Category: The Animal’s Key

In this section you will find all of our articles on healing our companion animals that make our lives brighter every day. Below you will find healing stories from each of Lauren’s rescue dogs as well as friends and clients whose animals have healed from a wide range of health conditions. We will also be adding articles about how to transition back to the natural diet, why returning your pet to their natural diet will allow their self healing, self cleaning bodies to work as they are designed returning your companion back to the vibrant state of health that is their birthright. You will also find articles on what to expect as the body is healing, the difference between healing symptoms and suppressing symptoms and much more. Check back regularly as we are adding more articles as fast as we can write them!

We will also have an ebook coming soon. To sign up to be notified of when the ebook is available for purchase enter your email here:

Euthanasia

Question:

Can you please educate me on why euthanizing your pet is more cruel than allowing them to die naturally? I spent hours today watching videos on YouTube trying to see the unpopular viewpoint but all videos I watched had the same narrative, that euthanizing your pet when they are suffering is the kind choice.

Answer:

Certainly. This is a sensitive topic that no one really wants to think about too deeply. It is especially difficult if you have made this choice in the past as I did. It’s far easier to just go on believing in the narrative than to look at it objectively. We all want easy fixes and life to be free from pain.

Really this entire concept stems from the utter failure of medicine to return health to their customers. If you can’t help them get better then just teach them that to die at their hands is a blessing. So the first issue that arises from euthanasia is that many times these vets are euthanizing an animal that is fully capable of healing. Therefore they are playing God and taking away a life prematurely. Because these vets only see animals that follow their treatment plans and are fed disease-causing foods their perspective is skewed. In their eyes nothing is fixable, all of the body’s healing processes are bad, wrong, and dangerous and must be stopped with poisons. None of the animals that they treat ever get better, so it is in their minds better to kill the animal than to drag on the treatments which always end up with the animal getting sicker and sicker.

However, we know better. We know that when a vet says that Cancer is terminal, this is not true. We have seen dogs that were given 2 weeks to live, go on for years, heal all of their conditions, return to the bountiful energy of puppies, and pass peacefully of old age many years later. Had we followed the vet’s recommendation to “put them out of their misery” we would have lost many years of companionship. Happy for example, lived another 3 years after being told that we should immediately euthanize her. She healed from Cancer, Vestibular disease, cataracts, and hearing loss. She went from being obese and falling over unable to walk to racing up mountains with me every day. Had I fallen for the logic of the vet I would have lost out on hundreds of amazing memories.

Most vets these days cannot even recognize the signs of an animal preparing to pass naturally, and they believe nothing is curable, so how, if they are so wrong in both of these areas can we trust them when they tell us that our animal is suffering and dying?

This alone is enough to pause and wait. What if what you think is your cat or dog dying is really just their body detoxing and healing? A vet cannot tell you the difference between an animal healing and an animal dying and is more likely to tell you that your animal is on the brink of death and sell you a poison when your animal is cleaning and healing their body.

Then we have the Euthanasia drug itself. This is a poison. A poison that is so strong that it takes their life away in just a few minutes of circulating through the blood. If you ingest poison or have it injected into you, you always feel it. Think about how the baby screams and is inconsolable after the injection of a vaccine. They feel the injury of this very small amount of poison acutely. If you drink coffee, a comparatively mild poison, you feel anxiety and become hyper. Your body registers the discomfort even if you have not taken a lethal dose of a toxic substance. If you drink alcohol you become sick. We always feel when we are being poisoned and so do our animals. They feel the discomfort of their cells being injured by the poison.

The euthanasia drug is a two-part drug, one part is a paralytic agent which paralyzes the muscles so the body cannot seize when the second poison is administered. So rather than the narrative of an animal drifting off to sleep peacefully what we really have is an animal being paralyzed followed by the poison going through their system. Imagine how terrified you would feel if you suddenly had no control over your body and could not move. This alone is a very distressing situation, a far cry from the advertisement.

Many years ago I believed the Vet when they made Brutus sick and could not help him get well again. We spent nearly $20,000 on specialists and then when he was struggling to breathe they convinced me that his life would be made better by “putting him to sleep” at age 5. A euphemism that distracts us from the reality of the situation. Rather than it being a peaceful process where he just drifted off to sleep, they held him down on a cold steel table and he looked at me in pure terror as the paralyzing agent made it so he could not move his body. His eyes though did not lie. Then the poison was administered and you could see the pain in his eyes. I thought I was doing the best for him, putting him out of his misery. Today I know that all I needed was someone to tell me to get him off the kibble and the junk supplements that we were feeding him. It was nearly 20 years ago but still, to this day I can see the look of suffering in his eyes as they administered the lethal dose. It still makes me cry to this day.

You will hear from so many others who have had the same experience, and seen the same look of terror in their eyes. The vets always sell us on how terrible and scary natural death is and how wonderful putting them to sleep on a cold steel table in the scariest place they ever go is, but I have had many dogs pass on since then the natural way and none has come close to the trauma I went through with euthanasia. When a dog or cat passes naturally there is peace in their eyes. Sometimes they have some symptoms that make us feel uncomfortable, sometimes they have accidents or maybe a seizure, sometimes they cry out – but not out of pain, it is more like they are saying goodbye – but it’s always very manageable. I have never had an experience that wasn’t more positive than negative.

They have given us their whole lives unconditional love, the least we can do is let them pass in their home surrounded by loved ones and in peace, naturally, as intended.

Death is a peaceful process when it occurs naturally, but it is a violent process when it occurs unnaturally. I know this is hard for many people to hear but it’s something that needs to be spoken honestly about.

Lauren WhitemanLeave a comment
Why is my dog shivering?

Why Is My Dog Shivering?

Shivering, tremors, or shaking in dogs can occur throughout the healing process. Learn why and when we should be concerned.

There are a few common reasons why dogs tend to shiver:

  1. They are excited or nervous or have excess energy to burn off
  2. They are in pain. Typically there will be other signs of pain to go along with this.
  3. They are cold.

Dogs Shiver from excitement

Shivering from excitement or an excess of energy is the most common reason that dogs will shiver, especially among toy breeds and smaller dogs. Shivering can become a trained behavior with toy breeds and smaller dogs. For example, they might get excited about food and then start shivering whenever they think they will get fed. Or they might shiver around one person in the family due to excitement or nervousness but not shiver around others. If your dog is shivering frequently, it is most likely a learned behavior; some training can help correct this. If you have recently changed your dog’s diet to the natural canine diet it is very common for them to have a lot more energy and not know how to burn off this excess energy, so shivering becomes a way that they burn off the excess energy. Giving your dog a longer walk or more play sessions can correct this excess energy issue.

Dogs can shiver when they are in pain

Dogs can also shiver if they feel discomfort. So if we see our dog shivering and it’s not obviously due to excitement then we should check them over. Check their teeth, paw pads, and ensure they don’t have a thorn in the foot or a bramble, etc. Check their mouth for injury if you can do so safely. Check their walk to make sure they are not limping and check their tummy to see if they have gas or bloating.

Shivering could also be due to stomach upset if they are not digesting food well. If they have gas and are shivering then it’s very likely that their meals are too large or you are combining too many ingredients leading to fermentation and gas. If you think this is the case you should decrease the portions or simplify the meals. Sometimes as their digestion heals we need to start them off with smaller meals and slowly increase the meals over time. If you have noticed any gas, bloating, lip licking, scooting, or loose stool then adjust their meals to smaller portions which will improve digestion and avoid any gas or fermentation from undigested foods.

Dogs can shiver when cold

If the weather has turned colder, or you have the air conditioning on in your house your dog might simply be cold. Try putting on a sweater, giving them a blanket or a heated bed or dog safe heated pad to lay on.

If your dog has recently lost some weight this can cause them to shiver as the loss of body fat means a loss of insulation. It can take a little time for the body to adjust and the thyroid to maintain temperature more effectively, so sometimes when dogs lose weight they can shiver until their body adjusts to their new weight and is able to better manage their temperature.

Shivering can also result from eating cold food. If you are currently feeding their fruit or meat meals out of the fridge you might try warming them on the counter or in a zip top bag submersed in warm water. Feeding right from the fridge can be another cause of shivering.

Shivering as a result of detox

When the body is healing, sometimes our animals will go through periods of discomfort, just like when we humans experience a cold or a flu detox healing event. Just like a cold or flu puts our body in a state of discomfort while it cleans and heals our body, when our dogs and cats are healing they can go through periods of mild to moderate discomfort. When this happens they may sometimes shiver. This type of shivering is usually accompanied by some level of fatigue as well as other detox symptoms like itchy skin, mucus, coughing, sneezing, or lack of or limited appetite, or picky eating. If you notice growing fatigue then this would be a good time to fast so the body can focus all of its energy on the healing processes.

Have more questions? Want to get answers about your dog or cat’s specific health issues or concerns? I offer consultations, learn more about them here: https://www.therawkey.com/consultations/

Lauren WhitemanLeave a comment

Healing Dogs with Parvo

Why the medical industry fails to heal dogs with Parvo and what you need to know to make sure your dog survives and thrives!

Parvo is one of the most misunderstood conditions by the medical for-profit business. The medical narrative of Parvo is that it is a deadly virus that attacks the body and commonly leads to death in puppies. It is greatly feared in the rescue and shelter communities and sadly, like most things that are approached from a state of fear, it is the fear that drives the high rate of deaths.

Biologically, parvo is, in fact, a detox process. It is the normal biological process of a body that has been exposed to a toxic substance. In other words, parvo is a collection of symptoms that the body creates when it has been poisoned, as a life-saving response to being poisoned.


Parvo is common in puppies because puppies are being weaned off their mother’s milk and onto poisonous food – kibble or commercial/canned foods. Because puppies have high vitality, being young, their body responds aggressively to toxic materials.


This means very frequently a dog that is moved from mother’s milk to kibble will initially develop diarrhea. If they are unlucky enough to be rushed to the vet at this point they may be tested for dead cell debris which the medical industry calls viruses and if they are positive for a particular shape of dead cell debris which they call the parvovirus they will be subjected to a lot of drugs to kill the dead cell debris which medicine pretends is alive and attacking the body, or invading the cells.


Even though medicine readily admits that viruses lack all the requisites of life they must still blame the virus, the dead cell debris, so that they can legally apply poisons to the body.


I have had many dogs of my own diagnosed with parvo, as well as many client’s dogs over the years. They always survive by fasting and then returning to the proper foods suited to their body. We always fast for a minimum of 24 hours after the last sign of vomiting or diarrhea. Having water always available but never forced and never given by syringe. Then after the diarrhea stops and it has been 24 hours since the last instance we start them on ripe bananas.


We do not ever feed cooked food, including kibble or canned dog foods because these cause the initial symptoms to begin with. Here is an article explaining why cooked foods lead to disease – https://www.therawkey.com/the-folly-of-cookery/


The reason that a parvo diagnosis is so deadly is that the most common treatment for parvo is antibiotics combined with IV Saline. Both of these treatments on their own are potentially deadly. Here is an article that explains why the saline drip leads to so many human and animal deaths. – https://www.therawkey.com/the-dangers-of-saline-drips/


Reading the warning labels on antibiotics will tell you all you need to know about their ability to cause organ damage, organ failure, and death.


As I mentioned above, parvo is not a disease, it is a healing process or a detox process. All of the symptoms are expulsion symptoms. Parvo never kills dogs, it’s all the treatments that people and vets use that end up killing the dog.


Parvo occurs when we transition a puppy from mother’s milk to toxic foods and the puppy’s body has high vitality so it tries to expel those foods creating diarrhea, but because we keep trying to give them commercial dog food, which is toxic, instead of real food the body keeps having to create diarrhea leading to dehydration.


Often a parvo diagnosis will also occur following vaccination for the same reason, the body is attempting to expel the toxins and waste that were created as a result of the injury from the injection of toxic substances.


All we do for Parvo is stop the processed commercial foods and any other materials going into the body that are not just whole foods in their whole natural form, and fast the dog for 24 hours, making sure they drink water throughout the day but not forcing water, letting them drink to thirst. Then we start them on fruit after 24 hours of no diarrhea or vomiting. Bananas, watermelon, papaya, or smushed blueberries are all good options to start with.


Once we stop putting in the cause of the body’s distress the body can quickly complete its healing processes and return to a state of health. If we then continue to feed properly and not poison the dog with cooked foods and unnatural substances then they will live a long happy life. But if we take a dog that is having diarrhea as a reaction to heavily processed foods and drugs and add more drugs and more heavily processed foods then the health of the dog will be continuously at risk until we stop putting in the cause.


If we follow the drugging route, even with “natural” drugs, herbs, medicinal supplements, or anything other than whole natural raw fruits in their whole form then the body will very likely be seriously injured and may succumb to the poisoning.


Since most people struggle with the concept of not doing anything, and especially not continuing to force food into the body, most people unwittingly kill the animal with all their attempts to help.


Whenever the body is creating expulsion symptoms the only safe path is to stop all inputs until the expulsion symptoms have completed. Doing anything else, no matter how innocuous it might seem, is risking the death of the animals.


Expulsion symptoms, especially diarrhea, vomiting, anything impairing breathing, and fever always require a complete cessation of food going in until the symptom passes.

Lauren WhitemanLeave a comment

What is Fatigue?

Fatigue and the Healing Processes

Fatigue is how we heal.

This is one of the hardest concepts that so many people struggle against.

Healing occurs when we are fasting and our legs get so weak that we cannot stand.

Healing occurs when the cold or flu makes us feel the lowest of low.

When I healed the mass in my breast I spent 72 hours in agony, with even the lightest of bed sheets touching my skin being excruciating. Bouncing between being freezing and being so hot that I felt like my skin was on fire. For 3 days I thought I was dying but I trusted that my body was intelligent. I also understood that my body has a biological mandate to survive. The body will never injure itself. The body will never create a symptom too dangerous. The body never needs to be rescued from itself. The body never benefits from interventions. The body is never made stronger by applying poisons.

When Happy, one of my Miniature Schnauzer rescues healed from a grapefruit-sized mass on her spleen, vestibular disease, sight, and hearing loss she slept all day for weeks on end and had several seizures during the healing process. Her body was always in control. Always creating symptoms for the benefit of the body.

When Mr Bean healed from seizures he fasted for 5 days and slept 23.75 hours a day, only getting up to pee once per day and drinking water on some days. He slept so soundly that I had to keep checking to make sure he was breathing.

Sleep is easy for the dogs to embrace. When healing begins they go straight to their dens, curl up, and sleep. The cats too. They don’t have any fear of rest like we humans do. They don’t fear their body’s healing processes. They don’t worry about missed meals. They don’t worry about missed activities. They just feel tired so they stop eating and go rest.

We humans though fight against every effort our body makes to heal us.

Rather than go to sleep and heal, we stimulate and fear the rest, further poisoning ourselves. We fear permitting ourselves to rest. We fear the wobbly legs, we try to eat through the nausea even with our bodies screaming at us to stop eating.

We fear heart palpitations as the body eliminates the poisons. We fear the mucus the body uses to wrap up the poisons and expel them and we try to use medicines or herbs to break up the mucus, as though dead materials can take action. Poisons cannot ever take action. They can never improve our condition. They can only poison.

We reach for drugs or herbs to save us from the very life-saving symptoms that the body is creating to heal us.

We fear the fever that heals but take a poison pill to bring the fever down. Many people succumb to the pill, many children die from the drugging of their body during a body creates fever.

We fear the diarrhea created by the body to expel the toxic materials, take anti-diarrheal medications, and drink salt-laden waters because we have been fed the electrolytes lie.

We fear the swelling of the lymph nodes that indicate the body is actively healing and working as designed and have our body’s sewer system surgically dissected for fear of the greatest healing process the body can create.

Every step of the way we battle against our body until our body has no choice but to give up the fight. And it all starts with fatigue.

Fatigue is the first sign of disease at our earliest juncture. It becomes chronic as we ignore it and disease builds. Yet, we continue to ignore it, stimulating it with salt, coffee, meat, or other irritants.

Fatigue is the result of the available energy turning inward to heal. Every time our legs get weak and wobbly or we feel like we cannot move our arms or lift even our water cup this is the tremendous gift of healing. The body has moved all available nerve energy internally and is cleaning and expelling the waste that has been slowly killing us.

But sadly, every step of the way most people will stimulate their way out of this healing with pharmaceutical drugs, herbs, salt, coffee, or a long list of other poisons until the body is left with no choice but to expire under the poisoning we have put ourselves through.

Fatigue is how we heal. Never forget that and health will be in your future.

Have more questions? Want to get answers about your specific health issues or concerns? I offer consultations, learn more about them here: https://www.therawkey.com/consultations/

Ready to make changes but not sure how to begin? Need some motivation or accountability? Why not join our 30-Day Terrain Model Diet Support and Education Group? New Groups start on the 1st of every month! https://www.therawkey.com/the-natural-diet-support-group/

Eat fruit and be well my friends.

Lauren WhitemanLeave a comment

Why do Vets discourage raw feeding?

Often people who have done any research about the health or healing of their animals are shocked to find out that their vet discourages them, or even outright tells them they are putting their dog’s life at risk by feeding a natural, species-appropriate raw diet.   The vet will often launch into a tirade about dangerous bacteria and will even at times go so far as to threaten the dog or cat owner that they are abusing their animal by offering real food.   

Sadly some people will fall victim to this abusive gaslighting and misinformation campaign and trusting that the vet has their pet’s best interest at heart.  They will bend to the demands of the vet and will put their dog or cat on the path to chronic disease by going back to what the vet considers safe foods that the vet just so happens to sell conveniently in their office.  

What most people don’t realize is that the AVMA, the American Veterinary Medical Association, which licenses all Vets allowing them to run their business has made an official statement that raw foods are not recommended. Specifically “AVMA discourages the feeding to cats and dogs of any animal-source protein that has not first been subjected to a process to eliminate pathogens because of the risk of illness to cats and dogs, as well as humans.” This means in order to keep their veterinary license a vet must comply with the AVMA in all its decisions or be at risk of losing their license. 

To some this might seem logical, the AVMA being the medical organization in charge of making policy decisions that are uniform. Many people believe that the AVMA has the best interests of our pets in their hearts, so why shouldn’t we follow their advice. Many often even mistakenly believe that these organizations are subject to strict and thorough scientific rigor.   

However, the AVMA sponsors that fund and influence all their policy decisions include: Hill’s, Zoetis, Elanco, Merck, Purina, The Farmer’s Dog and many other companies that sell cooked and heavily processed foods that would suffer from the loss of business should vets inform their clients about how to create health through proper feeding.  The vet, the pet food company, and the pharmaceutical company only profit when your animal is sick.  Raw food not only competes with their dog food sales but it also threatens their investments into pharmaceutical poisons and vet offices.

This means that decisions are made based on the bottom-line profitability of the industry and its industry partners, NOT the health of your pet.   Your vet only gets paid when your pet gets sick and stays sick.   The industry only stays in business if your pet gets sick and stays sick.  

Vets come out of vet school with tremendous debt, little to no nutritional education, and a desire to open a business, which requires additional capital.   The pet food and pharma companies know this and so they offer funding with the stipulation that the vet uses their products and sells their disease-causing foods.

The vet is visited regularly by the industry reps from their pharma sponsor or pet food sponsor.  Often these are one and the same. The consolidation of business means that many of the pet food brands we find both in the grocery store and the vet offices are owned by just a handful of multinational corporations, such as the Mars corporation which owns the Banfield Veterinary Hospitals, VCA Animal Hospitals, BluePearl Specialty and Emergency Pet Hospital.  Mars also owns common pet food brands like IAMS, Pedigree, Nutro, Royal Canin, Cesar, Temptations, Whiskas and many others.  

The AVMA has a huge conflict of interest and as with all corrupt organizations the AVMA bases its decisions on what furthers the agenda of those that fund the organization.    

Many raw food companies have brought this to the public’s attention and the courts, such as the Answers Pet Food company response found here – https://catcentric.org/resource-center/regulations-and-policies/avma-anti-raw-policy-response-pet-food-manufacturer-answers-pet-food/

To reinforce my points above I would like to share an excerpt from “Why some vets are still suspicious of raw feeding” by Jonathan Self, of Honey’s Real Dog food:

“….Which brings me to a fascinating question. How is it that so many vets are still suspicious of species-appropriate feeding? Not a day passes here at Honey’s HQ without us hearing from a dog lover looking for a practice which will support rather than criticise their decision to raw feed. The fact is dogs may have been eating raw food for millions of years, but a massive percentage of highly educated and compassionate vets simply won’t countenance it.

The reasons for this are various and complex.

To begin with, there is a perception amongst some veterinary professionals that there is not yet sufficient scientific evidence to support raw feeding. This perception is encouraged by the big pet food manufacturers, who have massive marketing budgets to support their anti-raw stance.

Happily, there is more and more research showing that a natural diet is both nutritionally adequate and safe. At Honey’s we contributed to this research in the form of a two-year study, which we called 𝑅𝑎𝑤 𝑃𝑟𝑜𝑜𝑓 (please do ask for a free copy) and I can also recommend Conor Brady’s 500 page 𝐹𝑒𝑒𝑑𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝐷𝑜𝑔𝑠: 𝐷𝑟𝑦 𝑜𝑟 𝑅𝑎𝑤? 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑆𝑐𝑖𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑒 𝐵𝑒ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝐷𝑒𝑏𝑎𝑡𝑒, which contains over 1200 references.

Then there is the practical side of things. It takes a vet seven years to qualify, after which he or she will probably spend a year or two gaining experience in someone else’s practice before, possibly, starting up on their own. If and when they do set up on their own, they will have to invest heavily. Building a surgery is far from cheap and insurance is particularly expensive. They won’t ever become rich, either. Last year, the average GP earned around £120,000, whereas the average vet earned around £41,000. Bear in mind that their seven years of study must also be paid for. Indeed, student debt is a huge problem for the majority of vets. They are, by the way, also in one of the most stressful professions, with a high incidence of depression and suicide.

There are two highly profitable sectors that exploit this situation.

The first is the pharmaceutical industry. The behaviour of pharmaceutical manufacturers need not concern us here, except it is worth remembering that it is not in their commercial interest for dogs to be healthy.

The second is the pet food industry. Ever since pet food was invented by James Spratt in 1860, manufacturers have been persuading vets to endorse and sell their products. Today, pet food manufacturers provide vets with financial support in the following ways:

-​They pay commission to vets for selling food via their surgeries;

-​They pay vets to carry out research, attend conferences, write papers and so forth;

-​They support the larger professional bodies;

-​They subsidise the costs of education for vets undertaking training and professional development.

Understandably, vets want to support the people who support them (in this case the big pet food manufacturers). Moreover, until the growth of the raw food movement, they had no reason to doubt what they were being told, especially as the pet food industry employs thousands of so-called scientists.

Vets can be forgiven for their lack of knowledge about raw feeding for another reason: they are taught very little about canine digestion during their studies. Colleges rarely devote more than a day to the topic and the lectures are often sponsored by the big pet food manufacturers. You can guess how impartial such lectures are likely to be. To the best of my knowledge raw feeding isn’t on any veterinary college curriculum in the UK or, indeed, the world.

Another problem is that a tiny percentage of vets and scientists genuinely believe – for reasons that aren’t entirely clear – that raw feeding is dangerous. These vets and scientists spread fake news and put their names to very dubious research. Because they use medical terminology and publish learned papers, some other colleagues believe what they say. The Raw Feeding Veterinary Society and other organisations work hard to correct these false claims. Nevertheless, some innocent vets are taken in.

As an aside, I could say a lot here about why so much medical research is not to be trusted but will save it for another day. One of the problems with the way in which the majority of not just vets but also doctors are trained is that they are taught not to question ‘scientific research’. What they are not taught is to be open-minded, use common sense, listen to their instincts, consider anecdotal evidence or – crucially – take a holistic view of medicine. A very good example of this in human medicine is the lack of training in nutrition.

The good news? Although some vets are not yet convinced of the benefits of raw feeding, the situation is changing. I doubt there is a veterinary practice in the country that doesn’t now care for several raw-fed dogs. As a result, vets are seeing the benefits for themselves. Moreover, new, genuine research comes out every year in support of species-appropriate diets, and this must help, too. Crucially, those who raw feed are part of a movement. A movement which, I believe, will come to dominate the whole pet food sector.”

As you can see, there is both an intentional push to keep the public misinformed and a push to keep the vets themselves uneducated and misinformed when it comes to dog and cat nutrition.   

Most vets would be completely unwilling to sacrifice their financial well-being to support a feeding method that will put them completely out of business.   They are far too heavily invested financially to make this type of sacrifice and more than willing to accept what the industry tells them to avoid having to face sacrificing their entire livelihood and walk away from a profitable career with hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt and no other way to pay it off.  

Additionally, many pet owners who choose to educate themselves on raw feeding also choose to avoid the toxic veterinary practices that are typically accepted as normal or desirable by the kibble-feeding public.   

When a dog or cat owner realizes that the food is poisonous and creating disease in their companion, this naturally opens their eyes to all of the other poisons our beloved dogs and cats might be coming into contact with.  

When we finally wake up to this reality it is not long after that we recognize that the vet is not a health industry, it is a disease for-profit business with practices that are contrary to healthy outcomes for our pets. 

Many raw feeders have seen firsthand their pets being slowly killed by the vet they trusted with their health. Often they experienced the trauma of seizures or rapid death from antibiotics, saline fluids, and anti-inflammatory meds, or they witnessed the slow and painful degeneration of steroids and heart medications or the organ-destroying properties of a wide variety of medications.  

This means that naturally those who raw feed are far less likely to ever walk in the door of your vet’s office.   First, because they are not creating disease which requires any sort of veterinary interventions, and second because they want to avoid any injections or ingestion of poisons into the body which are a requirement of participating in the disease industry.   

This means that most vets will rarely if ever see a raw-fed dog and they have no personal experience to draw from.   They only see the dogs whose owners believe in the disease-for-profit system and who participate in all the disease-for-profit methodologies from feeding the disease-causing foods to forcing the symptoms-suppressing poisons and toxic injections.  

Vets seem to believe they are stuck in a false dichotomy of either A:  Take our poisons and pay us, or B:  Don’t take our poisons and kill your dog.  They seem to have little or no awareness of choice C:  Correct the diet, remove the cause of disease and watch the animal return to pristine health on their species-appropriate diet.  


The vets often mean well but they are only able to go as far as their training takes them and since their training is to become a salesperson for the disease industry, everything they learn is only going to teach them that which supports maintaining the disease-for-profit business at its most profitable.   

Lauren WhitemanLeave a comment

Bloat in Dogs versus Bloating

Question

I am a new dog owner, and I don’t know a lot about dogs, but I saw a video recently which is concerning me, on GDV and dog bloating and how they said it could be life-threatening and you would have to get to a vet immediately for surgery. They say it twists their stomachs and cuts of supplies and thats why you would need a surgery?

Is bloating not normal for dogs?

If it’s normal, when does it switch from something normal to something detrimental?

What would you do if you think your dog is bloated? Is there any prevention or something other than surgery that you can do to help your dog?

Answer

There are two separate things, bloating, and bloat. Bloat is a dangerous condition that certain breeds are prone to due to the degeneration caused by selective breeding and poor diet across many generations. Bloating is a normal condition that occurs when gas builds up in the digestive tract from poor digestion or poor food combining. Bloating can be uncomfortable but is not life-threatening, but bloat is a medical emergency that always requires surgery.

Bloat occurs most frequently with kibble because the dog will eat the dry kibble and then go and drink a lot of water and the kibble will expand in the stomach, stretching the stomach. The dog will then run around and if they move the wrong way the overfilled stomach can flip over and twist cutting off entry and exit.

While this is most common in kibble-fed dogs, it can occur even when eating natural foods, especially for seniors and those breeds that are bloat-prone. To prevent this from occurring on the natural diet we should always rest our dogs post-meal and not allow any vigorous exercise or play for at least 1 hour after their meal.

I like to give my dogs a long walk before the meal and this way they want to rest after eating.

Another thing we should be cautious about with bloat-prone dogs is avoiding all starchy foods like broccoli, sweet potatoes, or corn which can ferment significantly causing a swelling of the stomach. These foods are not generally fed on the natural diet, but some people will incorporate them. Since dogs cannot digest starch I do not recommend starch foods as a regular part of the diet but I would be especially cautious with these foods for seniors and bloat-prone breeds.

Lastly, for bloat-prone dogs, it would be a good idea to start with 2 smaller meals rather than one large meal and work slowly up to combining the food into one large meal. Some people choose to stick with 2 meals on fruit days for bloat-prone dogs so their stomachs do not need to handle as much.

But the most important thing is to limit their exercise post-meal. A really good practice would be to feed them in a crate and then let them rest in the crate for 1-hour post-meal.

Lauren WhitemanLeave a comment

When is the optimal feeding window for my doggy?

My preference is to feed fruit meals early in the day – usually before noon, because they are very water-rich and this means the dogs need more potty breaks. If we feed fruits too late in the day they can have us up all night for potty breaks so I typically feed fruit meals between 8 am and 10 am and my absolute latest is 4 pm for denser fruits like bananas and noon for watermelon or other melons.

For meat meals, I choose to feed them in the evenings because they tend to be more sleepy after their meat meal. Around 7 pm works well for us because they come in from playing all day, have their meal, and then by 8 or 9 they are all tucking themselves into their crates for the night.

In nature, dawn and dusk are when they would be primarily eating, especially for prey meals. The low light makes the hunt more likely to be a success. During the heat of the day they would be resting. On fruit days they might forage for several hours but they would still be resting in the warmest part of the day.

Lauren WhitemanLeave a comment

Healing Stories – Broken Bones, Severe Injuries and Fasting

SIDNEY’s Story: NATURE HEALS FRACTURED BONES PERFECTLY 

Healing Testimonial from Gary Kemp

In July 2023 one of my rescue dogs, Sidney, sustained two severe pelvic fractures by being run over by a 2 ton vehicle. 

I will skip the details of this incident, but suffice it to say that the injuries were so bad that he was barely able to use his hind legs, which he had to drag them behind him to move.

After a night on painkillers during which he regularly woke and expressed some distress, I drove him to a vet. An X Ray showed two alarming pelvic fractures and I was told that an operation would cost at least 700 Euros (ie extremely expensive) and other Vets quoted similar prices. 

It was only after two (or three) days on painkillers that I remembered earlier positive experiences I read in the natural feeding Facebook group regarding natural healthcare for dogs and cats, so I revisited their page and thoroughly studied the files on fasting, natural diet and other relevant material on healing, as a result of which I began fasting Sidney three days after his injury. I stopped the medication, restricted his movement so he could only walk within a 10 x10 metre area, and left him plenty of clean water.

I think I noticed an improvement within the first 24 hours, certainly with the first 48. From then on, I noticed what to mainstream people would generally be described as miraculous: Sidneys rear legs were healing noticeably EVERY DAY. At first splayed so far outwards that they were almost parallel to the ground, after about 10 days on the fast, they were at less than 90 degrees to each other, and Sid was not just walking: He was galloping in short bursts.

I stopped the fast after about 12 days, even though Sid had lost very little weight on the fast and showed little interest in eating. For the first few days I gave him raw fruit only, then began to reintroduce butchers scraps in the form of trimmed chicken carcasses. His recovery continued with noticeable daily improvements, until after just four weeks, he was running and playing almost as normal. I think the complete recovery took a bit longer: maybe six or seven weeks, in the sense that it took that long to see him perform his previous play-acrobatics, eg jumping with all four paws in the air, and chasing the other dogs as if he was chasing rabbits.

It is now six months since Sidneys “accident”, and he has shown absolutely no sign at all of any relapse. In fact, his overall health on a raw diet comprised of raw chicken carcasses and bones and raw fruit seems even better than before the accident.

Healing Testimonial from Gary Kemp

Lauren Whiteman4 Comments
Reader Q&A

Blackleg and Bovine Respiratory Disease (BRD) in Cattle

Question

I see the term blackleg come up often when people talk about vaccinating livestock. They also mention BRD a lot too, which is like pneumonia. These cattle farmers are insistent that they must use the immunizations to prevent the loss of the animals. So why does this work in cattle? The 1st seems to be spore-related and carried until a minor injury turns the muscle into a feast for a toxic soup-creating bacteria. The 2nd seems to be commonly, possibly caused by stress… but stress alone can’t create the disease of mucus-filled lungs. How would the terrain model explain these claims?

Answer

Whenever we are looking at a medical label blaming bacteria or viruses for disease there are always clues that point to the answers we seek within the medical literature narrative that can help us see through the false science, misconstrued, misinterpreted, or misinformed opinions, and sales pitches and get a clearer picture of what is actually happening.

Here is one source that we can look at for clues – Blackleg: A Preventable Disease of Cattle from the West Virginia University Extension

As usual, they have the fearmongering statements “Clostridium bacteria have developed the ability to survive extreme environmental conditions by developing into highly resistant spores. As spores, the bacterium can live in soil for many years, waiting for its opportunity to strike and infect a host.”

The Bacteria is present in healthy animals without causing infection

Looking at this first one, we can see that the spores are present with no negative impact on the cattle and can live in the soil for many years, which means hundreds, if not thousands of cattle are exposed to them, but only a some of the cattle suddenly start dying from the bacteria according to the medical literature.

Here is another confirmation”If sheep or cattle have ever grazed the land you are currently pasturing, it is most likely you have the Clostridium chauvoei spores.”

A Narrow “Infection” Window

“It is not uncommon for prime blackleg conditions to affect an area for a period of 10 days.”

So beyond 10 days the bacteria suddenly becomes inert and not harmful? It’s everywhere that cows or sheep have grazed previously, thousands of cattle are exposed to it with no health issues. This is the same pattern used to blame e-coli, MRSA, tetanus, etc in humans when these bacteria are found in all healthy humans.

It’s highly unlikely that the material would only become harmful within such a narrow scope, but perhaps we can find a more rational explanation within the article for why a cow would succumb within 10 days of injury.

“It is not entirely understood what causes the bacteria to proliferate, but one theory is muscle bruising associated with handling and shipping may be a major cause. “

“There are several signs and symptoms an infected animal will exhibit, including lameness, loss of appetite, depression, rapid breathing, fever and swelling. Sometimes the animal will appear lame on the affected leg before any other sign is noticed.”

When these cattle are transported they are crammed into metal trailers and very often become injured. Since the cattle are fed a completely unnatural diet, and raised on pastures that are abused and devoid of nutrition, they start out very weak. The cows are given a wide range of toxic injections and supplements, and antibiotics are fed “preventatively” leading to a chronic state of disease from birth to slaughter. The pastures are often planted with only one or two grasses, which are chosen to maximize short-term weight gain, not nutrition. All of these conditions lead to an animal that is not in a good condition to recover should they experience a traumatic injury.

In chicken farming, they feed the birds a feed that makes them grow so heavy in such a short period of time that it is common for the bird’s legs to break under their own weight. In cattle, we see the same pattern of fattening for the fastest return on investment leading to bodies that grow rapidly, but not strong. No care is given to the animal’s nutrition because the cattle farmer only cares about getting them to maximum weight as quickly as possible, they don’t care about their long-term health. They have no desire to allow the animal to live to its natural life span, so there is no incentive to feed them properly for longevity.

Poor Nutrition leads to weak bodies that easily succumb to injury

Most people recognize that livestock that live in a feedlot system are getting very poor nutrition and a stressful life with little care for their wellbeing. However, we tend to get the false impression that “grass-fed” cows are getting good nutrition and living naturally. This is the furthest thing from the truth. A grass pasture is just a field the farmer has planted with rye, wheat, or other grasses. In nature, cows would eat flowers, shrubs, fruit, legumes, clover, wild herbs, and a wide variety of greens and grasses that would be growing next to each other on wide tracts of natural land. Grass-fed cows are fed a mono-crop or possible a small mix of grasses, flowers and legumes in a small grass field. In nature they would not be limited to a few high-protein grasses selectively chosen for maximum weight gain. In nature, they would grow slowly and naturally. On a farm the goal is to get them fattened for sale or slaughter as quickly as possible to maximize profit.

A “grass-fed” cow is the equivalent of a McDonald’s fed child. A body that has been fed poor nutrition is far more likely to succumb to an injury than a body that is strong and has the materials needed to heal properly.

So we have an animal that is severely injured during transportation and then dumped into a field that offers no rest and little nutrition, likely they are also given their preventative antibiotics (poison) and supplements (poison) because the grass field is lacking in many of the natural materials they need. As a result, the conditions of health are not being provided and therefore we cannot expect the body to heal in effective way and we can expect many of these cows to succumb to injuries which would not be fatal in a healthy animal but becomes the straw that breaks the camels back in these weak mis-fed animals.

Why do the injections appear to work?

Using the same article as above –  Blackleg: A Preventable Disease of Cattle from the West Virginia University Extension

We start with the sales pitch, the favorite of the industry is the “better safe than sorry”, “we offer the solution for very cheap so make sure you use the prevention.” Here it is in the article: “It is a very inexpensive insurance policy to protect animals with vaccination. Most blackleg products will cost producers approximately $1.20 to $1.60 per head, plus the cost of labor, depending on the product used.”

In the disease-for-profit industry, they have inbuilt protections to keep their system running. Hundreds of thousands of different disease labels for a small number of symptoms. A set of symptoms can point to one of 10, 20, or 100 different disease labels, but the presence of any particular bacteria or virus is the definitive factor that provides the specific diagnosis in many diseases.

The way a vaccine works is you give it long before any symptoms are apparent and you give it en masse to thousands or hundreds of thousands of victims.

“Vaccines are very effective if given to young, healthy animals in time for them to increase their immunity before being challenged by the disease.”

Since most of the victims would never acquire the disease in the first place you simply credit the vaccine for the lack of symptoms rather than the statistical norm that already existed prior to the invention of the vaccine. Now all the animals that never would have gotten the “disease” in the first place we are told only didn’t get it because they were vaccinated and therefore protected from it.

Then when inevitably symptoms arise in some of the animals or humans that match the disease that the vaccine is supposed to protect for, they simply change the disease label. In humans, we vaccinated for polio, and then anyone who got the symptoms associated with polio from being exposed to a neurotoxin but is vaccinated, they are now diagnosed with transverse myelitis, guillain-barre, spinal cord stroke, meningitis, brainstem stroke, botulism, or other medical labels instead of polio. Polio is ruled out because they were vaccinated for polio already. Instead a different label is chosen. In areas where the vaccine was not given en masse, they are still given a polio label and we rarely see the other diagnosis labels being used.

You see, if an animal has been vaccinated for a particular disease then that by default removes that disease from the diagnosis choices the vet is choosing from and they choose another label instead. Plenty of labels are available to diagnose the same limited spectrum of symptoms, so it’s easy to simply relabel.

In this case, “C septicum, C novyi, C sordellii, and C perfringens may resemble those of blackleg.” and malignant edema, tetanus, enterotoxemia, red water, and botulism all share the same symptoms and can be used as an alternative diagnosis.

But to add a further level of protection for the narrative we are also told “calves vaccinated under three months of age must be vaccinated again at weaning or at four to six months of age to be protected.” and ” Animals must be vaccinated annually.”

So if the vet wants to diagnose blackleg they can also claim that the farmer did not vaccinate enough times.

“Delaying vaccination until a calf is older can be inviting disaster” -Source: Alabama Cooperative Extension article Blackleg and Other Clostridial Diseases in Cattle

The industry sales materials always have the call to urgency and the moral imperative – if the farmer does not vaccinate they are “inviting disaster” and being neglectful and abusive. This type of social pressure helps keep questioning to a minimum – no one wants to be labeled abusive or neglectful so “just to be safe” they inject the poison.

“Intramuscular injection of clostridial vaccines causes significant muscle damage and, therefore, clostridial vaccines must be injected under the skin (subcutaneously or SQ) in the neck area. This will prevent injection-site damage to high-value cuts of meat.“

The result of “just to be safe” is “significant muscle damage” but that is socially acceptable because it is a result of medical “care” which is deemed necessary and appropriate as long as its not in the high value cuts of meat.

Bovine Respiratory Disease

“Bovine Respiratory Disease (BRD), sometimes described as “shipping fever,” is the most common and costly disease affecting the North American beef cattle industry.” “BRD refers to any disease of the upper or lower respiratory tracts”

Here the cause is right in the description, “shipping fever”. The extremely high stress the cattle are under during shipping leads to many of the cattle developing detox symptoms after the ordeal.

Symptoms of BRD in cattle:
Fever (up to 42°C)
Watery nasal discharge progressing to a thick mucoid nasal discharge.
Depression and lethargy.
Lack of appetite.
Cough.
Rapid, shallow breathing.
Unwillingness to move, standing with neck extended.

All of the above are detox symptoms. This is the body’s natural healing and repair processes being instituted as a result of exposure to toxins or stress. When an animal or human is under high levels of stress this creates an overacid condition of the body due to the overworking of the cells. All disease is a result of the overworking of the cells, so stress, especially prolonged stress can certainly result in detox symptoms.

In humans, prolonged stress results in cold or flu symptoms, which are detox symptoms, also known as a healing crisis. In cattle, the medical industry has labeled this collection of healing symptoms as BRD just like they have labeled the symptoms pneumonia, flu, or cold in humans. It’s the same process just with different labels depending on who invents the label first.

However, there are some caveats to stress creating these symptoms. Under normal conditions in a healthy body the body would quickly eliminate the results of the stress in the body and no lasting symptoms would occur. If anything the symptoms would be minor. In a body that is misfed, however, the body is already under a chronic burden and is unable to rapidly eliminate byproducts of stress. The body is dehydrated and as such the lymphatic system is backed up and moving more slowly than it would naturally. This results in slower elimination of waste products and therefore more damage at the site of the cells when the waste is not able to be rapidly eliminated from the area. Therefore, a normal condition that a healthy body would rapidly eliminate with minimal symptoms becomes a major issue with major symptoms and discomfort for a body that has been chronically misfed and poisoned.

On top of this, if the care given to the animal is rest, fasting, clean water, and species-appropriate food that provides the highest quality nutrition then the body will recover rapidly. If the opposite is done, if the animal is applied with poisons and force-fed, not allowed proper rest, and not provided with the needs of health, then the symptoms will linger, the elimination will drag on and the symptoms may worsen depending on the amount of poisons applied to the body by the medical person in charge of their care.

As with any condition of disease, we cannot poison a poisoned body back to health. Stress creates poisonous conditions, and the body responds to these poisonous conditions by creating expulsion symptoms, the medical industry responds to the body healing expulsion symptoms by applying additional poisons in the way of antibiotics, supplements, and other symptom suppressants, attempting to poison away the symptoms which were brought on by the initial poisoning.

If the body survives the initial poisoning and the secondary poisoning the medical poisons are touted as the savior. If the animal succumbs to the secondary poisons the body’s healing processes are blamed for the death rather than the poisons. The explanation always protects the profits of the disease-for-profit industry.

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Why do other raw feeding models like B.A.R.F, P.M.R, and R.M.F. fail to heal our pets completely?

If you have been researching a raw food diet or natural food diets for dogs and cats you may have come across the Prey Model Raw  (P.M.R.) or Biologically Appropriate Raw Food (B.A.R.F.) diets both of which market themselves as the natural diet for our canine companions.  They have significant differences but both have their proponents who argue each is the natural model.   In this chapter, we will look at both and compare them to nature to see what best mimics the natural diet.   If you have dug further you may have come across Rotational Monofeeding (R.M.F) which is closer to the natural model, but still strays from nature on a few points, we will discuss the pros and cons of this model as well. 

If you venture into social media groups of P.M.R. and B.A.R.F. feeders you will find post after post of people having issues with their dog’s health and looking for recommendations for treatments to deal with these issues. Their digestion, healing from serious conditions and chronic disease, allergies, itchy skin, and eye discharge all lead pet parents to seek out treatments that ultimately will lead to less-than-ideal health.  

While both  P.M.R. and B.A.R.F. are huge improvements over kibble and canned foods and they get a lot of things right, it is the small mistakes in observing nature that lead to health issues over the long term and digestion issues over the short term. 

While they are one of the closest marketed diets to a natural feeding model both make fairly significant errors which over time lead to symptoms of disease. First, let us lay out the basics of each model and then we can discuss where they have gone astray from nature.

THE BASICS:

Prey Model Raw focuses on feeding a rotation of raw meats, excluding all plant foods. The B.A.R.F. feeding model is similar to P.M.R. however they also include some plant foods. R.M.F is a lesser-known model which stands for Rotational Monofeeding and is built on the concept of feeding plants and meats separately and in closer alignment with the natural model.   

P.M.R. MODEL:

According to Perfectlyrawsome.com, “the Prey Model Raw (PMR) diet eliminates processed foods and provides dogs with a natural diet that mimics what their ancestors and wild cousins consumed. A complete PMR diet is based on whole, wild prey animals and does not include plant ingredients.” 

WHAT DO THEY GET RIGHT?

The PMR model encourages whole prey, raw meat, and bone.  They eliminate all grains, cooked foods, and processed foods and for the most part, they seem to stay away from oils, although some adherents include fish oils. The model has done a good job of eliminating a large number of burdens that commercial dog foods supply.  Since disease conditions grow relative to the burden the body is under, switching from kibble or canned foods to a PMR model diet will for many dogs result in a relative increase in health.  However, there is still an excess burden in this diet compared to what we observe in nature and full and complete health will not be achieved with this excess burden.   

WHAT DOESN’T ALIGN WITH NATURE?

When we look at wild dogs, coyotes, and wolves we see that they all consume between 20 and 80% fruits and other plant matter.  (See “Evidence that Canids eat Fruit in the Wild” https://www.therawkey.com/evidence-that-canids-eat-fruit-in-the-wild/) Fruits are a large part of the wild canid diet.   Removing this important source of nutrition leads to a burden of excess protein on the PMR diet or protein poisoning.  Unfortunately, at some point, humans simply assumed that wolves and coyotes are exclusive meat eaters and that information has led to the idea that our dogs should feed exclusively on meat.  In the short term, taking a dog from a kibble diet to an all raw proteins diet will alleviate a considerable burden and allow for improvements to overall health, but long term that excess of protein is going to catch up with our pets and their health will begin to slide downhill again. 

B.A.R.F MODEL:

According to Perfectlyrawsome.com “the recommended guidelines for a BARF diet consists of 70% muscle meat, 10% raw edible bone, 7% vegetables, 5% liver, 5% other secreting organ, 2% seeds or nuts, and 1% fruit.”

WHAT DO THEY GET RIGHT?

The B.A.R.F model also promotes a fully raw diet with raw meat being the predominant food.   They eliminate all grains, cooked foods, and processed foods. They incorporate some plant materials, predominantly vegetables using the rationale that the only plant matter that would be eaten in nature by dogs is the stomach contents of their prey, which would be predominantly grasses and vegetable matter.   The B.A.R.F. model has also done a good job of eliminating a large number of burdens that commercial dog foods supply.  Switching from kibble or canned foods to a B.A.R.F model diet will for many dogs result in a relative increase in health in the short term due to the burden they are lifting.  However, just like the P.M.R. model there is still an excess burden in this diet compared to what we observe in nature.  

WHAT DOESN’T ALIGN WITH NATURE?

The B.A.R.F. model has many of the same issues as the P.M.R. model and a few issues unique to their model. As mentioned above, wild dogs, coyotes, and wolves consume between 20 and 80% fruits and other plant matter.  That means the average dog in the wild is eating a meat meal once every 3 to 7 days, not every day.  They are grazing upon fruits and other plants between their prey meals.   While B.A.R.F incorporates plant matter into the diet they do not incorporate it on a scale that matches the natural model.  The reasoning behind incorporating plant matter is to stimulate the stomach contents of the prey animal which would be a very small fraction of the plant matter eaten in the wild.   Additionally, this plant matter in the stomach and digestive tract would be predigested.  In nature, wild dogs, coyotes, and wolves are eating fruits directly from trees, bushes, and vines in large quantities.   

The next issue we run into with the B.A.R.F. diet is food combining.   Dogs, like humans, only have one stomach.  This means that their stomach is only capable of digesting one type of food at a time.   All foods require digestive enzymes to be broken down and assimilated by our bodies.  Different types of foods – starches, proteins, fats, sweet fruits, acid fruits – all have different enzymes that break the material down into its usable parts.  Some of these enzymes also neutralize other enzymes.  If we combine two food types that have enzymes that neutralize each other we end up with neither of the food types in the stomach getting properly digested.  Instead, the food either ferments (fruits/carbs/starches) or putrefies (meat).  When this occurs the body is not getting full use or benefit from the meal and as a result, the body may need to expel the food rapidly through an expulsion process like diarrhea or vomiting to get the putrefying or fermenting substances out of the system.   This is because the ferment creates alcohol a cellular poison and the putrefaction creates ammonia an even stronger cellular poison.  While the B.A.R.F model adds in a small amount of plant matter, they are not taking into account the natural physiological processes of digestion and therefore they are creating more burden on the body than simply feeding the proteins alone.  

The next issue is in the bone ratios.  B.A.R.F. recommends 10% raw edible bone, the problem with this is when we look to the natural prey animals our dogs would be hunting if left to their own devices we often find that the ratio of bone to meat is much higher than 10%.  Small birds like cornish hens are roughly 39% bone, chickens are roughly 32% bone.  Feeding a whole cornish hen or a whole chicken with intact organs is going to be a much closer approximation to nature than trying to recreate that piecemeal.  Wild prey has a wide range of bone content so our dogs are built for some variety meaning this is a relatively minor issue, but one worth noting as we look at the whole picture of each feeding model.  Rigid adherence to a specific bone percentage is not in alignment with the variety found in nature. 

Whole Chicken…32%

Whole Quail…10%

Guinea hen…17%

Squab (pigeon)…23%

Wild Duck…38%

Pheasant whole…14%

Cornish Game Hen (cleaned)…39%

Whole goose…19%

Dove whole…23%

Mouse whole…5%

Rat whole…5%

Guinea pig/cavies…10%

Rabbit Whole (cleaned)…28%

Rabbit Whole prey, unprocessed, with fur…10%

Turkey whole (cleaned)…21%

Whole duck (cleaned)…28%

Source: https://www.rawpetsrule.com/bone-percentage-guide.html

The last issue we find with the B.A.R.F model is 7% vegetables, 2% seeds or nuts, and 1% fruit.”  Since evidence from the Voyageurs Wolf Project shows us wolves eating up to 83% of their diet from fruits during heavy fruiting periods (See: https://youtu.be/0-QzCFs6-SY)  and Coyote feeding studies confirm seasonal fruit consumption ranging from 20% to 60%  (See for example: Seasonal Coyote Diet Composition at a Low-Productivity Site Morgan B. Swingen, Christopher S. DePerno and Christopher E. Moorman https://bioone.org/journals/southeastern-naturalist/volume-14/issue-2/058.014.0219/Seasonal-Coyote-Diet-Composition-at-a-Low-Productivity-Site/10.1656/058.014.0219.short ) we can be confident that fruits are both a suitable food and necessary to maintain the health of our dogs. 

What we do not have support for though is the evidence of vegetables.   Vegetables are the fare of herbivorous animals which have flat molars for grinding and breaking down the tough cellulose found in vegetables.  Dogs are not equipped with grinding teeth and they lack the starch-digesting enzymes that would be necessary in lieu of those teeth to allow for proper digestion.   Cooking of vegetables breaks down the starches into sugars and weakens the cellulose allowing for some increase in digestibility, however, we are then returning to the same question “Who has ever seen a dog turn on the stove?”   Cooking also damages foods, so any benefit in digestibility is countered by the loss of nutrition and the alteration of the food as well as the creation of carcinogens such as acrylamide that increases based upon the cooking temperature.  (For more on why cooked foods cause disease see: “The Folly of Cookery: https://www.therawkey.com/the-folly-of-cookery/ ) Based upon our observations of nature and our knowledge of physiology and chemistry we should therefore rule out vegetables as a source of food for dogs but significantly increase fruit consumption to better match the natural model.  

WHERE BOTH P.M.R. AND B.A.R.F MISS THE MARK

Where both diets missed the mark is again in fat content . The raw meats available to us in the grocery store come from commercially raised animals. These animals are fed an unnatural diet which creates excess fat on the body of the prey animal so even if you feed raw the meat you’re getting from the grocery store is going to be far higher in fat than natural wild-raised prey.

As we can see in the photo below, the wild rabbit (right), eating its natural foods, has almost no visible fat.  Compare this to the commercially raised rabbit (left) with its large deposits of fat at the bottom end and also a coating of fat on the ribs.   

In nature, eating their wild prey, our dogs would be consuming very little fat.  Most of us however require to get our meat from the local grocery and as such we are left with a product that has an excess of fat.  Over time this excess fat that our companions are consuming will overwhelm the body and slowly lead to less ideal health and eventually into chronic disease as our companion’s age.

When we buy commercially prepared raw foods there is often even more fat being supplied as the meat is first trimmed for sale to humans and then the leftover carcass of mostly bone and fat is what is ground into raw prepackaged foods for dogs and cats. Whether you are preparing the food at home from the grocery store or buying a pre-made PMR or BARF model raw food product the fat issue is going to cause issues in the long term.   

R.M.F. MODEL

According to RMFPets.com, “RMF diet is based mostly on the wild model and partly on what has been observed to work in domestic dogs. It essentially involves the feeding of raw meat and bones on some days and plant-based meals (some cooked, some raw) on other days. The dog owner determines how many days of each, based on the dog’s age and other factors.”

WHAT DO THEY GET RIGHT?

The R.M.F. model is far and away the closest to a natural model.  They incorporate plant meals that are both separate from the meat meals as they would be found in nature and they incorporate plants in a high enough rotation to mimic nature.   R.M.F. also recognizes the issue with fat consumption, saying on the RMFpets.com website that “The high animal fat content of commercial dog foods and even some home prepped diets is the most common cause of the health problems that dogs experience.”   

R.M.F.’s focus on raw meat and bone alternated with plant meals eliminates a significant amount of burden on the body of our animals, far more than the P.M.R. and B.A.R.F. models thanks to the reduction of meat meals in exchange for low burden plant meals.  However, there is still an excess burden in this diet compared to what we observe in nature.  

WHAT DOESN’T ALIGN WITH NATURE?

No animal in nature cooks its food. Over 700,000 species exist on this planet and only the chronically ill human species cooks our foods. 

Humans are the only species capable of creating fire and setting fire to our food and the consequences of that decision have led to the epidemics of chronic disease we humans experience and now put on to our pets.  The RMF model continues this tradition by including cooked foods including cooked sweet potatoes, cooked quinoa, and certain cooked vegetables.  While these are not absolute requirements of the diet, it is evidenced in the online support group that these cooked foods are used heavily, often in lieu of fruits.   To learn more about why feeding cooked foods is harmful see “The Folly of Cookery” https://www.therawkey.com/the-folly-of-cookery/

Are you ready to switch your companion to the natural diet and watch them thrive? Get our free feeding guide here:  https://www.therawkey.com/the-animals-key/  and join our Facebook group here:  https://www.facebook.com/groups/700078481585631/

Have more questions? Need one on one help getting started or troubleshooting feeding or healing issues? Need help with  a serious health condition?  I offer consultations here: https://www.therawkey.com/consultations/

Lauren Whiteman6 Comments