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Work Wonders: Feed Your Dog Raw Meaty Bones

rawbones

 Click on the cover above to go to this book at Amazon.co.uk

A few decades ago, dogs were fed scraps. Gradually, canned food and biscuits, and then kibble crept into their diets, and we were told that this was healthier for them. A few years back I visited a friend in Spain, and watched her dog munching chicken's necks. His teeth were in excellent shape for an 11-year-old. A while later I shopped in a hardware store where a sales rep was complaining that pet owners just cared about whether dog poo was easy to pick up, not its nutritional content. So that was what the company focused on. The local stockmen carried scraps to their guard dogs every day. The kibble 'burned up the dogs' they said.

So yes, kibble may be better than giving dogs human junk food, but there are alternatives that dogs much prefer, and this book explores them. Dr Tom Lonsdale covers different aspects of raw food for dogs and cats in eight chapters, including sourcing, storage, and prepararation of raw food. He also deals with possible risks, as well as advantages. On the plus side, this book is clearly written, and a great help both for people starting out on raw food diets, as well as people with more experience. It is not an academic treatise, which means it's easy to read. Critics may argue that there should be more scientific backing for some of his claims, but this is an excellent introductory guide on raw feeding for dogs, and is enough for the needs of most pet owners.