Ideal Food for Dogs is not Kibble Part 2

Huggy Bear at Cleveland National Forest, CA

I started Huggy off on Acana dog food, and I was pretty happy with that choice.  Then, I started thinking about what dogs will eat in the wild.  Since dogs are carnivores, I was pretty sure that they were not out in the wild grazing grass or hunting for corn.  I was thinking that they would hunt live animals, kill them, and eat them raw, as I did not think dogs are capable of starting a camp fire, gathering around, and roasting whatever it is that they killed on a stick.  That would make for a very humorous picture though.

I then thought about what kind of animals dogs would eat.  Anything smaller than dogs would probably be a good choice, like chicken, duck, fish, etc.  Also, if dogs worked as a pack, they can probably take down sheep, or maybe deer, which is probably the biggest animal that they would consider pursuing for a meal.  I reached an interesting conclusion that dogs would probably not bother taking down a cow, as it poses too big of a risk for the dogs due to the size and strength of a cow.  One kick from a cow, and the dog is history.  Better to stick with the chicken.

So, I came to the conclusion that they eat raw meat and bones in the wild.  It's not exactly a pretty picture to imagine your cute dog ravenously chomping down on bloody raw carcasses of God knows what, but if you've ever seen those nature shows, and if you reason it through it your head, this is ultimately the conclusion that you would reach.  I did some research on the Internet, and I found out that I was not alone in reaching this conclusion.  It turns out that there is a term for this type of feeding, raw feeding, and there is a lot of information on the Internet on this subject, although most of the information seems to be from personal experience and not anything from scientific journals or studies.

So, next, I was wondering how I can do this for Huggy.  I would have to figure out how to buy a whole animal to feed Huggy.  I was thinking lamb at this point.  I would have to learn how to skin, gut, and clean a whole lamb (gross!)  I would also have to find a clean space to do the gutting.  Since Huggy won't be able to eat an entire lamb all at once, I would probably have to get one of those serial killer freezers and put it in the garage (creepy!)  and store a lamb carcass in it (even creepier!)  I would also be concerned about bacteria and viruses, so I would have to get an irradiation equipment to eliminate contaminants without cooking the meat (do I have to purchase a meat processing factory?!?!?)  I would also have to find the time and money to do all of these things.  Plus, I would have to get approval from my wife, who I'm pretty sure is against strapping a dead lamb on top of our SUV and bringing it home for gutting.  I also think our neighbors would not have appreciated me doing this.

So thus, I concluded that I can't raw feed Huggy.  It's too much work, and I didn't have enough money to get all of the equipment I need.  I am kind of a germaphobe, so I just couldn't let that irradiation equipment go as part of the raw feeding process, plus I didn't want our family to be the "crazy" family in the neighborhood either.  There are just too many factors working against me.

The next question I asked myself is, "Is there a compromise or an alternative solution?"  That's when I found Stella and Chewy's freeze dried raw dog food.

To be continued on the next post.