Raw food diet - dehydrated?

I am thinking about putting my 2 yr old boxer/bulldog on a raw food diet. I have read all the research and the benefits to putting him on raw food and think this is the way to go. Of course I know its a matter of preference among most people. The one thing I don't like about the diet is the prep work needed to make this happen. I have been doing the research on other pre-made alternatives and they are either really expensive or not available in my area. I found a company(smack pet food) that does raw food dehydrated.

Has anyone ever tried this or can let me know if dehydrated would keep the same benefits as frozen or fresh?

I would say it does not have the same benefits as fresh raw as it has been processed.

Homemade raw is quite easy for dogs :shrug: You just buy the meat and put it down for them :shrug:

Merlin's Hope and Bendyfoot feed their dogs raw and have very good knowledge, hopefully they will respond.

In the meantime here is a thread discussing raw diets for dogs.

http://www.pets.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=58945&page=2

Looking at the ingredients for their Chunky Chicken, there's no mention of organs which should make up approx. 10% of a diet. If the meat is cut into chunks, I'm assuming the bone is as well and I'd be worried about dehydrated bone...I would think it's no different than cooked bone and you wouldn't want to feed that. I'd also question what exactly are included in "herbs" and why is not each one listed.

I too feed my pets raw as does Luckypenny,,and Love4 is right,,the meat loses nutritional value when they dehydrate it..Only time i ever have to really do any prep-work is if i'm feeding chicken legs,,i will give the larger bone a whack with a hammer so it can't be swallowed whole.

The one thing I am going for is convenience and pure raw food just doesn't cut it for me...I am looking for the best of both worlds i guess...lol. I don't want to go to the store everyday to pick up food. There is prep work required to provide full nutritional value isn't there? I have found this site here on human food http://survivalacres.com/information/nutrition.html. It states dehydrating only loses 3-5% nutritional value which is a nice trade-off for the convenience. Dehydration uses low heat over a long period so how would that affect bones?

I took a look at very berry ingredients and it is listed as Chicken (bone-in), hormone-free beef organ meat, organic alfalfa, organic hemp seed, carrots, apples, celery, herbs, garlic, blueberries, blackberries, honey, parsley, and strawberries.

I am trying to find someone who is used this type of food and some results. Anyone?

Very interesting comparison of nutrient loss in the chart you posted a link too. However I noticed this at the bottom:

•Note from Al: One reason many of the numbers in the dehydrated column are so high is simply because the food in these columns are dehydrated. Generally, when the water is removed from fresh foods they decrease in weight 70-94% but according to the charts above, almost always the nutritional value in the food isn't destroyed by the drying process. Remove the water and the nutritional value goes up as a percentage of the reduced weight.

It looks like the nutrient value is being compared between each item of food by preserved weight NOT each item of food as it would be fed. Have I got that right? So when you add water to the dehydrated food, which you have to do I believe, pls correct if wrong, but when you do the nutrient value must come down?

I do see that the canned, frozen and dehydrated comparisons are all based on one pound of food. And I do realize that one pound of dehydrated must weigh more than one pound when rehydrated. Therefore the rating per amount actually fed must be different, right?

VEry interesting and thought provoking, thanks.

Dehydration uses low heat over a long period so how would that affect bones?

The process of cooking dehydrates bones. It's what makes them dangerous to feed. There's no difference between cooked bones and dehydrated ones; the moisture has been removed from both.

I took a look at very berry ingredients and it is listed as Chicken (bone-in), hormone-free beef organ meat, organic alfalfa, organic hemp seed, carrots, apples, celery, herbs, garlic, blueberries, blackberries, honey, parsley, and strawberries.

When shopping for any commercial dog food, whether it be kibble, cooked/canned, raw, or dehydrated, it's important to know how to read the labels. I'm wary of any ingredients that are not specific. In the case of the list above, the organ meat should be specified. Is it liver? kidneys? sweetbread? brains? In order to insure a pet is getting the essential nutrients it needs, one must need to know exactly what's included in the recipe and the ratio of meat to bones to organs in the case of raw and dehydrated raw. And then there are the "herbs" again :shrug:. You can always email the company and ask them to be more specific (although they already should be on their labels imo).