Feeding Pets Raw Food Diets

Dear Dr. Lee,

I hear a lot about feeding raw diets to dogs and cats – what’s your take on it?

S. C.

Dear S. C.,

This is a little bit of a tricky question to answer without knowing more about your situation. Let me start by saying that I am not against raw diets, and I do sometimes prescribe them, but I do not advocate them for every patient. There are several areas to consider when talking about raw diets. First, is it a complete diet? Will it provide the animal all the nutrients it needs in the proper proportions? Just feeding hamburger or steak certainly won’t, but there are commercially available prepared raw diets which are complete diets given that the company is a high quality company. There are recipes available for home made raw diets which are also complete. Some Veterinarians have advocated a particular raw diet, called the Bones and Raw Food (or BARF) diet. In my opinion (and there are those who would disagree with me), this diet should be avoided primarily because the bones can become lodged in the intestines and require surgical removal. Second, is the animal able to digest the diet? Most healthy young animals shouldn’t have a problem with it, but older animals or animals with certain health conditions don’t have the energy to spare to “cook” their food. The food gets cooked one way or the other, either on the stove or in the stomach. Third, can the animal and the people around the animal handle the extra bacteria which may be on uncooked food? Studies have shown healthy dogs and cats to be quite good at killing salmonella eaten along with their food, and the same is likely true for cats. So I’m not so concerned about them. Again, I’m concerned about the older or less healthy pets, and I’m concerned about certain people. Obviously you would need to follow the same raw meat procedures which you would anytime you cook for yourself, but there are other considerations. For example, a dog eating a raw diet may finish eating and then go and give someone a big kiss on the face. That kiss may be loaded with raw meat type bacteria. If the person getting the kiss is a small child or baby, immunosuppressed, or elderly, this could cause a serious illness for them. For this reason I never recommend raw diets in household where these people live, even if the animal could handle it fine.

This answer may have caused more questions than it answered. I encourage you to talk frankly with your Veterinarian before making any diet changes, especially to a raw one. Having said that, remember they can be just the answer your pet needs!