We live in an age of faddishness in lifestyles; how else can one explain the 29 billion dollars spent per year on unproven nostrums and remedies? In the USA, thanks to Senator Hatch from Utah's Bill exempting nutritional supplements from Food and Drug Administration surveillance, we are free to consume untested, nonquality controlled weeds and herbs from the Orient, many of which have been shown to be toxic. We align our furniture with the energy lines of the universe; tie ourselves in yoga knots; wear magnetic bracelets; and consume homeopathic remedies that cannot possibly work, if what we know of chemistry is correct. We consume all meat diets, no meat diets, grapefruit diets, and caveman diets, and we switch from killer butter to margarine and back to butter. Do we owe our pets any less? Apparently not. For some years, hucksters have been pushing the “raw diet” of raw meat and bones for dogs. Never mind an absence of scientific evidence; if hearsay is good enough for us, it is good enough for our pets. After all — it is natural, and what is natural is good (never mind that aflotoxins, botulin, and snake venom are also natural, as is anthrax). Aren't dogs descended from wolves, and don't wolves eat raw food? Actually, there is evidence that wolves in the wild don't eat so well, are not always well-nourished, and carry formidable parasite loads. In addition, they consume far more than raw meat, including vegetation and predigested food in their prey's intestines. Just because evolutionarily dogs are derived from wolves, does not mean they are wolves. In fact, there is anthropological evidence that domestic dogs have been eating cooked food for over 300 000 years and thus cannot be compared with their wild ancestors. Cooked meat is in fact more easily digested by dogs.
There is a good deal of evidence in fact that dogs do not do well on a raw diet. Raw meat can infect animals with parasites, toxoplasma, Salmonella spp, Escherichia coli, and Campylobacter spp. These can present zoonotic disease risks. The diet can eventuate in an irritable bowel syndrome, significant nutritional deficiencies, and vitamin A toxicity. Choking and bloody diarrhea can be a problem when such raw food as chicken and turkey bones are fed and splinter. Raw foods also grind down teeth prematurely. For most of dog's evolutionary history, dogs ate what we ate, that is cooked table scraps; commercial dog food is only about 100 years old. And dogs and cats are living longer now than they did 20 years ago. All of which suggests that present day feeding regimes are alright. We have many choices now, including diets aimed at special problems, such as urinary, and young and old animals. Medical professionals, human and veterinary, are probably undertrained in nutrition. Nutritional education can be improved for both lay people and medical professionals. In the meantime, common sense goes a long way.