Tuesday, February 20, 2007

So this is why it's called the BARF diet

In the dog world, there is a small but vocal group of people who believe that dogs, being descended from wolves, are meant to eat primarily raw meat. These people claim that feeding BARF (Biologically Appropriate Raw Foods, or Bones and Raw Foods) is far surperior to feeding a heat-processed, carb-filled kibble diet. Like a good scientist, I decided that before I badmouthed the idea, I should test it out. At the MVMA convention, I got a coupon for a free bag of Nature's Variety premade frozen raw food. Yesterday was Winnie's second day trying it, just one little piece with her regular kibble. At 3:30 in the morning, I woke up to the sound that pet owners recognize immediately- urkurkurkurkurk*bleh*. I turned on my light and discovered that Winnie's GI tract had pretty much turned itself inside out, and she quite literally had it "coming from both ends". We spent about 45 minutes outside (me in my jammies, which I didn't realize until my feet went numb), poor Pooh wandering around the backyard emptying herself. We went back inside and she gave me the most pitiful look- something like "I'm so sorry I messed in my kennel, mom, but can I sit in your lap anyway, cause I don't feel good." So I petted her til she fell asleep around 5 or so. Of course, dogs being dogs, I'm pretty sure she doesn't remember a thing this morning, except that she's hungry for some reason.

Moral of the story? Despite what BARF proponents tell you, dogs have no magic ability to kill the bacteria in raw meat that makes humans sick! We'll be sticking to kibble and COOKED meats from now on.

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