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Post by kainslie on Oct 26, 2010 11:45:09 GMT -5
Dogs ARE omnivores, sort of. Dogs are carnivores, They CAN survive on vegan, or vegetarian diets, but they THRIVE on raw, and whole prey. If you were to offer a dog a diet of whole fruits and veggies, the dog would die within a couple months, they can't take anything from a fruit or veggie whole. If you puree the fruits and veggies, they will beable to live longer, because they can digest it just a bit more. The only reason they can survive on vegan or vegetarian kibble, is because it's so cooked (and puree'd) that the cell walls are broken down. Making it so the dog can digest and get some nutrition from the food. The dog would have sever itching, raw skin, goobery eyes, ect. because it's not what the animal was suppose to eat.
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Post by kainslie on Oct 26, 2010 11:45:45 GMT -5
btw, I'm not targeting you. Just the quote you said made a good example.
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Post by Little Wise Owl on Nov 17, 2010 1:10:17 GMT -5
Nothing about the dog's anatomy suggests it's an omnivore other than its gluttony. My cats scarf ANYTHING and EVERYTHING down meat or not but that doesn't make them omnivores..
I see dogs as scavenging carnivores. We need to remember that they can't digest plant matter at all unless it's been predigested/processed for them.
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Post by bluemoose on Nov 17, 2010 2:25:36 GMT -5
Agreed. My parents always make fun of me for insisting the dogs are carnivores. "You can't eat this, you're a carnivore!" (sarcasm) People seem to feel that just because dogs will eat foods other than meat, they must be able to digest those foods.
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Post by josiesmom on Nov 17, 2010 3:56:22 GMT -5
Yeah, its amazing that people will see a dog eat a tomato or potato and they make the leap - sure its ok for the dog to eat that - lets put other wholes grains and veggies on his plate too - but dogs will also eat things like sticks, cat poop, stuffed animals, rubber balls, rope and you don't see people making the leap to saying - oh gee - guess we can kibble-ize old tennis balls, cat poop and patio furniture, add smoke and bacon flavoring and vitamins and bag it and sell it!
But essentially that's what a bag of kibble is for a ferret - a bag of indigestible crap with added vitamins and sweetened to attract the ferret into eating it!
Oh - there I go again - I've gotten started!
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Post by cj on Nov 17, 2010 12:59:19 GMT -5
I'm just going to add my two bit here by saying you never hear anyone trying to put a cow on an all meat diet.
I can't remember where I read it but there was a statement about eating needs being a sliding scale not a one or the other. So on one end you have Ferrets which need meat and are pure carnivores, then you have dogs which are mainly carnivores but can eat and digest plant matter, then you have animals like raccoons which are omnivores and can eat both... all the way to animals like cows that can only digest plant matter.
I'm also going to add that any diet where you need to add a whole lot of supplements and vitamins to survive isn't a proper way of eating at all.
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Post by Heather on Nov 17, 2010 13:46:46 GMT -5
Unfortunately, if you do your research you will find that they did put cows on a meat diet... Well sort of. That's where your mad cow comes from. It was originally spread around by feeding cattle a type of kibble that was protein in base. Ground up pig that had been sent to the renderers after they could not be used for food because they had died prematurely (if my memory serves me...it often escapes me ) Basically....dog kibbles ciao
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Post by cj on Nov 17, 2010 13:51:24 GMT -5
... I have no faith in humans any more. I just... quit. *grumbles* Vegan Ferrets, Cows eating Meat... Does anyone else feel like hitting their head against a wall?
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Post by Heather on Nov 17, 2010 13:55:03 GMT -5
I believe that the practice was banned a few years ago after the big scare and it was sheep not pigs. My mind did escape ciao
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Post by josiesmom on Nov 17, 2010 15:27:17 GMT -5
yes rendered cows and porcine blood meal WAS being added to many livestock feeds, chickens end up being fed processed chickens too - its because feed manufacturers are looking for ways to CHEAPLY raise the percentages of the feed as tested. In most cases its to raise protein percentages. Hence the reasoning behind CHina's Melamine debacle. Melamine TESTS as a protein - but that and many other "proteins" are indigestible ( if not toxic) - don't forget that snake and insect venoms are PROTEIN molecules - but the BOTTOM line is if the tests read out at "X" % protein then that is all that matters and the feedstuff gets marketed and sold!
You don't see people stuffing carrots and broccoli and corn down the gullet of onbligate carnivorous snakes - do you? Why is it so hard for people to accept the simple FACT that ferrets CANNOT utilize plant matter?
Yeah, corn and soybeans contain protein - but its PLANT protein - indigestible to ferrets but OH so marketable to the consumer!
IF dogs, cats and ferrets had evolved to eat plants and vegetable matter - their dentition would prove it, their innards would prove it - they'd masticate (chew) their food from side to side like cows, sheep, horses, goats, elephants etc, they'd have multiple pairs of box shaped occluding molars and yards and yards of well defined, multi- structured intestinal tracts!
But they DON'T have such teeth or innards! So why do so many INSIST that its perfectly o.k. to feed foreign substances? Because they allow themselves to be brain washed!
My guys (except for DaVinci) all are delighted to have reverted to their ancestral diets and I am happy they are happy!
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Post by cj on Nov 17, 2010 15:34:34 GMT -5
If nothing else this thread makes me want to feed my ferrets raw and that's what I plan to do when I get them. Same goes for any dog I get. Thankfully my husband agrees with me.
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Post by bluemoose on Nov 17, 2010 19:34:28 GMT -5
My dog looks fantastic since I switched him to raw. The shelter was feeding him Science Diet (yuck!) and sent me home with some. At that time I didn't know any better so I fed him that until it ran out then put him on Eukanuba. After a couple months he started to itch all the time and I couldn't figure out why. Took him to the vet who said he might have a food allergy and recommended Solid Gold. So I switched to that and started researching dog foods. Soon I found out how horrendous most of them are and eventually switched him to Blue Wilderness. As I continued to look at dog nutrition, raw diets inevitably came up. At first I dismissed them because it seemed confusing and expensive but as I started to see more and more success stories and learned more about them, I became convinced. For me the choice between a BARF diet (which includes fruits and vegetables) and a prey model diet (80% meat, 10% bone, 5% liver, 5% other organs) was clear. This site, among others, was a guiding source in proving to me that dogs are indeed carnivores: www.rawfed.com/myths/feedraw.htmlI did look at sources with the opposing view that dogs are omnivores but their "proof" honestly didn't make sense to me.
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