Duke's Delicious Dog Dinners

What's the Raw Food system all about?

Put simply the BARF (Bones And Raw Food) diet is based upon the idea that the best diet for your pet is the diet that they have evolved to eat. Although they are now domesticated dogs still have the same nutritional needs as the wild dogs and wolves from which they are descended.

Wolves in the wild eat prey animals which gives them raw meat, organ meat (heart, liver etc.), fat, bones and the partially digested contents of the stomach of their prey. However wolves are not carnivores, they are omnivores which means they require both meat and plants to be healthy. The prey are usually herbivores (rabbits, mice, groundhogs etc.) and by eating their stomachs the wolves get plant nutrients that are usually not directly available to them because the wolf digestive system is unable to break down the plant material to extract those nutrients.

They will also eat root vegetables, berries from bushes and fallen fruit. If these have begun to ripen or even to be over-ripe then the walls of the cells making up the fruit are bursting. When the cell walls are weakening or have burst it makes the nutritional elements more readily available to the digestive system of the wolf.

So wolves, and dogs, have evolved to eat meat, including organ meats, fat, bones and some fruits, vegetables and other plants as long as they are in a form that makes their nutrients available to their system. This is why BARF diets are often called Natural Diets or Natural Dog Food - it is what nature intended your dog to eat!

What are dogs eating with most commercial dog food?

Wolves do not eat cereals and grains and in fact they lack the digestive enzyme amylase which is necessary to break down starches from these plants. Yet the single largest ingredient in most dog foods is some sort of grain or cereal. Your dog makes little or no use of this material which is one reason his stools are large and soft if he is on such a diet. It is also why he has to eat such large portions just to get his basic nutritional requirements met.

Other benefits to BARF

Having bones to chew also makes your dog happier - dogs like to chew! He won't be chewing up the couch if he has a nice tasty bone to chew and starting the day with a bone helps him work off some of the energy he has after a good night's rest so he is more content if he has to stay inside during the day.  It will also give him cleaner whiter teeth!

Some BARF proponents say that the bones should be very meaty because it provides good exercise pulling the meat from the bone. Our observation is that less than 10% of a dog's time with a bone is taken up with removing and eating the meat - most of the time is just plain old chewing on the bone. As a result, even though our bones do have meat on them,  we are more concerned with providing bones that are good to chew rather than bones with lots of meat - after all his meal has lots of meat in it and even if there was absolutely no meat and fat on the bone it would still be a treat to your dog. It also turns out that some of the meatiest bones are also the hardest to chew which is why many pre-prepared BARF foods have bone meal added. But this isn't just a nutritional issue - if your dog is constantly getting hard bones then his teeth will wear down faster. For these reasons most of the bones we will supply are softer and more easily eaten, usually rib bones which are relatively soft - less wear and more calcium!

Here is a list of benefits commonly attributed to BARF diets: