Top 24 Reasons Why People Don’t Feed Raw

In my time of feeding raw to my dogs and cat, I’ve read many things and talked to many people about feeding their critters raw good. Amazingly enough, the same excuses not to feed raw seem to keep cropping up, so I thought I’d address these “excuses”, because that’s all they are—excuses.

The big one, in various incarnations:

“Pet food companies have spent billions on developing commercial foods, so the pet industry knows 

what is best.”

Bull. The pet industry is there for one reason and one reason only—to make money. Lots of money. Last 

I heard, the pet food industry is something like the third most profitable industry in America. Also, 

amazingly enough, the big pet food companies are owned by other companies. Heinz owns 9 Lives, Amore, 

Gravy Train, Kibbles-n-Bits and Nature's Recipe. Nestle owns Alpo, Fancy Feast, Friskies, Mighty Dog, and 

Ralston Purina products such as Dog Chow, ProPlan, and Purina One. Colgate-Palmolive owns Hill’s Science 

Diet. Proctor & Gamble own Iams and Eukanuba. Mars owns Kal Kan, Mealtime, Pedigree, Sheba and Waltham's. 

They use the pet food industry as an extension of the human food and agriculture industry, where it provides 

a market for slaughterhouse offal, grains considered unfit for human consumption, and similar waste products 

like intestines, udders, and diseased and cancerous animal parts. Not to mention, the go with the assumption 

that dogs are omnivores and can actually digest all the grains and veggies they stick in them. But wait—they 

put almost as many grains and veggies in cat food and everyone—even those who don’t believe in a raw diet—

knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that cats are obligate carnivores and absolutely can not digest vegetation. 

Their logic does not match our Earth logic. 

“Kibble’s just as good.”

See above. Dogs are carnivores, they can’t digest vegetation. And then there’s the fact that all the nutrients 

are cooked out of kibble—the extrusion process which a study proves causes neurotoxins in grains—the rendering 

process that turns meat into unrecognizable ash—the high heat cooking process that causes carcinogens--the 

fact that most of the meat used in dog kibble comes from 4D animals, and euthanized cats and dog—the fact that 

in quite a few of the kibbles, there is no meat, just by products (feathers, beaks, feet—undigestible stuff) and meat 

flavor. Put all that together and…why are we feeding our animals this crap again?

“There’s too much bacteria in raw food.”

What, and there’s no bacteria in kibble? You’re kidding, right? There is bacteria everywhere—on your counter, 

in the dirt, on your floor, on your sofa, in your fridge, on your body, on your remote controller, and in your dog’s 

kibble. Bacteria is all over the place—amazingly enough, we’re not all dropping dead. Why? Because only about 

1% of bacteria is harmful. Even less is harmful to your dog. Why? Because they’re carnivores—carnivores have 

an extremely short, extremely acidic digestive system that prevents multiplication of the bacteria. No multiplication 

equals no problems with bacteria. Neither will your dog eating raw meat make you sick if he licks you—one of the 

nice things about dogs is that their mouths have natural bacteria killers, especially if they’re the clean mouths 

of a raw fed dog rather than the bacteria breeding mouth of a kibble fed dog. And yet, people let their kibble fed 

dogs lick them. 

Again, the logic does not line up. 

“I’m a vegetarian.”

Congratulations. Good luck with that. What does that have to do with properly feeding your carnivorous animal? 

If you have an animal in your care, it’s your obligation to feed him properly, no matter how you feel about it. There 

are plenty of people on the Raw Feeding list who are vegetarians, and they still manage to feed their dogs a proper 

diet, and learn something in the bargain. 

“It’s more time consuming.”

Boo—frickin’—hoo. If you have a problem with spending five extra minutes a night to toss your dog a chicken, 

or a pork butt, it makes me wonder why you have a dog in the first place. Since when is convenience more 

important than your dog’s health?

“It’s more expensive.”

Not really. Well, okay if you’re feeding some crap like Ole’ Roy it will probably be a little more expensive, but 

why are you feeding that crap anyways? But once you spend a little time (whoops—there’s that time consuming 

one again) searching out some meat markets, butchers, peruse the weekly sale adds, and learn to buy in bulk, it 

can be much less expensive than a “good” kibble (an oxymoron if I ever heard one). Plus, once you add up the 

expense of treating your dog for: peridontitis from crappy kibble that offers not tooth care, the major tooth 

cleanings that prevent peridontitis, cancer from crappy kibble, kidney problems, pancreatic problems, heart 

problems, and a whole host of other problems caused by bad diet (and over vaccination but that’s for another page). 

“Modern food is less nutritious than food used to be.”

Yeah, there’s some truth to that. Explain to me why not-as-healthy food rendered down into ash and turned 

into pelleted food is better than fresh not-as-healthy food? Because it all comes from the same place. 

Logic does not compute. 

“It’s too complicated.”

If you’re feeding Barf model it certainly is. All that grinding, and pureeing vegetables, and adding supplements, 

and dealing with constipation and impaction from too much bone…definitely complicated. 

Now, if we’re talking about proper prey model, I need to tell you that you’re two ships short of a fleet. What’s 

complicated about taking a pork butt out of your fridge and tossing it to your dog?

“I won’t do it right and will hurt my dog.”

Trust me—anything raw is better than kibble. And if you feed a proper prey model, it’s not hard to do it right. Just 

come hang out at the Raw Feeding list. 

“It’s too messy.”

So feed him outside. 

“I don’t know where to feed him.”

Well…I feed in the kitchen or outside. You can also feed on a towel, a table cloth, in his crate, on your bed…

it really doesn’t matter where you feed your dog. 

“The dog will get worms.”

Huh? Not if you’re feeding USDA approved human grade meat and freezing any wild game. 

“Rawfeeding is a copout for those who are too lazy to research "good kibble.”

That’s actually funny, because most people who get onto raw do more research than kibble feeders. It’s why 

they switch to raw—because they did the research. 

“I don’t have any freezer space.” 

Well, you can get another freezer, or just buy weekly. Most freezers hold enough meat for a week. And if that’s 

your only excuse, it’s a pretty poor one, even worse than some of the others. 

“My vet is dead set against it.”

Big surprise. Vets get very little nutritional education, and what they get is from the pet food companies. They 

don’t know what they’re talking about. 

“He's going to get something stuck in his mouth.”

So? If he does, pick it out. It’s not the end of the world. And keep in mind that dogs, cats, and ferrets get kibble 

stuck in their teeth all the time. 

"You can't feed bones to a dog, they'll splinter and kill him!" 

Cooked bones! Cooked bones, not raw! Get it straight people. 

“The bones will puncture the intestines.”

*sigh* Again, cooked bones. Not raw bones—they’re designed to digest bones for cryin’ out loud. 

“Feeding raw meat will make my dog aggressive.”

That is one of the most widespread and annoying rumors, in my opinion. If eating raw meat made dogs aggressive, 

do you really think we would have dogs? They didn’t have kibble back in the Stone Age you know. They had to fare 

for themselves, hunting and eating scraps, and if they couldn’t hunt, they didn’t fare. And what about all those 

livestock guardians and herding breeds that eat the meat that comes from the animals they work with? Aggression 

is a behavior issue, not from what the dog eats. Now, when first switching, if your dog has a propensity towards food 

aggression it tends to heighten—I mean, compare it to a kid. You hand him a handful of brussel sprouts, what’s he 

going to do? Get rid of it as fast as he can. You hand him a chocolate cake and he’s going to fight for it tooth and 

nail (probably not, but you get the point). It’s the same way with dogs—they get a high value food item (real meat)

and they want to protect it. 

But let’s not let logic get in the way of fear, by gum!

“I don’t think I could stand hearing the bones crunch.” 

*Blink blink* So…feed the dog outside? It’s not that disturbing…honest. 

“Dog’s look great on kibble, why bother?”

Because they can do better. 

You think your dog looks great? All right—let’s check him out. How do his teeth look? 75% of kibble fed dogs 

develop periodontal disease before the age of 4. How does her breath smell? Do you have to brush his teeth to 

prevent the periodontal disease? Does she scratch a lot? Does he have dandruff? Does she have allergies? 

How is his muscle tone? Kibble fed dogs have a doughy look to them that raw fed dogs do not. Health begins 

in the mouth, so if her mouth is bad how do you imagine the rest of her body is faring? Is he able to settle down? 

Hyperactivity is not just because a dog is young/a working dog. How do her stools look? Are they large and stay 

whole in your backyard until you pick them up? Raw fed dogs digest the vast majority of their food, so their stool

are small and mostly decompose within a few days. Does he have behavioral problems? According to some studies, 

grains can lead to aggression problems, and extruded grains have neurotoxins in them that can definitely lead 

to behavioral problems. Does she have cancer? Or diabetes? Or arthritis at 7 or 8 or 9 years old?

There are problems that people do not see as problems anymore because “this happens to dogs—it’s normal”. 

Normal, maybe. Natural? No. 

Like I said, your pup can do better.

“Why bother? It’s just a dog?”

This is very disturbing. Why do you have a dog if you think this way?

And my all time favorite dumbest reasons I’ve come across: 

"Raw pork tastes like human flesh and I don't want my dog chewing on my leg if he's hungry."

and

“My dog will develop a taste for me/my child/my hubby.”

To these I give a great big “Huh?” Dogs have been domesticated for thousands of years, and have been eating 

raw and hunting on their own for thousands of years less 50 or so. I just wonder what they’re smoking. 

Oy. The logic of some people…or rather the lack thereof. 

A special thanks to the member of the RawChat list for offering up what they’ve heard and seen in their years of feeding raw.