenience.
Our poodles may not run through forests anymoreâbut they still deserve the food that shaped their ancestors.
If I could go back and tell myselfâtired from begging a finicky poodle to eat, worried about weight before a show, frustrated at yet another supplementâone thing, it would be this:
Feed whole prey. Not just raw. Not just balanced. Feed what the body was born to receive.
And then watch everything change. â¤ď¸đžâ¤ď¸
