As for a healthy raw diet, it should be balanced to include protein, fat, carbs, etc. It is not easy to do. I certainly have never been able to maintain it.

It’s pretty easy to feed make-at-home raw that’s balanced. Throw some meat, throw some veg, add a little yogurt and there you are. I work a pretty crazy job and we always joke that the dog eats better than we do. We have a friend who feeds the patties, and she said they smell a little, especially if they’ve been defrosted too long and aren’t eaten. ick!

Biggie eats anything that is food – he is the most food-oriented dog I know and he loves to eat – but there is such joy when he eats raw (as opposed to regular happiness with kibble) that I really enjoy s being a part of that ritual for him. He RUNS to his crate and sits pretty for his dinner.

to go TO raw, you can just start feeding them 100% raw, there is no need to transition slowly! It is only when you go FROM raw TO kibble that you MUST transition the dog SLOWLY onto kibble again. You do this by adding 1/4 cup to their diet, per day, and reducing the corresponding amount of raw food.

I think that also answers Barry’s question to some degree – a raw diet is much easier for your dog to digest.

As for my dog, he would probably eat pretty much anything!

But a raw diet is the healthiest diet only if it is done properly. Obviously we need to eat a balanced diet, and so do our dogs. Feeding a dog raw hamburger every meal and calling it good will only result in a sick dog. Vets usually don’t recommend a raw diet for dogs simply because vets are aware that most people are not willing to do the research and take the time to feed their dogs a balanced raw diet. There are plenty of quality dry foods out there that are not quite as ideal, but not so bad, either. And it’s much easier.

I first became interested in a raw diet for myself when I read about it from a blogger named Steve Pavlina: http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2007/12/30-days-raw/

As for dogs, here is a good article on why you should feed your dog a raw diet from my friend Biggie: http://biggiezblog.blogspot.com/2009/02/why-go-raw-pros-and-cons-of-switching.html

I don’t know if eating raw is more “green.” I suppose it is because it encourages the availability of more organic foods.

I’m no expert, but I think there are different motivations of people advocating for a raw food diet for dogs.

There are those who think *people* should be eating an essentially raw food diet too. And anyone who thinks people should be eating raw food, likely thinks dogs should too.

Leaving those folks aside, because I think they are a distinct minority, next we get to those who think that it’s healthier and safer to eat freshly prepared food over processed food. I think most people would agree that this is appropriate for *people* to strive for. As for dogs, I think you wind up balancing your time & resources for providing non-processed food with the concern that you might not provide the dog with an appropriate nutritional balance if you just wing it. That’s why, I imagine, Lindsay has chosen a pre-prepared formula. Takes out the prep time AND the need to calculate/measure nutrients.

For me, I don’t eat a lot of processed food myself. When I’ve been more serious about training for sports, I’ve been especially clean in my diet at a level I’m not reaching now (e.g., logging everyday, hitting certain protein targets, proper fat %, etc.). I know that due to my job, right now, I’m not quite that clean or balanced in my OWN diet, and I wouldn’t think that I could achieve that balance for my dog either. I know Lindsay has written about this before: yes, it’s good to be noble about your dog’s diet, but think first about how you are even able to manage your own first!

As for raw food versus what I’ll call “regular non-processed food,” I think that the motivation behind the raw food diet for dogs is that:

(1) The food tastes best to dog raw; and
(2) All cooking methods remove some nutrients from food.

Sure, you’ll hear some people talk about raw food as though it is what dogs or wolves may eat in the wild. But I don’t really think that’s the point, since as you’ve noted, dogs have been scavengers for thousands of years, so they are used to eating all sorts of cooked and uncooked scraps. And I’m pretty sure that feral dogs now wind up with that same diet.

So based on that, I think the raw food diet – to the extent it has nutritional merit – is about what tastes best to the dogs while providing them with the best nutritional profile from the food.