ARCHER'S PANTRY

Always searching for better, more economic diets for dogs, breeders and exhibitors of pets and performance dogs are traveling in two directions these days.

The majority of these dog owners cheer on the development of ever more specialized commercial diets by premium pet food manufacturers.

However, a growing and increasingly vocal segment of the population is switching to BARF, the diet familiarly known as “bones and raw food” but also tagged as “biologically appropriate raw food,” “Billinghurst Australian real food” and the “born again raw feeders” diet.

Developed by Australian veterinarian Ian Billinghurst, the BARF diet under any appellation is based on feeding raw, meaty bones, animal offal, raw vegetables, and supplements instead of commercially-processed or cooked homemade diets.

Billinghurst has published two books about BARF: Give Your Dog a Bone in 1993 and Grow Your Pups with Bones.

Dr. Billinghurst describes BARF this way:

“BARF is about feeding dogs properly. The aim of BARF is to maximize the health, longevity and reproductive capacity of dogs and by so doing, minimize the need for veterinary intervention. How do you feed a dog properly? You feed it the diet that it evolved to eat. ... Artificial grain based dog foods cause innumerable health problems. They are not what your dog was programmed to eat during its long process of evolution. A biologically appropriate diet for a dog is one that consists of raw whole foods similar to those eaten by the dogs’ wild ancestors. The food fed must contain the same balance and type of ingredients as consumed by those wild ancestors. This food will include such things as muscle meat, bone, fat, organ meat and vegetable materials and any other foods that will mimic what was those wild ancestors ate.”

 

BARF feeders eschew the convenience of 40-pound bags of kibble and opt for preparing meals for their dogs that include uncooked meaty bones, uncooked muscle and organ meat, raw eggs, vegetables, fruit, yogurt, cooked cereals, cottage cheese, and herbs, enzymes, and other supplements. They are not tied to the same diet every day – no more just measuring the kibble and pouring it in the bowl. If a good source of fresh chicken parts or lamb meat is available, the dogs get chicken or lamb. If green beans are on sale this week, cottage cheese is two-for-one at the supermarket, or the carrots are ready to be pulled in the garden, the dog’s diet (like the family diet) will likely be heavy in those ingredients.

The BARF philosophy is that dogs should be fed the foods they are evolutionarily suited to eat. The BARF principles are that commercially-prepared cooked foods lack enzymes and other essential dietary components and contain some ingredients that promote allergies and are otherwise harmful for dogs.

 There's a lot of information on the internet about this, but don't get confused by all the different way of doing this. It's like parenting; there are a lot of different ways to do it and you've got to figure out what works best for you.