Dogs: Dry food vs wet food

[bort84]

I will definitely be switching to all raw at some point. Right now it is hard because we have a teeny freezer and a small apartment.

My cats get all wet grain free food, and my dog gets grain free high-quality kibble. I don’t think it’s nearly as important for dogs to get wet food as cats since most dogs have a healthy thirst drive. However, I wouldn’t think canned food would be bad for dogs at all (though it would be WAY spendier for people with big dogs like me - raw would be vastly cheaper and probably take up similar storage.) But it would make sense to me that some canned food might be a better option, since it really does require some weird preservatives to get food in a kibble state…

I’ve heard SUCH dramatic stories about going raw though, that I will hopefully be able to try it out soon. Right now it would just be pretty challenging and expensive (due to lack of storage space) to implement. We do give our pup a lot of good healthy people food too. I think it’s crazy when you hear people say they should have kibble only. That makes no sense. Our girl does great with healthy table scraps or meat just for her added into her diet.

[halo]

My guys get for the most part high quality kibble (Taste of the Wild right now). I usually wet it in order to add some chicken broth or anything else I might have yummy at the time. Then, when I get my gumption up and take care of the current crop of roosters, they get a quarter of a raw young rooster once a week. My toothless old man just gets breast pieces with the cartilage. They look outstanding, and have never had a dog with cancer (knocking head furiously…).

[KateKat]

I’m a big proponent of canned for cats, but for my dog he gets the best quality kibble I can afford. I admit, it is for cost and convenience, him being a 100lb lab ;). But, he gets a top quality, grain free kibble (Acana, the same maker as Orijen) and I have confidence that the food is adequate nutrition for him.

[wendy]

and I have confidence that the food is adequate nutrition for him.

based on what data exactly? the idea that we know enough about nutrition to be able to produce a dried lump that is 100% complete and balanced is laughable. The AAFCO standards are based on a very low standard- can eight out of ten dogs kept in cages survive on this food for six months?
I personally hope my dogs live longer than that.
Also it’s well-known that some nutrients aren’t very stable. You can be quite sure that if you feed nothing but kibble your dog isn’t getting enough omega-3 fatty acids.
Every doggy nutritionist I’ve ever interacted with has said that if you feed kibble, you have to supplement it with fish oils and hopefully with fresh foods. And rotate brands in hopes that the deficiencies present in one brand can be made up for by a different brand.
You have heard of the cats all killed by “complete and balanced” food that just didn’t have enough taurine in it? the Iams study showing “complete and balanced” food creates mentally retarded puppies?

[danceronice]

Looking at what they throw up when they vomit after a meal, they don’t chew much of the kibble.

Mine get a mix, wet and dry. The wet’s easier on the one with no front teeth, for a start. They also get human leftovers like rice or chicken mixed in sometimes. Also been using lightly cooked green beans to bulk out the diet of the pudgy one (and giving the other the same thing as they’ve been known to swap bowls.) The only thing that seems to matter is they like variety and get very bored eating the same thing all the time.

[Foxtrot_s]

I feed complete and balanced kibble to my horses, plus hay - they seem fine.

Do you have any independent studies that back up any of these theories. My daschund lived to be 17 on my rather cavalier attitude to feeding, which is a lot longer than the coyotes living on their raw diet out the back I would wager.

I go along with Dancer - for better or worse.

[danceronice]

Lol, maybe dachshunds just live LONG–next door has one who is 19. He has two teeth. I have no idea what he eats, but he still gets around!

But yes, we’ve always fed dogs…well, whatever, a variety of food brands and people food (mine love when I make stock because I pick otu the little scraps of chicken and soft cartilage and they get that with dinner) and they all seem to do all right. The only problem arises if I use the same brand of dry kibble for too long. Then they get bored and they dont’ care how cheap or expensive it is. (Wheras the cats have one brand of realtively cheap food they like and on which the one male doesn’t get stones, but then they decide that they don’t like THIS wet food any more, they like THAT one that they hated last month…the dogs are just “YAY WET FOOD!”)

[clm08]

Hmm, I guess if I had fed my dogs a raw diet they’d have lived to be 18 yrs or older. My dogs have all lived to be 16 or 17 yrs old, all fed dry kibbles mixed with just a little bit of wet food, and a little bit of table scraps now and then.

They also beg for carrots when I feed carrots to my horses, eat horse manure when they roam the stable, get commercial and home baked treats that may contain grain.

The only time one of my dogs got bloated was when he got into a bag of dry food in the basement. I didn’t find out about it until the next day, although I knew something was wrong when he didn’t want to eat his regular dinner (but did eat it after I spiced it up with a bit of broth!). That night he was just NQR, threw up and had a LOT of stools the next day :eek:

I also rotate the dry food among many of the reputable brands. I don’t overfeed my dogs, they get lots of exercise, are very close to ideal body score, have no allergies, and live a long life. Oh, they do have dentals a few times when they get older, and I try to brush their teeth with canine toothpaste on a regular basis.

[allintexas]

One of my dogs gets only canned food because he has a sensitive stomach. The others mostly get kibble with some canned food and water added.

[Sswor]

I just starting cooking [again] for my dogs. I was feeding kibble supplemented with fresh foods but have a young dog who had a massive bout of HGE for the second time in 2 years of life and said enough. Previously cooked-for dog lived to be 14. Dogs since fed only kibble–1 died of enlarged liver at 12, dog starting to have liver problems and seizures at 11, and dog with HGE requiring serious vet intervention 2x in 2 years, I’m done with commercial pet foods of all varieties. There is no telling what they put in there, and no guarantee that it’s even toxin free. There is no quality control and no way to know that it’s harmful unless scores of pets start dying immediately after consuming the food. As it is, scores of pets are suffering from allergies and skin conditions, diabetes, cancer, organ failure, cushings.

Immediately upon switching to home cooked food, I’m AMAZED at how little water they are drinking. Blown away really. I’m dumping and refilling the water bowl 2x/day and I can’t see a reduction in volume anymore. My older dog who use to hit the bowl after a meal and drink it 1/2 way down now takes one drink and walks away. The young dog never appears to drink lol. I watched the Netflix documentary Pet Fooled before switching and it talked about dogs fed a kibble being in a perpetual state of dehydration and I was like oh c’mon. But then I saw for myself how little water they are drinking now and it sure seems to be true.

[candyappy]

Old thread I know,but,

I have only fed kibble to my dogs and cats. Dogs do get a small amount of table scraps if we have them. I will point out that every one of my dogs/ cats for the last 26 years has lived into their teens and never had a vet visit due to health issues.

The odd emergency now and again that happens with farm life nothing due to diet or food related.

[Magicboy]

Dry food, veggies sometimes broth or meat scraps…a pack of very long lived Corgis in perfect weight

[Nezzy]

please watch the attached video.

https://www.dogfoodadvisor.com/choosing-dog-food/karen-becker-choose-dog-food-1/

[Kemosabe]

I switched to raw two years ago from feeding home cooked. I feed four Australian shepherds and one Australian shepherd puppy. I recently brought the adult dogs to my vet for their annual “happy dog health check”. My vet was on vacation so it was another vet in the practice who examined them. She prefaced herself as she opened the first dog’s mouth ( age 4) to look at his teeth how prevalent periodontal disease is in dogs and that many dogs need a good dental cleaning once a year. When she looked at the four year old’s mouth she was shocked. She says she doesn’t see healthy teeth like this. And that for me highlights a real issue: that healthy no tarter teeth is the exception not the rule.

One in every two dogs in the US will get cancer. That is a sobering statistic. Some breeds are predisposed to it genetically but I had two dogs, I adopted as puppies from the shelter, mixed breed, both got cancer: one was bone, the other liver cancer. Both on kibble. Did the kibble cause the cancer, no. But we know in humans that highly processed food, particularly meat and the additives can increase the risk.

And here is the thing about raw that many vets don’t understand. When you feed raw you change the pH of the gut to a more acidic pH of about 2.5. The unfriendly bacteria like clostridium and salmonella don’t thrive in a low pH environment.

[horsenut_8700]

@Kemosabe

I switched to raw two years ago from feeding home cooked. I feed four Australian shepherds and one Australian shepherd puppy. I recently brought the adult dogs to my vet for their annual “happy dog health check”. My vet was on vacation so it was another vet in the practice who examined them. She prefaced herself as she opened the first dog’s mouth ( age 4) to look at his teeth how prevalent periodontal disease is in dogs and that many dogs need a good dental cleaning once a year. When she looked at the four year old’s mouth she was shocked. She says she doesn’t see healthy teeth like this. And that for me highlights a real issue: that healthy no tarter teeth is the exception not the rule.

One in every two dogs in the US will get cancer. That is a sobering statistic. Some breeds are predisposed to it genetically but I had two dogs, I adopted as puppies from the shelter, mixed breed, both got cancer: one was bone, the other liver cancer. Both on kibble. Did the kibble cause the cancer, no. But we know in humans that highly processed food, particularly meat and the additives can increase the risk.

And here is the thing about raw that many vets don’t understand. When you feed raw you change the pH of the gut to a more acidic pH of about 2.5. The unfriendly bacteria like clostridium and salmonella don’t thrive in a low pH environment.

Can I ask how much you spend to feed 4 dogs raw? I’d love to, but I don’t think my budget could sustain it!

[Kemosabe]

It is expensive feeding multiple dogs raw. I am going to estimate that it is around $120-$150 per week. I could reduce the cost significantly if I bought in bulk the muscle meats, bones, and organs and just mixed my own. I buy the grinds which are already blended in the correct prey species ratio. The grinds or patties are significantly more expensive than bulk. And being a vegetarian I would prefer not to handle a lot of meat

[Sswor]

@Kemosabe

And here is the thing about raw that many vets don’t understand. When you feed raw you change the pH of the gut to a more acidic pH of about 2.5. The unfriendly bacteria like clostridium and salmonella don’t thrive in a low pH environment.

Sure–but if you never introduce that bacteria into the dog’s system, you don’t need to worry about it at all.

Another counter-argument to feeding raw: Dogs are 15,000 years evolved away from wolves. That’s a long time. They evolved to eat what we eat over those 15K years. Dogs are omnivorous scavengers, not wolves, not apex predators. Feral dogs may occasionally bring down small prey, but are more likely to scavenge trash to survive on their own rather then hunt.

For myself–I need to be confident in what I am feeding my dogs, that it is healthy and won’t hurt them. My solution has been to home cook for them, same as I do for myself. I now know that what they are eating is healthy, fresh, real food, that contains no bacteria or pathogens. That piece of mind is priceless.

[ElisLove]

Our old family dog lived till 17.5 on dry kibble alone.
I have 3 dogs currently
my tiny pom is on freeze dried raw (which gets moistened to eat), because its the highest cal food I can find and he’s teeny weeny.
my standard poodle gets orijen six fish, but to gain weight on him I’ve added the freeze dried raw as a topper to his food (it’s way too expensive to only feed him the freeze dried as he’d need a bag every 2 days and a bag is like 40 bucks). I tried to feed him raw but he threw it up/regurgitated it about 1/3-1/2 of the time. I’d love to feed him raw, just due to the amount he poops! He sure pooped a lot less on raw, but he also wasn’t absorbing very much since he was barfing it.
My 12 yr old mini poo is on orijen six fish. he hasn’t had his teeth cleaned in years and years and still has all of his teeth. Other than a half day bout of old dog vestibular syndrome and what looked like dry eye but cleared up within 6 months he’s been pretty well totally healthy

[Kemosabe]

@Sswor

Sure–but if you never introduce that bacteria into the dog’s system, you don’t need to worry about it at all.

Another counter-argument to feeding raw: Dogs are 15,000 years evolved away from wolves. That’s a long time. They evolved to eat what we eat over those 15K years. Dogs are omnivorous scavengers, not wolves, not apex predators. Feral dogs may occasionally bring down small prey, but are more likely to scavenge trash to survive on their own rather then hunt.

For myself–I need to be confident in what I am feeding my dogs, that it is healthy and won’t hurt them. My solution has been to home cook for them, same as I do for myself. I now know that what they are eating is healthy, fresh, real food, that contains no bacteria or pathogens. That piece of mind is priceless.

That “bad” bacteria is already in the GI tract, just in very small colonies. There are somewhere around 1000 different beneficial and pathogenic species in the colon. A low pH not only keeps the bacteria in balance, any other bad bacteria introduced from food or the environment have very low survival rates and so less chance of causing an imbalance in the microbiota.

I fed home cooked for a long long time. I still make my dogs a home cooked meal once in a while. I just found they have done even better on raw.

[Sswor]

@Kemosabe

That “bad” bacteria is already in the GI tract, just in very small colonies. There are somewhere around 1000 different beneficial and pathogenic species in the colon. A low pH not only keeps the bacteria in balance, any other bad bacteria introduced from food or the environment have very low survival rates and so less chance of causing an imbalance in the microbiota.

The stomach acid is naturally quite acidic, I do not believe it is established science that a raw diet does anything to the Ph of a dog’s GI tract.