Puppy Culture Potluck: Ep25 - Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Raw Food? Raw Diets for Puppies - Part One

This week’s episode is a fan request on feeding puppies a raw diet:

My breeder uses and recommended Puppy Culture as a resource for my partner and I in preparation for our Toy Poodle pup that we'll be picking up in a week or so. We've completed your Puppy Owners Course, the Puppy Culture and Attention is the Mother films, and have started binging your podcast- love your stuff!

I'm wondering if you could make an episode on feeding dogs raw food. We plan to feed our pup raw (the breeder currently feeds raw) but it is a bit intimidating for people who are new to this diet! I'm wondering if you could cover a few things:

1. The science behind it / health benefits
2. Why you feed raw / how long you've been feeding raw
3. The dangers of it / how to avoid these dangers (proper practices for purchasing, handling and feeding raw)
4. Any challenges you've experienced / seen with feeding raw
5. Tips for starting raw diets - where to begin!
6. Whether the meat has to be a certain quality / where to purchase ingredients for homemade raw (I've heard that grocery store meats aren't safe because of their allotted salmonella/bacteria thresholds?)
7. How to handle raw treats (bones with raw meat) - do you have to clean bedding, etc. every time raw treats come in contact with it? Do you have to wipe down your pup's face/paws after contact?
8. Would LOVE if you could share some recipes for homemade raw food! Or other resources/recipe books on feeding raw
9. Whether puppies need special recipes or if they can eat the same recipes as adult dogs

I know a lot of this is google-able lol, but I've found that there is a lot of fear-mongering around feeding raw (from both owners and vets) so I wanted to reach out and see what your thoughts are!

There were too many great questions here to fit them all into one episode, so I’m doing this in two parts - In this episode, which is part one, I talk about:

• Why we feed raw to our dogs and our experience with feeding raw for the past 26 years
• The challenges of raw food and why some people are understandably more comfortable with kibble
• Tips and resources for getting started feeding raw without losing your mind - it’s easier than most people make it out to be!

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