Dr. Angie Krause (00:00)

Welcome back to Tails of Truth where we tell the truth about veterinary medicine. I'm Dr. Angie and this is JoJo my co-host and veterinary nurse extraordinaire. And today we're going to be talking about raw food for dogs.

JoJo (00:15)

Okay, I feel that this is one of the most controversial topics in veterinary medicine when it comes to dogs and diet.

Dr. Angie Krause (00:22)

Let's get on it. know a lot of vets hate raw diets.

JoJo (00:26)

hate.

Not just not quietly or covertly hate. Outwardly, shamefully hate raw diets.

Dr. Angie Krause (00:35)

Yes, and I hope in this episode, if there's any veterinarians that hate raw diets that are going to listen to just hate more, hopefully I can give you some more information to help you understand that you hate raw diets done incorrectly.

JoJo (00:50)

That's a great way to put it. And I wonder how many listeners have been afraid to try a raw diet and might be encouraged by this episode.

Dr. Angie Krause (00:57)

Maybe you can send this to your veterinarian. ⁓ yes. Let me talk to your veterinarian. Maybe they'll change their mind. Maybe they won't. But my hope is, that veterinarians can educate themselves about raw diets so we can help people do it correctly because no matter what we say, they're going to do it anyways.

JoJo (01:00)

Very fair. Right. Let us be the advocates for feeding your dog raw.

Mm-hmm. Maybe start there. Maybe start with the why. Why would someone want to feed a raw diet and why are you such an advocate for raw diets?

Dr. Angie Krause (01:31)

Well, I think most people want to feed their dogs raw diets because someone on the internet told them to. I honestly think that's the why for most, or maybe their dog has a diagnosis that feels like they feel helpless and so they want to change something. I think the other reason people feed raw is because they're really into a less processed diet for themselves. And so they're like, it's helping me. And so I want to do.

best thing for my dog. And there are a lot of people, veterinarians and not veterinarians on the internet saying this is what you should do. And so that's why people want to do it.

JoJo (02:07)

Right, and also

I think it feels species appropriate sometimes. It feels like the natural thing for the dog.

Dr. Angie Krause (02:13)

I know, which I kind of have a problem with that line of reasoning. When people are like, your dog's a descendant of a wolf. And this is what wolves do.

JoJo (02:18)

Yeah

Right, but I do think

this is a line of reasoning.

Dr. Angie Krause (02:25)

It

is, it is that it's a little bit flawed because your Chihuahua is very far. your, I know you should go back and listen to our breed episode where we talk about breeds we're scared of. so yeah, your Frenchie is, is nowhere near, you know, the genetics of a wolf, but I still recommend feeding.

JoJo (02:30)

I don't know, it's ferocious.

It's so fair, right?

Dr. Angie Krause (02:51)

your Frenchie raw diet if it's appropriate for them and for you. And while I love raw diets, I don't think all dogs do well on a raw diet because when it comes to nutrition, you just can't be that dogmatic and be successful.

JoJo (03:07)

even for just your own personal life stages, I feel raw can be appropriate at some stages in your life. But if you have young children in the kitchen with you, that may not be an appropriate time to be feeding raw.

Dr. Angie Krause (03:22)

Absolutely. When I had kids that were crawling and into everything, there was no raw food in my house. And because I didn't want there to be any chance of any bacterial contamination, which brings us to the reason why veterinarians hate raw food, not all veterinarians. Some veterinarians hate raw food because

JoJo (03:32)

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Angie Krause (03:47)

We're charged as public health officers to keep you safe. And we know when you feed a dog, let's say you fed them a raw chicken breast and it had salmonella. We have studies that show your dog's probably going to do fine with salmonella, not always. And it's going to come out. And when I say it's the salmonella is going to come out in your dog's stool live and infective, meaning.

It's ready to make you sick or your children sick. And for that reason, veterinarians are like, please stay away from that. And that's so understandable. So the next time you run into a veterinarian that says, hate raw diets, they're just trying to save your life. That's it. They want.

JoJo (04:30)

Right, right. And

I mean, do they see some dogs? There are some dogs that are going to have a negative response to a raw food diet if it's not done correctly. And again, I think we maybe we need to just start there with what is raw food done correctly and what is raw food not done correctly or incorrectly.

Dr. Angie Krause (04:47)

Yeah. Well,

I think there are two things that everyone needs to be looking for in a raw diet for your dog. Number one is does the raw diet. let's say you're buying it. Does it have a kill step and that kill step meaning is there some kind of process that's going to kill bacteria and viruses?

The pathogens that are going to make your dog or you sick, are they killing it? The most common way to do that in the raw food industry is HPP or high pressure processing or pasteurization, depending on who you're talking to. Basically, they kill these viruses and bacteria with pressure and not heat, so it's still raw. And this can be extremely effective when done well.

And so that's the first thing I recommend HPP. There are some other, I guess, techniques that include sometimes people use like lactic acid or something else. I don't recommend those because I think that they can be less effective and I will admit my own bias because I know less about them.

I've seen less companies use them and I've seen more HPP. So some of it might be my own comfort and what I'm used to. I'm open. If someone wants to educate me, let's have the conversation, give me more information, but I prefer HPP. So one, we want to make sure that company is doing something to kill the pathogens. And then number two, we want to make sure that they are balancing.

the food. So we want to make sure that they're using AAFCO standards. Basically, we have a lot of information that tells us how much nutrition, like how many vitamins and minerals and the amounts, minimums and maximums that need to be in your dog's food to keep them healthy. So we want to use that even if you feel like AAFCO standards aren't quite enough, they are what we have. And so I think we need to meet those.

minimums or maximums and that's like a minimum kind of standard. I said minimum a lot in that but...

JoJo (06:57)

That's okay.

So at a minimum, I'm kidding. So you're speaking specifically about commercial prepared raw food diets. These are diets that you can get from your local pet store or I mean, order online and have delivered to your home. Dr. Angie is not talking about the chicken that you bought at Costco.

Dr. Angie Krause (07:03)

Yes.

right.

right.

Yes.

JoJo (07:23)

This is a commercially prepared diet. And can you speak to that? Because you've seen the HPP process or the quality control floor of Stella and Chewy's. And I think that was a moment that you really woke up to this new understanding of how important that kill step is. Is that fair? I mean, I you knew it was important before, you saw it in a different light. I feel like you came back really excited about it.

Dr. Angie Krause (07:46)

Well, I think what I understood from spending that time with Stella and Chewy's is that probably not every company was doing it as well as them. And that's what makes me nervous about all the different companies and not knowing because HPP is important and a company can say they do HPP.

but what is their protocol and how are they testing? Like Stella and Chewy's test food and they don't ever let that food leave until they get the results. And that's why you don't see them recalling their raw foods is because they don't let the food get out of the door before their microbiology testing comes back. And I don't know how often anything turns positive that they would have to recall if they had let it out the door, but.

JoJo (08:14)

Yes.

Dr. Angie Krause (08:31)

I think that visit with them one solidified how much I love them and why I feed my cats Stella and Chewy's And two, it made me realize that not every company is going to have the funds or the control of their manufacturing process. So Stella and Chewy's actually owns its own manufacturing process. And that's very, it's not rare completely, but it's not as common. So

JoJo (08:57)

Right,

I mean that's a game changer that they have the capacity to do that.

Dr. Angie Krause (09:02)

Yeah, it really is. It really is.

JoJo (09:04)

But as a consumer of, if I am a consumer looking to buy a raw food, a commercial raw food for my dog, how am I finding that information of what their kill step is? Is that something that is public information or am I having to go and look and dig?

Dr. Angie Krause (09:21)

Yeah.

You might have to go to their website. They might be transparent about it on their website. and if they aren't, then you can ask them. And if they don't want to tell you, then you don't want to feed that food. They don't want to be open with how they're keeping that food safe for your dog. Then it's, it's time to move on to the next brand because it's not okay to have that be a secret.

JoJo (09:43)

Right, same with the AAFCO standards. It's pretty easy. They should be able to tell you very in simple terms, yes or no. It's been created to meet those standards.

Dr. Angie Krause (09:50)

Yes.

Absolutely, and if they're not transparent about that, it's time to move on. Yes.

JoJo (09:57)

Right, okay.

There are a lot of, I feel like raw food brands, there's so many of them in terms of, and I feel that maybe this is trendy or maybe this is for budget reasons, I'm not sure. But I feel that we see and hear more from people that are buying from the butcher or buying from Costco or buying out of the back of a truck at the farmer's market and feeding that and calling it a raw food diet.

Dr. Angie Krause (10:03)

Yes.

Yeah.

JoJo (10:25)

And that would be raw food done incorrectly.

Dr. Angie Krause (10:28)

Yeah. So if you go to Costco or any grocery store, I mean, I don't know why we're mentioning Costco, I guess, cause you can get everything in bulk there. Yeah. and so if you go to those grocery stores, that food, that meat has been there for a while because it's not intended to be fed raw to people. So the intention and how that meat is handled is that it is going to be cooked.

JoJo (10:34)

In bulk. I

Dr. Angie Krause (10:51)

And so it is laced with bacteria and that this is no shade to any grocery store. It's not their fault. It's just that that's not the intention of that meat. So we know that we're already getting it from a source, that it wasn't intended to be used for, raw feeding. So one, don't go to the grocery store and, and get raw meat for your pet. If you wanted to do it a step better, then you would have a relationship with.

a butcher and so that you could get meat slightly more fresh. I actually don't know the delay in when you can get it from the grocery store from when you can get it from the butcher, but they would know better, you know, how long it's been since that animal was slaughtered. And I think that that's really important when it comes to food safety.

JoJo (11:40)

Well, and if you're getting it from the butcher, you have a higher likelihood of being able to get some organ meat with that or even, you know, some, I would imagine you can get some bone in that. that's, I don't know what you're not getting from the human chicken, chicken breast that we're going to cook up and throw on our salad. Yeah.

Dr. Angie Krause (11:51)

Yes, I would imagine so.

Right, like if you

feed your dog muscle meat alone, it's not going to be balanced. But some people are like, I feed a third muscle meat, I feed a third organ and I feed a third vegetables or grains. Like that's also not balanced. It likely has too many minerals from the organs. And a lot of those vitamins that it has in there are

fat soluble, meaning that you can overdo that. So it is possible to do too much there and they're probably not getting enough vitamin D. Like there are a lot of things that probably aren't going well there, even though it seems like, but I'm balancing it out. But no, you're not, you're actually not balancing it out. And I don't recommend doing that.

JoJo (12:46)

So is there any way that as a pet parent or as a dog parent that I can feed raw without going commercial?

Dr. Angie Krause (12:52)

I mean, there is. Yes. I mean, you can use websites like balanceit.com. I feel like that's we've been talking about all morning is balance it.

JoJo (13:01)

what we've been recording diet episodes. yes.

Dr. Angie Krause (13:04)

All

morning. Yes. And I think that you can use websites like that and they will help you balance it. It's probably, actually, I don't know. I don't know how well their supplements would work for raw. Oh, I guess most of their supplements you add in after heating. So it probably would be fine. But you would need like a meat grinder.

JoJo (13:23)

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Angie Krause (13:27)

you would need to have something to make it more homogenous so that you could put the supplement in there. So I think it can be done and I don't want to discourage people from doing it. It's just harder to do and it's been done for you commercially.

JoJo (13:45)

Right, it is very, very expensive to go raw. It's, mean, if you had a 50 pound or over dog, I mean, you're talking a whole expense. It's a whole line item on your budget.

Dr. Angie Krause (13:49)

Yes.

Yes. Yes. And with the price of food right now, it's crazy. Yes.

JoJo (14:00)

Yeah.

Okay,

yes, but what benefit? Convince me that I wanna put that on a line item

Dr. Angie Krause (14:08)

Right. Well, in this economy, I don't want to convince you, but if you have it, because I want you to eat first, I do. Like I need you to eat because you're the one that takes care of your dog. And so if you're not eating, then you're not taking care of them. So if we're taking care of you and the family, we've paid the mortgage and you're, you have money to feed your dog raw. There are a lot of benefits.

JoJo (14:11)

Yeah

Dr. Angie Krause (14:32)

I see a lot of improvement in digestive issues going raw. And I think the reason that happens is because raw food moves through the digestive tract more slowly. So, and we have a few very small studies to show that dogs that are fed raw food versus kibble.

have a wider variety of bacteria and yeast in their microbiome. So their gut bacteria has more diversity, which we understand to be beneficial for health. And so it probably favors a better microbiome. And that's why we see such improvement. I see dogs with Cushing's regress, like their symptoms go away, their liver enzymes decrease. And that would have to be a low.

low carbohydrate diet, which most raw diets are, but not all. And your dog's poop doesn't stink and they poop less often. So that's pretty cool. And usually coat quality increases. A lot of dogs that will have like the runny eyes, I see that go away frequently. Like the tear stains, not always, but frequently. And that's probably a change in the microbiome.

JoJo (15:44)

Right. I think they tend to have more positive energy too. They just seem to have good energy. Which that makes sense. Yeah. If you're not experiencing some of the GI symptoms that can come with other diets sometimes. what kind of dogs are not good candidates for raw?

Dr. Angie Krause (15:50)

feel good.

I get really hesitant to put very senior dogs on raw diets. I am hesitant to put dogs that are undergoing chemotherapy that are on steroids, anything suppressing their immune system. I'm hesitant. I really prefer cooking for those dogs. so I think it's just overall easier for their GI tract too, but not always. Some people, even through cancer treatment, they're like, my dog's always eating raw.

and I'm gonna continue doing it and knock on wood, I've never seen anything bad happen, but that's just my preference because I don't like to take risks.

JoJo (16:35)

Is there more that we should cover? Are there brands that you really trust and like in the raw field?

Dr. Angie Krause (16:41)

Yeah, there are brands, but one thing I do want to say is that some dogs don't do well on raw. And they maybe vomit. Now, if you're feeding your dog a frozen patty and they vomit, it's probably because the patty was frozen. And so if you were to put like a frozen piece of food in your stomach, your stomach would not appreciate that. So sometimes you can notice that they vomit that way. But if your dog just isn't doing well on a raw diet because they don't all do well, it's okay. You can just let it go.

Not every dog needs to be on a raw diet. But as far as brands that I like, mean, obviously, Stella and Chewy's, I am a huge fan of them. And, you know, with dogs, we worry less about bird flu. so any of the brands, let's see, I've really liked Instinct, Small Batch, Primal. That's been good. I'm going to leave someone out that's been really good. Who else?

JoJo (17:24)

Primal.

sure, I know. I feel like those are the four big hitters in any small pet food store. I mean, we talked about Shine in an episode for cats and I do think that they do delivery as well.

Dr. Angie Krause (17:43)

Yeah.

So that's a local store that sells their own raw food and they do balance their raw food and they have incredible sourcing and we've, seen great results with it. They have some with grain. We have some, they have some without, mean, they've, they've done a really good job and over the years we've seen a lot of dogs do really well on their diet, but not all, not all. And that's okay.

JoJo (18:04)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, that seems like the scope of this is you may want to do raw. Definitely try it if you're wanting to. And it may not go the way that you planned. And it may go better than you planned.

Dr. Angie Krause (18:15)

Absolutely. and it,

it may go better. And if you, as the person in the house or anyone in the house is undergoing chemotherapy or is immunocompromised, it wouldn't, as a public health officer, it wouldn't be my favorite thing to do unless, you know, I mean, if I was, right now I'm feeding Stella and Chewy's and I do not hesitate to have Stella and Chewy's. I have two kids. They're not, they're not small kids. No one's crawling.

I do not hesitate because I feel so good about their safety protocols. otherwise, I really would not introduce a raw diet into a house that has immunocompromised people, just in case.

JoJo (18:56)

That and I think it takes an extra layer of ⁓ quality control, if you will, in your own home. So cleaning the dish sooner, right? I might be able to be a little lazy because I do a gently cooked, you know? So I might be able to leave that bowl on the floor a little longer, you know? Or the kitchen counter, like you're washing it. If you're picking up the stool that you're gloving, I hope I don't have to tell people to glove. I don't know how else. Or using a, you know.

Dr. Angie Krause (19:05)

Yes.

Right,

Well, we're turning

the plastic bag inside out.

JoJo (19:25)

⁓ yeah, turning the plastic bag inside out, totally. Or doing the claw, know, something that's not, yeah, that's not washing your hands frequently.

Dr. Angie Krause (19:28)

Yeah, picking up. Or the claw. Yeah.

Wash your

hands. You should wash your hands anyways, but I'm a total germaphobe, so I'm always washing my hands.

JoJo (19:39)

She really is. Like I had to learn,

I had to learn a whole new, new way of being when I come into Dr. Angie's house. Raising four boys, I was not a germaphobe.

Dr. Angie Krause (19:46)

Yeah.

Yes, I think with two girls I have been and it really cuts down on everyone becoming sick.

JoJo (19:55)

All right, I don't know, I kind of have the same theory on the flip side. That we get so exposed that we stop getting sick. I don't know. But yeah, so extra, extra care with your quality control and your sanitation methods. Yes.

Dr. Angie Krause (20:01)

No.

place out.

Yeah.

in your own home, but you should be doing

that anyways. And here is one thing I want to say like about raw diets. I know that I'm giving these warnings that like, if you're immunocompromised, be careful. That goes for any pet food because I'll tell you the number of recalls for kibble for salmonella is high. so pet food in general in your house, just be careful, wash your hands. So whenever my...

Kids touch any pet food. They know to wash their hands and I do the same thing.

JoJo (20:44)

I wonder if that's going to even if we're to have less information and less information about recalls soon enough, because we're having so much resources cut. Yeah, I know. It's just, we don't need to go there. I don't mean to go there. But I just know that we are have to be advocates for ourselves.

Dr. Angie Krause (20:54)

yeah, that's a whole episode.

We won't go there.

Absolutely. And we want to hear from you. Are you feeding a raw diet? Are you interested in feeding a raw diet? Has your veterinarian shamed you if you are feeding a raw diet? And yeah, let us know. And we have a bunch of courses in, I don't know, do we have a course catalog? Where do they live? They live on our website.

JoJo (21:24)

They live,

yeah, they live at boulderholisticvet.com and then you have to click learn more and then you'll see an option to click on courses and they all live in that beautiful space.

Dr. Angie Krause (21:34)

And because you hung out with us today, you can get a course for free. They're $97 and you can get it for free using the code truth tales spelled T-A-I-L-S or T-A-L-E-S. And we'd love to hear from you and we will see you next time. Bye.

JoJo (21:52)

Bye.