Fresh Raw Food

• Meals at Renegade

• Rearing Raw Fed Puppies

Vaccinations

Diet & Health FAQs

Fresh Raw Food
aka Bones And Raw Food (BARF), The Natural Diet, Evolutionary Diet, Biologically Appropriate Raw Food

The premise of a fresh raw food diet is based on a dog (or wolf) in the wild.  What would he or she eat?  Most likely small game such as birds, rodents, etc.  These meals would consist of everything from bone, muscle, offals and stomach contents.  It is not often you would see a wild dog (or wolf) chase down a bale of wheat or hunt a stalk of corn.  However, if you look at commercial pet food ingredients, these are primary components of the formula.  

Dogs are not built to digest grains.  Dogs are primarily carnivores.  When grains/carbohydrates are digested, they turn to sugar.  Our dogs bodies are not equipped to break down sugars.  There are studies in progress that are relating many cancers to the fact that our dogs cannot break down sugars.
 

Other scientific evidence has shown a corresponding increase in health problems such as immune deficiency responses, hip dysplasia, allergies, and poor dental health with commercial based diets.  Other effects such as (but not limited to) dull coats, weeping eyes, hot spots, and large, offensive stool are also produced by a biologically inappropriate diet.

A Fresh Raw Food Diet Promotes

• A healthy immune system
• Clean teeth
• Fresh breath
• Small, nearly odorless stool
• Gleaming coats
• Bright eyes
• Increased muscle tone
• Increased energy and stamina
• Decreased problem with external parasites (fleas/ticks)
• Slow skeletal growth
• Healthy size litters of consistent birth weights

How Often and How Much?
We feed our adult dogs once daily (puppies 2-3 times daily).  A good rule of thumb is to feed 8-10% of a dog's body weight as a puppy, slowly decreasing to 2% of their body weight by 6-12 months.  For a Canaan Dog, this amounts to ~ 1-1.5 lbs. of food for most of his/her life.  Daily visual weight assessment should be made and food amount/type should be adjusted accordingly.  A dog in good weight should have palpable ribs that cannot be seen except when turning.  Learn about the meals prepared at Renegade.

More Information

• Meals at Renegade Canaan Dogs
• Rearing Raw Fed Puppies

The following books and Web sites are a great guide for beginners and we encourage you to research the fresh raw food diet very carefully.  You might want to consider finding a holistic/homeopathic veterinarian.

We do not proclaim to be health experts or veterinarians.  We suggest that you do your research and decide whether a limited vaccination lifestyle makes sense for your pet.