Our Take On:

Raw Food Diets

Short of letting our dogs and cats eat what they can kill in the wild, raw diets are considered as close as biologically natural as we can feed. Raw foods are full of enzymes, vitamins, minerals and fatty acids that are often lost during the cooking process undergone by kibble and canned foods. Because feeding a raw diet shields your pet from unnecessary additives commonly found in most commercially prepared pet foods, it's very common for medical ailments like allergies or chronic digestive issues to resolved without much medical intervention.

Some benefits of a raw diet include:

• Improved breath and dental health
• Promotes optimum immune function
• Shinier, softer coat
• Smaller, less stinky stools
• Great for weight loss
• Affords you a chance to closely regulate what you pet is eating because you control the ingredients and the sources

Feeding this diet has become somewhat controversial in the veterinary community. Some doctors advise against raw food feeding, siting a high bacteria content. The truth is, as long as you're careful at your handling of the food and the freshness of your ingredients, the risk of contamination is actually quiet low. Dogs and cats have more naturally occurring means to handle ingested bacteria than we do, so as long as the food isn't rancid, you're probably in pretty good shape. The golden rule: purchase, prepare and handle the food the same way you would your own.

An alternative to feeding a traditional raw diet is to feed a prepared frozen raw diet. These are nutritionally balanced and easy to serve in portioned quantities. They're convenient, too - the only preparation is thawing! It's an easy way to feed a great diet without much hassle. Even better: the diets are don't require any additional supplementing, and are suitable for sole feeding.

Frozen raw food diets from Vital Essentials are available at Dancing Paws!