Trust me I'm a vet

I didn't watch the programme, but I have just watched a short summary clip on BBC2's Facebook page. Isn't it basic common sense to clean your hands and related surfaces when dealing with raw meats, whether handling to feed your dog or for human consumption? Yes, there is a risk of bacteria - but even if you feed a commercial feed what's stopping your dog bringing in dangerous bacteria into the house on its paws from being walked outside, or if they are like my dogs, they eat all sorts of rubbish out on our walks which could equally cause bacteria in their mouths/ faeces. How can raw feeding be a "fad" - what do people think dogs ate before the introduction of manufactured dog foods?
 
Chiffy said:
Hey MOC, I did not denounce it. As you said, I have not tried it, not because I don't think it is good but because it doesn't suit me to and my dog are healthy on what I prefer to feed.
I was quoting the programme with those words, sorry I didn't put them in inverted commas!
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lol, ok, sorry :)

usually the BBC are so balanced they are useless, so funny they are now being unbalanced and useless.
 
Thanks MC. In a way I liked being told I didn't HAVE to feed raw because people that do, do rather make you feel it's only good food for dogs there is!
But it was very strange about the bacteria business, surely they should have just promoted good hygiene. It said the hands and bowl were contaminated, well wouldn't you wash them?!
 
Chiffy said:
Thanks MC. In a way I liked being told I didn't HAVE to feed raw because people that do, do rather make you feel it's only good food for dogs there is!
But it was very strange about the bacteria business, surely they should have just promoted good hygiene. It said the hands and bowl were contaminated, well wouldn't you wash them?!
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in the nicest possible way, I don't care what you feed or anyone else ;) although I agree some RAW feeders are somewhat evangelical about it. I do think there are better kibbles about than ever before so I dont think there's an absolute 'need' to feed RAW and for convenience, I am not feeding much of it right now (dogs mostly fed at work). But I'll defend people's right to feed it and anecdotally, I do think most dogs love the variety and get a certain satisfaction from bones etc. They should have done some cultures on kibble for balance. The only sterile food is tinned and they'd already discussed on the prvious program how nutritionally bad most tinned food was.

I expect some people are just too daft to realise there is bacteria on raw meat and not take the right precautions etc. Mostly though I think RAW feeders are a bit more clued up than that.

I think some pet owners are a bit clueless as to what their pets are carrying anyway-there's no way I'd be cuddling up to my cats for example, they are complete dustbins and will happily gnaw away on the carcass of a dead rabbit for a couple of days, god only knows whats growing on that (I have a good idea what actually!).
 
I didn't see the programme but I am fairly confident there would be less bacteria in my dogs food bowl, with or without raw, than in some of the stuff they happily swallow out on a walk.
 
i did watch most of the program and felt it was aimed at newish pet owners and not those who have had animals for years. i thought it was interesting to see the rabbit on cctv and how he changed when he had better living conditions and a friend. so many well meaning people just keep rabbits in hutches and dont give them any freedom so well done to them for highlighting this...
 
What I found amusing was the fact they were making people concerned as to what nutrition was in traditional food last week(?) and how we couldn't trust what was written on the side of the tin. Now we cannot feed raw in case we poison ourselves because we don't know how to wash our hands. What can we feed?
 
MotherOfChickens said:
well there are dangers :) (and I feed RAW myself) and people should be aware of them.
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Spot on ,
my friends dog nearly died of salmonella it took her ages to get it right the dogs now on a high quality dry diet and fine .
And my friends a vet it took a while to diagnose because it was chronic I did not know salmonella could be a chronic condition .
All that time every person who came into that house was at serious risk of a life taking disease .
 
Goldenstar said:
Spot on ,
my friends dog nearly died of salmonella it took her ages to get it right the dogs now on a high quality dry diet and fine .
And my friends a vet it took a while to diagnose because it was chronic I did not know salmonella could be a chronic condition .
All that time every person who came into that house was at serious risk of a life taking disease .
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salmonella has quite a high infectious dose fwiw (compared to say, E coli O157 or even campylobacter if I remember rightly) so provided people were washing hands and not sharing the dog's bowl the risk was small. The problem with the program was that there were no controls-no comparisons to non-RAW fed dogs, no typing of the salmonella found etc etc and salmonella is found in dogs fed regular food.
It was so dumbed down as to be worthless (I watched it yesterday). If they had kept it to good basic hygiene, compared it to some commercially prepared RAW (which is screened for the major pathogens) and other dog food it would have been better. They then could have made a segment bringing in last weeks bit on the general crapness of some tinned and dry foods-only they wouldnt. Liverpool VS also has a Royal Canin reader in SA Medicine..

RAW feeding is like barefoot imho-only several years behind in acceptance and research.
 
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