ezzy333 wrote:Gentlemen, as I have stated many times before I do not care what or how you feed your dogs. I also have said that feeding a raw diet is good except for the fact that an individual is not nor can he afford to become equipped to feed it efficiently. Let's just look at some of the points brought up by individuals on this forum in the past. We all have heard many times over the failure of feed manufactures to label their products accurately or completely even though the labels are completely regulated as to what they contain. So what is the answer, well some have decided to feed raw where there is no labels at all, they feed differently everyday, and have no way of knowing or controlling the amount of any specific nutrient since they can not test or control the contents of any of the ingredients used. As has been noted in feed tests, any of our animals as well as humans will perform better if they can eat a specific and uniform product everyday. Humans are the only animal we have found that wants to vary their diet because they like a different taste even though it does not enhance performance. Our animals do not have that desire to 6the extent we do, they just do better eating the same thing and are content to do just that.
Nutrition is important as we all know. A well fed animal will perform better than a starving one. But you will not see that difference between two well fed animals even though it possibly could be isolated in a Laboratory environment. That is why the argument say over stiffness the next day is not a big concern since the race was to see who is the fastest or who runs the furtherest, or maybe just which dog finds the most birds in an hour test or a more leisurely day of hunting. Personally, I always found the dogs pretty much outlasted me so again it was not the measuring stick that some are so concerned about. What I am saying is that in extreme cases we all know you can see a difference but in the real world the extremely small difference between to animals getting a good balanced diet will not be visible to the eye.
Another thing we hear so often is the term a complete protein in a single ingredient. That just doesn't happen. First, lets define the term protein. Protein, as we use it in our ordinary conversation is a word to describe a group of amino acids collectively. In the past there were 16 essential amino acids though we have added a couple of minor ones to that list that appear to be essential also. The long fibrous type are usually water soluble and the short plump type are usually fat soluble. That is pretty much another thing that we worked with in the lab but is pretty much useless like so much of the information in the field. And there are some that the body itself produces so overall it is a rather complex thing to work with, I am sure most everyone has seen or heard the usage of the essential amino acids explained by using the example of a 16 or 18 stave wooden barrel. Which ever the lesser amount of one of the amino acids would be represented by the shortest stave. So what actually happens is all of the amino acids that are in great supply just run out of the barrel once it gets up to the amount of the shorter supplies acid. So we have two alternatives, one is feed more of that ingredient to bring that one up to the level the dog needs or add a different ingredient that happens to be high in that same acid. In other words if we are feeding an animal based protein, which does come closer than most vegetable proteins to matching what a dog needs, it is better to add a vegetable ingredient that is high and will fill the shortage of that amino acid much easier and better than trying to double the animal based ingredient. Just doubling the same ingredient means the dog must eat twice what it really needs which is wasteful, unhealthy and expensive combined. Though individual ingredient are all different the animal based tend to be closer to the same as is true with the vegetable based but are normally the two groups are quite different. so that is where the nutritionist come in by testing and balancing all the different ingredients and combining them into a feed that contains all of the required nutrients in as low a volume and cost effective formula as possible. We know that the animal based amino acid balance comes closer to matching the needs of the dog so that is why we all like to see our feed based on animal sources but we also know to provide a complete source we can do it better by adding vegetable sources that just rying to increase the animal based ingredients. That combination becomes the closest thing we can produce that would be a complete protein.
One other point before I quit this lengthy epistle. Corn has been mentions quite often and much of what I read is not necessarily accurate. In the first place corn does not tell me much of anything about what is being used since there is such a wide variation in the corn being raised and available on the market. We have corn that are high sugar, high starch, high oil, high lysine, and high oil and maybe more I am missing. These have a considerable variance in makeup and are often raised for specific purposes. So just using corn and not knowing the chemical makeup of the particular type being used doesn't tell us much. Again, it is another reason you can't be very accurate in figuring calories or anything else just by reading a list of ingredients without the ability to test so you know how they fit into the complete formulation of a feed. Same is true when you are buying raw ingredients as they vary considerably also and unless they are tested you are at a loss when trying to feed to fill a dogs needs. This is the main point I was making when the average person can not or can't afford the equipment to allow you to know just what or how much of the dogs requirements you are providing and also the problem of it changing everyday.
Good luck to all of you and just be thankful we all have terrific choices of dog foods to choose from that allows all of us to provide for our dogs and pups.
Ezzy
There are so many falsehoods here it is mind-boggling knowing where to start.
An individual can easily feed a raw diet. It helps a great deal to have a separate freezer as a practical measure, and some good knives, but those are about it in terms of resources, other than bags or containers for storing food.
Raw ingredients are labeled and identifiable. If one purchases chicken thighs or beef hearts one knows what they are getting vs the mystery of what is in "meat meal." Nutritional analysis of all common ingredients is easy to find online. The USDA database if fully searchable.
With ingredients coming from the human supply chain people know their dogs are not eating meat from condemned animals, downers, dead, dying, or diseased animals. Or from condemned waste from slaughterhouses. All of that is not true of what goes into kibble, as all the condemned anima;s and parts can legally be shipped to rendering plants and used in dog food.
It is unnecessary to test every piece of liver or kidney (or another animal part) as all this work has been done and any discrepancy between one part and another will be insignificant.
No being on the planet does better eating an unvaried diet everyday, other than species that have a single item diet. No person has unvaried meals. This is a preposterous thing to say, especially when the kibbles are so lacking in nutrients.
You're wrong about dog's taste for foods. I should shoot a video of the drool that pours from my Vizsla's mouth at mealtime. I never saw that with dogs fed a cereal-based diet. Give a dog a choice and he won't go for corn gluten over meat. You know the industry needs to spray extruded kibble with so-called "animal digest," because without it kibble is so unpalatable dogs won't eat it.
Nutrition is important. We have different ideas in the definition of "well fed."
You've claimed to have evidence that the quality of amino acids in corn matches or exceeds that in animal protein, but have never served up the evidence despite repeated requests. I ask again. Evidence please.
Bill
