Why do vets recommend kibble

Benefits of Fresh Dog Food vs. Raw Food vs. Kibble For Your Dog

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Food glorious food. Food is an important aspect of the daily lives of humans and dogs. However, dogs dont get to choose what they eat. We choose what we think is best for the health, energy level, and enjoyment of our canine companions.

With the growing popularity of freshly prepared food for dogs (like Ollie, who makes human grade fresh dog food,) our options have increased, and choosing what is best can be challenging. The first step is to consult your veterinarian. Here are some points to consider when you choose a food for your dog:

• Health: A balanced, nutritional diet is critical to maintain good health.
• Activity level: Working dogs and service dogs have different caloric requirements than household pets.
• Age and size: Nutritional requirements differ between puppies and adults, large breed and small breed dogs.
• Food allergies: Some dogs are allergic to specific proteins or ingredients such as eggs, corn, wheat, soy, or milk.
• Taste: No matter what you think, dog food has to taste and smell good to your dog.
• Your lifestyle: How much time do you have available to spend cooking and shopping for your dog?

Fresh Food

Feeding dogs a diet made with natural, real ingredients, such as beef, chicken, lamb, peas, spinach, carrots, and blueberries, can do wonders for their overall well-being promoting heart health, increasing energy level, making coats shiny and breath smell better, improving eyesight, and even impacting a dogs stool.

However, cooking for your pet is a process thats demanding on your time, space, and finances. Merck Veterinary Manual warns, Most homemade diets do not undergo the scrutiny and rigorous testing applied to commercial complete and balanced diets. If pet owners wish to feed their pets homemade diets, the diets should be prepared and cooked using recipes formulated by a veterinary nutritionist.

Fresh dog food delivery services, such as Ollie, work with canine nutritionists to develop cooking methods and personalized formulas that include the vitamins and minerals that meet the Association of American Feed Control Officials standards for dog food. They calculate the exact number of calories needed based on weight, breed, age, activity level, and body composition and take any allergies your pup has into account.

Ollies food is made with human-grade ingredients sourced from reputable farms and approved by veterinarians. They never use fillers, by-products, artificial flavors, or preservatives. Each recipe is cooked by hand at low temperatures in small batches in a U.S. Food and Drug Administration (USDA)-regulated kitchen. All the prep work is done for you, and the food is pre-portioned and stored in the freezer. They even offer all-natural, single-ingredient treats that dogs love.

What to Look For in Fresh Food

Most fresh food services are offered by subscription and delivered to your door. The best ones work with veterinary nutritionists to formulate a plan customized for your dog. They offer options in recipe choices, portion size, and frequency of delivery. They also provide easy-to-understand information about ingredients, feeding schedules, and how to keep the food fresh.

Raw Diet

Raw dog food can be homemade, store-bought, freeze-dried, or dehydrated. A raw diet usually includes organ meats, muscle meat, whole or ground bone, raw eggs, dog-safe fresh fruits and vegetables, and a dairy product such as yogurt. Advocates of raw food diets site these benefits: shinier coats, healthier skin, improved dental health, increased energy, and smaller stools.

Some veterinarians warn that raw diets are not appropriate for dogs who share their homes with young children or people with compromised immune systems. Meticulous care is required in the handling, preparation, and sanitation of raw food. Dogs with pancreatitis, cancer, or other diseases may require cooked food. Puppies are also better off having cooked food.

The American Veterinary Medical Association opposes the unregulated feeding of raw foods and 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.

What to Look for in Raw Food

Find a veterinarian who knows the health of your dog, is familiar with raw foods, and can help guide you in the proper handling and cleaning required to address possible health concerns.

Kibble

Dry food or kibble has ingredients that vary by brand, but all are required to be balanced and meet the nutritional needs of a dog. Under USDA regulation, all animal foods must be safe to eat, produced under sanitary conditions, contain no harmful substances, and be truthfully labeled.

The ingredients in kibble are processed together and cooked. Required ingredients include: protein sources such as beef, poultry, fish, and eggs; grains; cereals; and vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants. All dry dog foods need preservatives to prevent the fat from becoming rancid. Some brands are heavy on carbohydrates or have low-quality ingredients and added sugar.

Those who feed their dogs kibble suggest the potential benefits to be: reduced dental plaque, healthier gums, reduced risk of bacteria, easier storage, less risk of spoilage, and cost-effectiveness. On the other hand, some dog owners choose to switch to fresh food like Ollie due to the risks of kibble.

What to Look for in Kibble

Read the label. Look for a food that has a protein as the first ingredient, not a grain. The best kibbles have a single source of protein, such as lamb or chicken. Grain-free diets exist, but carbohydrates are required for energy, and the choice of grain is important since some dogs have sensitivities to wheat, corn, or soybeans.

Help From the Experts

The food we give our dogs makes a huge difference in their health and well-being. So it makes sense to let the experts help us determine what is best.

Ollies veterinary nutritionists use the latest advancements in research to develop the best recipes for your dog recipes that include fresh ingredients to keep your pups brain function healthy, address allergies and gastrointestinal sensitivities, are proportioned for ideal weight, and use Omega-3 fatty acids to help reduce inflammation. All that delivered right to your door, for free.

Ollie has received rave reviews from both customers and industry leaders. Ollies customers have reported better weight management, shinier coats, and more. Ollie has received a 5-star rating from Dog Food Advisor and has named one of the best dog food brands by Forbes, and Readers Digest.

Why Do Most Vets Still Recommend Kibble over raw dog food even though raw is better for your dogs health?

Many vets recommend kibble over Raw feeding because it's less liability on them. Vets are not canine nutritionists. Raw feeding has various formulas and if not formulated correctly, dogs can develop deficiencies. Vets are also educated on dogfood through programs funding by mega corp Kibble companies such as "Mars pet food company" and "Purina"

https://newscenter.purina.com/2023-01-26-Purina-R-Pro-Plan-R-Veterinary-Diets-Announces-Partnership-with-AVMF-to-Support-Veterinarians

Vets are not directly paid for selling kibble such as Science diet or Royal Canine but there are incentives. These mega dog food corporations are the ones educating our vets on canine nutrition. Hmmm...

We compare this structure to human pharmaceuticals and doctors. We prefer a more holistic approach here at DRP.

For us here at DRP, we view Raw Feeding as common sense. It's the canines natural intended diet. We always asked ourselves, how could raw feeding be worse than processed kibble? Raw is no longer inconvenient and prices are comparable. Did you know that most Bagged Kibble brands have daily salmonella recalls?

It would be irresponsible for a vet to try to advise a client to raw feed without being certified canine nutritionists. This creates liabilty for the vet if they were to advise. No vet needs anymore of that! There are precautionary risks that you have to take with raw feeding. Balanced diet is key. Identifying the correct balance and optimal protein is key. Being sanitary is important, just like it is with kibble feeding. Both require being sanitary.

Most Vets have the best interest of your animal at heart, and it isn't just a money-making scheme for them to make more money by pushing a science diet. It's simply Convenience, Incentives, and Accessibility.

We're not against vets, we love our Vets! We're just saying that education is key!

It's all about canines for us here at DRP. The love of your animal and doing what is raw, and authentic, and natural. Like us humans, we gotta get back to basics. We gotta get back to our natural diets and things that we eat. Otherwise, we bear the health effects from it.

"FEEDING YOUR DOG KIBBLE EVERYDAY IS LIKE US EATING MCDONALD'S EVERYDAY"

We see rising cancer rates in recent history. Twoout of four dogs die from cancer.

"STUDIES SHOW RAW FEEDING YOUR DOG CAN ADD 2+ YEARS OF LIFE"

Storage mites are more common than most understand. Dogs ingest the mites causing gut irritation, red irritation on the belly, inflammation of the skin and itching.

Organic raw dog food is healthier and just as safe as kibble

Canine and human health all starts in the gut.

More importantly, when you are an Athletic Canine, DRP, or KC-K-9 customer, we provide free coaching and supervision with your raw diet.You get service with your dog food that you're not going to get from PetSmart or other raw companies. We're a phone call away. If you have a question about raw diet or additives, we're here to coach you through it because we care about your pet.

The food we give our dogs makes a huge difference in their health and well-being.

Check out our Raw Organic Dog Food!

Why Few Vets Say Raw Dog Food is a Good Idea

As more people embrace clean-eating diets and cut out processed foods in an effort to be healthier, theyre also putting their dogs on raw food diets to help their four-legged family members achieve similar benefits.

Social media influencers and online resources, like Rodney Habib and Perfectly Rawsome, suggest raw food diets replicate how pets ate in the wild before they were domesticated and offer benefits like shinier coats, dental hygiene, improved digestion and smaller stools.

But most vets disagree, saying these claims are not backed by science.

The Raw Truth

The American Kennel Club (AKC), American Veterinary Medical Association and other groups discourage pet owners from feeding dogs raw or unprocessed meat, eggs and milk. Raw meat and dairy can carry pathogens, like E. coli, listeria and salmonella, which can make pets and people sick or even cause death.

A 2011 study published in the Canadian Veterinary Journal suggested that any evidence for thebenefits of raw food diets for pets is anecdotal. Additionally, the researchers point out that vets should be informing pet owners of the disease risks associated with raw food.

Jennifer Larsen, a professor of clinical nutrition in the Department of Veterinary Medicine at the University of California, Davis, doesnt recommend raw food diets for pets. She links the trend to pet food marketings emphasis on ingredients over nutrients and the general romanticizing of nature that compares dogs to wolves.

Larsen says many pet owners she meets choose raw food diets because they distrust commercial dog food, want to avoid specific ingredients or believe alternative pet foods are healthier.

If somebody that you consider to be reliable like a celebrity veterinarian on the internet, for example is telling you that raw food is the way to go, and it's the way dogs evolved and the way they should all be eating, and it's much healthier and kibble is dangerous, then it's really difficult to [convince] those people that traditional pet foods are perfectly safe, and they're adequate choices for the vast majority of pets, Larsen says.

Most vets say traditional pet food provides enough nutrition for pets. (Credit: Ekaterina Markelova/Shutterstock)

But conventional dog food is safe and nutritionally balanced, Larsen says. The FDA regulates all pet food products, including kibble, canned and commercially available raw foods.

Additionally, pet food marketing often depicts raw, human-grade meats in ads, which could mislead pet owners into thinking raw meats are safe for dogs to eat. Pet food ingredients, though named similarly, do not necessarily correlate to ingredients in human food, Larsen says. For example, pet food chicken includes flesh, skin and sometimes bones, not the boneless, skinless chicken breasts people purchase at the grocery store.

Pet Food Worries

But some vets nevertheless do advocate for more natural pet food options. Karen Becker, who describes herself as an integrative wellness veterinarian, advocates for minimally processed, nutritionally balanced and gently cooked or raw diets for dogs. This feeding method is more biologically appropriate, she says, referring to how dogs ate in the wild before domestication.

Too many pets are fed fast food, or feed-grade kibble and canned pet food, says Becker, who is affiliated with alternative medicine brand Mercola and has a pet health YouTube channel.

I believe the less processed foods are for humans and pets, the healthier they are, she says.

Some advocates hold that raw food is better for pets, though little evidence supports that. (Credit: Monika Wisniewska/Shutterstock)

But, dogs are not wolves and shouldnt eat raw meat and bone like them, says Jerry Klein, AKCs chief veterinary officer.

Through the thousands of years and generations of becoming domesticated, dogs became omnivores who evolved to eat what we people eat, Klein says.

Wolves are carnivores, he says. Their gastrointestinal systems can process raw meat, and they absorb nutrients differently than dogs do. In addition, their ability to fight potential pathogens is limited compared with wolves as well.

Dogs are better than wolves at digesting starches, key nutrients in grains like wheat and rice, according to a study published in Nature. Researchers suggest dogs and humans adapted similarly to the development of agriculture.

All reported benefits of feeding raw diets in dogs are anecdotal, not based on scientific study results, Klein says, urging caution in feeding dogs raw diets. In fact, most research on the subject has focused on the dangers of pathogens in raw diets and how they could impact animals and their owners.

More research is needed on the true benefits and safety of all dog foods, comparing kibble, canned food and raw diets, Becker says.

Across the board, the pet food industry is lacking unbiased, objective, lifetime studies about one feeding technique over another, Becker says.

The healthiest diets should be vet-recommended, based on an animals age, breed and any health conditions. Larsen urges pet owners to choose foods based on World Small Animal Veterinary Association nutrition recommendations, which list whether the food was formulated by a full-time nutritionist and provides a nutrition analysis.

Now that we have all of this proof and the fact that there's no benefit, it makes it really difficult for somebody who is interested in animal health and has a public health responsibility to recommend raw diets, Larsen says.