Raw dog food

Raw dog food

Let’s look at the top raw dog food brands in Australia. But before we get to that, let’s cover some issues with raw dog food products and feeding tips!

There are many types of raw foods:

There are many ways to feed your dog raw food. Here’s two options: homemade raw or commercial raw dog food.

Homemade raw

You can feed your dog raw by making it at home with fresh whole-prey ingredients. It’s great if you know what you are doing, but it can pose long-term health risks to your dog. There are many complexities in canine nutrition. It’s important to ensure that your dog has all the nutrients they need for good health.

As an example, feeding your dog chicken breasts or minced beef every single day won’t meet all of his nutritional needs. Organs, bones and difficult to find stuff like green tripe provide the richest nutrition.

A second, less obvious example is the feeding excess liver. Although liver is an essential and nutritious organ, it can also lead to hypervitaminosis A, which is a form of vitamin A poisoning.

Commercial raw dog food

Many Australian-based companies are able to provide raw dog food products that have been formulated with the right ratios of meat, bones, and organs.

The term BARF is a shorthand for Biologically Appropriate Raw Food.

There is a wide range of quality in raw dog food brands due to lax Australian regulations and small companies that don’t adhere to standards.

Even the best brands may not adhere to the standards. However, it is not a major issue as standards are mainly in favor of the manufacturer and not the consumer. They merely offer ways to conceal the truth. This is because AS-5812, the Australian standard for pet foods marketing, heavily influences pet food manufacturers.

There are many great brands out there, and some are listed in our best raw dog food list.

Raw dog food products: A warning / BARF

One of my concerns with commercial pet foods, especially wet dog food and BARF, has to do with the fact that they don’t address dental hygiene, plaque control, or tartar control. Soft foods are not abrasive.

Wet dog food is worse than dry, as many of them are made with sub-standard ingredients. Commercial raw dog foods are made with ingredients that are more suitable for your dog’s facultative omnivore.

Even though the dangers to dental health are often overlooked in veterinary medicine, rotting teeth can lead to organ failure and heart disease. It doesn’t matter what dog food you give, it is important to monitor the health of your dog’s teeth. Plaque buildup is a sign that something is wrong.

There are many options for dental health, including dental treats (yeah! Nah), regular brushing (some credibility), and chewing on a bone from the meat (which is how wild animals maintain excellent dental health).

If you think chewing bones is a great option for your dental health (which it is), then you should also consider that you are doubling your calcium intake and throwing off the balance – I’m not sure how to answer that conundrum.

Human grade vs pet grade

The human-grade and pet-grade ingredients are the best indicators of quality in raw dog food/BARF products. There is a wide range of quality in Australia, with the former being harmful in many cases.

The toxic horsemeat scandal of 2021 was the last case involving pet grade meat. A consignment of poisoned horses sold by a Victorian knackery as “beef for dogs”.

Over the years, there have been many other problems such as metal contamination and excessive sulphite preservations that can lead to kidney failure in some dogs.