If you read up on "holistic dog breeders", you will discover a whole society of breeders with the most healthy dogs you have ever seen.
And if you read up on WHAT goes into dogfood... you will never feed your "best friend" those things again....
Since i can remember, my parents ONLY gave our chows raw means and vegies (including corns etc in raw form), we have never had a sick dog in our time as breeders (30 years, until my dad passed away and my mom didnt want to continue). Our pups got show titles in rowfulls...
If you find the book called "Natural remedies for dogs and cats" by CJ Puotinen, you will see the difference in nutritional value and the results of years of studies, comparing raw meats / vegies and dog food brands (even the top brands).
I have a sharpei, reputed the most sickly dog breed on the planet, i have her on a 70% raw diet (i dont have the time to make it a 100% diet), she has had NO signs of the characteristic illnesses, no nothing... when i got her, she had bad entropian eyes, since i moved her to RAW, she has outgrown them completely, her skin conditions she had vanished within 3 weeks no medication.... I took her past her breeder last week (when i picked up the registration forms) and Linda was absolutely astounded at My dog's coat, behaviour (most sharpeis have a very bad behavioural problems), her general health, plus she is bigger than the other pups of the same litter.
If you are extremely scared of bacteria in raw meats, you can soak the meat in 5% Peroxide (H30) for 25 minutes, rince it off and feed it to your dog. The peroxide kills all bacteria and has added benefits of being cancer-preventative etc.
Dogs are made to eat raw meats, they survived for 6000 years before eukanuba arrived. I have never needed to treat any of my meats before feeding it to my animals, they have never gotten sick from it either... the enzimes they have in their stomachs, can kill any bacteria that can be found in meat. Cooking it kills all the nutrients that your dog needs, along with it being actually very hazardous....
I say its hazardous, because the way a dog's immune system works, causes cooked food (or foreign objects) to bring all the anti bodies in the dog's blood stream to crowd around the stomach, to protect the dog agains cooked food. Since the body only sees RAW foods as natural food, anything else you feed it, triggers this "defence mechanism". SO while the anti-bodies are trying to protect the dog from its supper, anything else can get past its defences. In RAW meats, not only does it not trigger this, but it also supplies the nutriens the dog needs to build antibodies against all the bacteria that can be found in meat, so meat will provide the dog of the anti-bodies to protect it against MEAT <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" /> (viscous circle gone the right way for a change)
As for hormones, THANK heavens the only growth hormones that is likely fed to chickens, doesnt have any effects on dogs (this has been a concern for years aswell - another reason why i prefer chicken to other meats for young dogs.
Antibiotics, even your dog food has that in.... to kill the bacteria in the fat they add to the dogfood. If the dog is healthy, the antibiotics will have no effect (in any case not any more than those in dogfoods).
If i find the files i have downloaded on dog nutrition (RAW diets vs. Branded foods), i will upload it, and paste a link.... i only have to go hunt through a terrabyte of unsorted files <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/evilgrin1.gif" alt="" />
