[cassiek]

Originally Posted by MerlinsHope

Rguerts, you'll find that more dogs have died or have become permanently ill or damaged from commercial dog foods than any dogs have ever died from raw and the dogs that did die from raw are dogs that were poorly employed by their owners, or other caveats came into play, and again, I totally agree, if you cannot do this diet properly, then I'll be the first to say "don't do it", but don't pass your phobias onto others. More dogs have died in the last 14 years from "government inspected", tainted kibble ingredients or pharmaceutical therapies, than from any other illness, outside of shelter euthanasia.

This is what I have found in my research too

Originally Posted by MerlinsHope

I'm really sorry to hear about this . I truly am and I absolutely sympathize and understand your fears. I'll suggest to you though, that your puppy was sick anyways however, much before the diet and already had a compromised immune system which could easily have occurred from innoculations - vets never seem to want to do studies on that for some reason or another.

N canium would not cause a problem with dogs with healthy guts.
A health dog's stomach is 50% hydrochloric acid and they can easily eat 3 week old, sun baked road kill without a problem.
Any remote , rural farmer to this day, can tell still you that their dogs get table scraps, any felled bovines/ruminants on the farm and any rats, mice, rabbits, skunks and raccoons they can get their teeth on. Not much has changed in that department, and these dogs live well over 18 - 19 years old.

I agree 110%! I work with farmers on a daily basis and all of them feed their dogs table scraps or raw meat (usually poultry) and the dogs are in better shape than most dogs I meet that are from the city! They are never vaccinated and most live to be 15+ years old.

Originally Posted by Marty11

Isn't the frozen raw patties a good alternative? Raw food, no bones? Added nutrients in some varieties?

The frozen raw patties usually have bone in them, it's just ground up. But yes, you can get raw patties that have veggies, fruit, etc. in them and other goodies. They can be quite expensive though.