[~Karla~]

I was talking to a dog trainer and "pet nutritionist". She was encouraging me to stop feeding Bickie raw meaty bones and just have her on 100% dry food with maybe 1 bone a week. Bickie currently gets a small amount of premium dry food for breakfast and lunch and meat (so far just chicken necks/wings/frame or beef neck or raw mince with an egg and veggies) for dinner. She seems to think raw meat gives them too much protein and causes hyperactivity and also that too much protein is making her wee more, leading to delayed toilet training, not to mention causing nutrional deficiencies.

I've never heard that raw food = hyperactivity before. In fact, I've witnessed the opposite a number of times in the past (especially with supermarket brands). It seems odd to me to suggest that feeding the dogs natural diet would cause hyperactivity as opposed to thinking that the packaged food is causing lethargy if there was a marked difference in a particular dog's behaviour IYKWIM.

What do you think? Is this a common thing?

[FiveAus]

My dogs get kibble and raw, and after a good chomp on a big raw meaty bone, they are the opposite of hyperactive......they tend to snooze.

I've had them on all raw, all kibble and a combo and their energy levels didn't change. I think they look better on a combo diet so I keep them on that now.

[SarahM72]

Perhaps what she meant was that some dogs can show aggression and get over excited with guarding bones? That is the only way I could think to make some sense of what she said.

[~Karla~]

No, she was clearly telling me that Bickie was too young for raw food and that she's seen loads of hyperactive dogs on raw foods who settle down considerably on just dry food. She said she's really not a fan of raw food at all, but I find the thought that raw meaty bones would cause hyperactivity and toileting issues to be quite strange. I've never heard anyone say that before, although I have heard people say that their dogs had more energy on raw, which I guess is the same thing, just with a different spin.

[Oriental lily]

Weird.
It goes against the whole BARF diet philosophy.

My dogs are on a dry diet of black hawk which is the premium of the premium dog food. Plus meaty bones for teeth and variety

I did BARF for a while but found they gained weight to easily on it.
So they are now on a mixture for convenience mainly ( and they are still rather portly lol) because i found it hard to figure out calorie Intake with BARF type diets.

Op like human diets (look at all the thousands of weight loss eating styles books on the market) people have different ideas that contradicts other people's ideas.

Ask spikey if she feels there is a massive difference in behavior when it comes to training and diet. I doubt she will say there is unless it's a nutritionally poor diet.

Vets and other people in the pet industry also get kick backs if they remote a particular pet food.

So be aware of that as well.

[FiveAus]

My vets, both the one I've recently started seeing, and the other one I've been seeing for years advocate the feeding of raw bones, especially for oral health.

I was telling my old vet that when I got Shae (my little blue merle girl), she was 5 years old and her teeth were manky and coated in brown muck and her breath wasn't pleasant at all. I put her on the same diet as the other dogs....a raw chicken drumstick for brekkie, Black Hawk kibble for dinner, and some extra raw bones on the weekends, just for a change and for a bit of pleasure for them. Within weeks, I could see the difference in her teeth and three months down the track, her teeth were white and clean with no medical intervention.
She said she frequently sends people away with instructions to start giving their dogs bones for their oral health, rather than rely on sedating the dog and cleaning it's teeth.

Last week when I took my dogs to a new vet, she checked all their mouths and commented on what lovely teeth they have and said I must be feeding them plenty of raw bones.

[casime]

What an idiot. Seriously. She's an idiot.

[FiveAus]

What an idiot. Seriously. She's an idiot.

I'd agree with this. The only thing hyperactive about my dogs when they get fed raw bones is the amount of leaping and jumping around they do when they see it's bones for dinner or a treat. Then they grab their own bone and bolt for their favourite eating place and have a good chomp and we generally don't see them for hours.

[runnybabbit]

Exactly what is a "pet nutritionist"? A veterinary nutrition specialist has done a veterinary degree and then further specialisation (usually a residency programme over three to four years, before taking board exams and passing).

I've never heard of raw food causing hyperactivity. Personally I'm not a fan of recommending raw food as I think many owners don't do it well (some do!) and it can lead to problems with immunosuppressed people in the household.

Chewing on bones can also cause slab fractures of teeth = root canal or extraction, which is expensive and people get angry when that's the recommended treatment. It doesn't happen to most dogs that get bones, but certainly happens enough that I've seen a few of them.

Neither I nor any practice I've worked for has ever received kick backs for stocking or recommending a particular brand of pet food. I generally tell people that most dogs will do mostly well on most foods -- whether it's Eukanuba, Advance, Hill's, Royal Canin, Supercoat, Purina etc, as long as it's AAFCO certified complete and balanced. The only specific recommendations I make are prescription diets for medical conditions, and I don't care if it's Royal Canin or Hill's as long as the patient eats it.

Having said that, I used to give my dog a giant butcher's bone as an occasional treat -- but I wouldn't have been too upset if he'd fractured a tooth on it, it was a calculated risk.

[jameses mum]

Bizarre

All the dogs I have ever owned have always been on a mainly natural diet including raw drumsticks and meaty bones with never a problem.

The pup is a bit hyper, but she is an 8 month old kelpie - I would be concerned if she wasn't slightly deranged!