In raw feeding, a common question, especially for those experiencing heartburn, is whether meat can be cooked or even heated. There is a fear that something might be lost or that something might become at least useless, even dangerous. The short answer is that heating or cooking meat doesn’t matter at all.
During the BARF (Biologically Appropriate Raw Food) era, it was taught that dogs should be given meaty bones, and that would provide everything they need. The definition of meaty bones was that they should be half meat and half bone. This claim was not accurate by any measure, and such meaty bones were not even available anywhere, although chicken drumsticks came close.
Different types of dry food are bought for the dog time and time again. Either the food doesn’t suit the dog at all, the number and size of poop bags aren’t enough during a walk, or acquaintances and strangers in the Facebook world condemn the food as low-quality. At some point, people start asking for a recommendation for a good brand of dry food.
Growing pups need planned and calculated food suitable for dogs. Otherwise there may come bad problems.
Those who practiced Barf feeding once discovered that bones are food for dogs. An Australian who turned to alternatives, and briefly worked as a veterinarian, Ian Billinghurst, developed it into a business for himself and managed to create the modern dog-keeping culture’s worst and most widespread feeding mistake. As a result, we now have a market for minced meats with bones.
In feeding dogs, organs play an important role alongside meat. This doesn’t even depend on the feeding method, as organs are visible in both dry foods and meat-based raw feeding, at least in advertisements. Still, it’s not always clear what the term “organ” actually means.
There are a few eternal memes in dog feeding. Chicken bones kill, the dog is an omnivore, or the calcium to phosphorus ratio is the most important thing. None of those are true. The belief in the high phosphorus content of meat is also not true.
The two most common questions in the dog world are which dry food to buy and how to transition to raw feeding so that the dog gets everything it needs. The first is the easiest to answer, because there is no answer. No one can know what to buy, because “worthwhile” depends on an overwhelming number of factors and, most importantly – whether brand X suits the dog – no one knows in advance. Starting raw feeding is a slightly broader topic, but it is reasonably easy too. The prerequisite, of course, is that you master the basics of multiplication.
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Beta-carotene is one of the carotenoids, which are practically a minor source of antioxidants for dogs from a typical canine diet.