The Raw Diet

Feeding raw gives you 100% control over the quality and quantity of the ingredients that you feed your pet. You can rest assured you’re getting the best from Paw Prints.

Our carnivorous pets have evolved to eat the best possible diet for maximizing their optimal health, longevity, physical growth and reproduction. The raw diet mimics the natural diet that our pets are physiologically designed to eat.

Raw Meaty Bones (RMB) provide almost every nutrient dogs and cats need for health. Bones have the perfect ratio of calcium and phosphorous and provide nutritious marrow, iron, protein, essential fatty acids, fiber, enzymes, antioxidants, minerals and vitamins, all in a bio-available form.

Meat, such as muscle and organs, provides protein, undamaged amino acids, enzymes, antioxidants, vitamins, biotin, choline, folic acid, inositol, iodine, PABA, iron, pantothenic acid, fatty acids, calcium, copper, zinc, phosphorus, magnesium, potassium, chromium, sulfur, manganese, selenium, sodium and co-enzyme Q10.

Evolutionary feeding balances nutrients over a period of time and not necessarily at each meal.

BENEFITS OF FEEDING RAW

• Clean, strong teeth, fresh breath, no tartar build-up.
• Lustrous, thick and healthy coat. Skin problems disappear or improve.
• Immune System becomes stronger and inflammatory conditions and infections are eliminated.
• Degenerative diseases such as hip-dysplasia and others are prevented or improved.
• Stool volume decreases and becomes firmer, while overall odour improves.
• Arthritis improves as mobility increases and older pets gain a new lease on life.
• Lean Body Mass increases as your pet sheds unwanted fat. This increases your pet’s metabolic rate and healthy life-span.

RAW FOOD DIET FOR DOGS

Evolution has designed the canine digestive system to deal with raw meaty bones from the teeth right through to the anus. Teeth rip, shred, tear and crush. Saliva, which lacks digestive enzymes, lubricates the food and assists in moving it down the esophagus. Stomach gets food in and out in a short period of time and doesn’t store it. Short digestive system makes for a quicker transit time. Hydrochloric acid in the stomach is five times stronger than in humans (PH 5) and is specifically designed to break down raw bones and fats.

Digestive system is designed to deal with the bacteria in raw foods. Dogs as well as being carnivores are scavengers and not only tolerate bacteria but also require it. Dogs naturally eat feces, soil and buried bones and lick their genitals.

RAW FOOD DIET FOR CATS

Cats are obligate carnivores, which is evident in the design of their anatomy. Teeth cut, shear and move up and down, with no lateral motion. Feline teeth are not designed for crunching.

Raw meaty bones should make up at least 80% of the feline raw diet. Cats are not scavengers, vegetarians, omnivores or grain eaters – they are hunters and carnivores – therefore, raw meat eaters.

Cats have simple dietary needs and can readily live on a diet of mice as long as the mice are free of parasites. Unlike humans, cats do not make vitamin A, because the animals they eat have high levels of it.

WHAT’S IN COMMERCIAL PET FOOD?

Start with grain… The most fundamental component of the vast majority of dog food is cooked grain. Dogs and cats have never in their evolutionary history eaten cooked grain. The results on health are devastating.

Meat meal and rendered fat come next… Meat meal (with its damaged protein) and rendered fat from slaughterhouse material, restaurant and supermarket refuse, dead stock, road kill and euthanized companion animals together with flea collars and other dangerous chemicals such as euthanasia solution.

Add chemicals… Loads of refined sugar, salt, chemical colourings, artificial chemical flavourings, flavour enhancers and chemical antioxidants (known carcinogens) to make the product look like something it is not and taste like something it is not. This lethal brew is a major factor in producing degenerative diseases such as cancer, arthritis and a range of allergies and auto-immune diseases.

Now cook the whole thing… Cooking destroys the food’s nutritional value. All processed pet foods are disease producing simply because they lack biologically appropriate essential fatty acids. They are either not added in the first place, or have been denatured by heat during processing.

BOTTOM LINE… Processed pet foods (regardless of how premium they claim they are) DO NOT produce the lifetime of health promised by pet food companies. Most degenerative disease processes in pet animals are the direct result of a lifetime being fed processed foods.

Click on the link below to find out explicit details of what exactly goes into pet food and what those ingredients really mean. It’s quite disturbing. http://www.homevet.com/petcare/foodbook.html

DANGERS OF COMMERCIAL PET FOOD

• Carbohydrate content of kibble ranges from 40-60% and has been known to cause cancer, diabetes, skin problems, pancreatic insufficiency, obesity, arthritis, bladder stones, incontinence and more. Dogs and cats should be getting their energy from proteins and not carbohydrates.
• Commercial pet food is convenient, but lacks vital enzymes and vitamins due to heat processing, and provides a fixed formula with no variety. As food is heated, it becomes less bio-available nutritionally and may be harmful to health. Vitamins added back to food are in minimal recommended amounts.
• Commercial pet food promotes tartar development on teeth.
• Commercial kibble compares to humans eating only fast food and sugar-coated cereals with no fresh foods. Like our pets, we would live but our immune system and over-all health would not be at its best. Perhaps this would not be evident in young dogs or cats, but more so as they age.
• No scientist has ever seen wild dogs or cats eating grain or cooking their prey. THINK ABOUT IT!!!