The BARF diet? Sounds gross, doesn’t it? It’s not what you think (yes, it’s not the “vomit diet”). It’s an acronym for Bones and Raw Food diet or Biologically Appropriate Raw Food diet which has taken the pet world by storm. I recently made the switch for my dog (in September 2009) because he was getting unexplainable ring worm yearly (which was a pain in the butt to deal with, believe me!). Many pet parents have been making the switch from commercially prepared dog food (read: kibble) to raw food. So, how does the BARF diet work? The premise of the Bones and Raw Food diet is that your pet dog or cat has a shorter intestinal tract than us humans, and thus they are not meant to digest grains (such as rice and corn).
The main ingredient in dry dog food is corn meal. This can be a source of allergy for many pets. Grains are blamed in recent veterinary research to be the cause of a lot of disease in pets such as arthritis, diabetes, and cancer to name a few that weren’t present in dogs BEFORE dry dog food was introduced.
The reason I made the switch was because my dog was so allergic to I-don’t-know-what and I wanted to stop that in its tracks. I was also tired of having to vacuum like crazy and quarantine the poor bugger every summer when he had ringworm.
Some may feel that the BARF diet is $$$. It CAN be, but there are ways to make it somewhat easier on your wallet. Certainly, it is much cheaper if you have a small dog!
There may be stores in your city that specifically cater to raw dog food pet owners. They have already packaged meat (any meat you can think of, be it elk, rabbit, ostrich, chicken, turkey, bison, buffalo) that sometimes are pre-mixed with vegetables. All you need to do is chop it up into the portions that your pet needs. This is the convenient and easy way, though it can be pricier… ESPECIALLY if you have a big dog.
The key to save money on the BARF diet is, like everything else, practically is:
6
comments