Opinions for Half Basenji

[Anubis's Mommy]

Ahh I just figured Id ask because I tried to give raw chicken to my Pitbull/Lab and she threw it up. So I didnt know if it would make them sick. lol.

[tanza]

It is my understanding that the two should not be mixed (kibble with raw) at least not at the same feeding. There is no difference in feeding a mixed breed or purebred

[Anubis's Mommy]

I never feed him Raw/Kibble in the same feeding. He gets Raw in the mornings and kibble before bed.

[lisastewart]

Mine get the opposite, kibble in the AM and raw at night, makes no impact on their health

[Shaye's Mom]

This is most likely a stupid question but: we would never eat raw anything ourselves - why is it okay to feed raw meat to our B's when we keep reading how there is so much bacteria and other bad stuff in raw meat these days, and we are warned to cook it all well? In the wild, yes, wild dogs of any kind would eat raw meat and thrive on it, but that raw meat is "on the hoof" as they say, and not farm bred, processed and packaged the way our raw meat is. Just askin'

[dcmclcm4]

It is recommended not to feed raw to a dog with Fanconi Syndrome.

Jennifer

[Bettawhippet]

This is most likely a stupid question but: we would never eat raw anything ourselves - why is it okay to feed raw meat to our B's when we keep reading how there is so much bacteria and other bad stuff in raw meat these days, and we are warned to cook it all well?

I don't think that is a stupid question, it is a very valid one. I have recently switched Kiora onto raw and that was a question I had asked myself. Basically what I learned about it was that dogs stomachs are very highly acidic and designed to deal with bad bacteria found in meat like salmonella and E.coli. While wild dogs and wolves do hunt, they also scavenge, and are able to easily digest and utilize meat that for a human would be toxic. Commercial kibble has been around for less than 100 years while hominids, on the other hand, have been cooking for themselves for over a million years.

A major exception to this would be any dog with a suppressed immune system.

[tanza]

It has been a feeding staple for years for many people, myself included to feed raw… in the wild they would not get cooked food. Dogs digest different then humans and very, very, very rarely is salmonella or e.coli a problem. I have fed all my dogs raw chicken wings and backs for years along with other things...

[TwinDogsDifferentMothers]

http://www.petmd.com/dog/conditions/digestive/c_dg_salmonellosis#.T5LMAdXTpCp

and this on E coli

http://www.doggedhealth.com/diseases-a-symptoms/diseases-a-conditions/e-coli-escherichia-coli.html

My gut feeling is that there is a difference in the digestive system of today's basenji versus basenji's in the wild and how their systems have adapted to their environment over time. I think we have made a lot of assumptions in regard as to how animals exist and what they might die or suffer from in the the wild without full knowledge or study.

The only studies we have, are based on information we have collected from the time we started domesticating them. Wouldn't domesticated cattle eat differently than free range cattle would?

[eeeefarm]

Another consideration is that there are more virulent strains of bacteria now, e.g. E coli 0157 H7, which is a very nasty bug. I would never feed a dog raw beef from feedlot cattle for this reason.