I thought this raw dog food, Long Living Pets Research Project (USA) was worth sharing. The goal is to follow dogs and cats over a duration of 30 years on a raw diet. This is private research by a non medical professional. A number of UK dogs have joined the project.
http://longlivingpets.com/
https://www.facebook.com/longlivingpets
Raw Pet Digest article on the project
http://longlivingpets.com/my-blog
I read through this as an interest in the science side of animal feeding and unfortunately the errors and generalisation I found lead me to believe he is purely selling a feeding regime. Paragraph 1, dogs are carnivores which is a scientific error as they are genetically omnivores. Raw feeding is simple, yes as simple as picking a premade meal out of the freezer which is a good as the nutritionist is able to make it within the parameters of the business owners and market pressures. Producing a balanced diet at home either dry, wet or raw is difficult which is why nutritionists exist and 70% of owners get it wrong. ‘Misconceptions - Dogs have changed over time and adopted to more human like foods’; no the domestic dog evolved 20k yrs ago and has always been fed human supplied food. The predecessors, village dog and Mediterranean wolf, were also omnivores and either scavenged or hunted their meals. He talks about large and small breeds which is a concept humans developed so are as far from their predecessors as possible.
At the end of the day a scientifically balanced diet using good digestible ingredients will help a dog survive and its down to the diet not the style that will give longevity. This isn’t an opposition to raw feeding as I can raw, wet and dry can produce a good diet.
Rhebden, thank you for sharing your views.