Do you remember 10–15 years ago? If you fed your dog a home-prepared diet and didn't give your four-legged friend kibble, you were almost considered irresponsible… Today things have changed: people are moving away from commercial dog food toward raw food, meaning a diet based on raw ingredients. Loyal kibble customers are dwindling, or at least are being criticised by those who have embraced the BARF diet for dogs — which, for those who don't know, is based on the right intake of nutrients from raw meat, offal and bones. But is feeding raw meat to dogs actually good for them? Let's share some opinions on BARF feeding and try to understand exactly what it involves.

BARF Diet for Dogs | Introduction

First of all, we want to point out that you won't find advice here on how to follow the BARF diet — there isn't enough space to cover it with the precision it requires — nor will you find a verdict on whether it is excellent or poor, or whether kibble or home-cooked food is better. What you will find are opinions intended to encourage you to think for yourself rather than simply follow the latest trend.

It goes without saying that the choice of your dog's diet depends on your four-legged friend — that is, it depends on size, breed, and any food intolerances or health conditions they may have. It is therefore impossible to generalise or offer blanket advice; some people might misinterpret important information and cause harm not only to themselves but also to their four-legged companions, who are entirely subject to the dietary decisions made by their owners.

You will have no trouble finding forums, books or other articles on how this type of raw diet should be followed. We will, however, offer you one small piece of advice on BARF feeding: be very careful about what you read online, because not all the information out there is necessarily accurate — and losing your dog by following tips published by sources of dubious reliability would be truly tragic.

Raw Meat for Dogs

You will find an excellent account of the BARF diet for dogs in the books by Dr Ian Billinghurst, an Australian veterinarian and author of "Give Your Dog a Bone" and "Grow Your Pups with Bones", and in the book by Dr Tom Lonsdale, "Raw Meaty Bones".

But what exactly does the BARF diet involve? BARF feeding is a diet built on a very simple principle: dogs in the wild feed on raw meat. The goal of the BARF dog diet is therefore to give our four-legged friend something as close as possible to natural prey. The "dish of the day" will consist mainly of raw bones and meat, offal and blended vegetables, the latter intended to replicate the semi-digested plant matter found in a prey animal's stomach.

It is impossible to deny that the BARF diet is, in many respects, certainly better than kibble, which is often packed with ingredients our dogs would never encounter in nature — such as starches, wheat, maize and preservatives.

BARF Diet for Dogs vs. Home-Cooked Feeding

There are certainly two questions worth asking: Why have we always been told that dog kibble is the absolute best option, and that home-cooked food (the sole source of sustenance for thousands of dogs in the past) is unbalanced? And why, on this basis, have vets always recommended supplements for dogs in order to provide our four-legged friends with the right nutritional intake?

As for the first question, the answer may be closely tied to the enormous business of dog kibble — which largely replaced not so much a well-balanced home-prepared dog diet, but rather the practice of feeding scraps. As for the second question, the answer may be that for many years, a large number of dog owners always gave their furry companions the same meal, such as the classic rice, vegetables and turkey formula.

BARF Diet for Dogs: Final Opinions and Thoughts

If the pitfalls of traditional home cooking for dogs were linked to the difficulty of balancing ingredients correctly, it is worth asking whether the same problem might arise with the BARF diet — owing to the way its content is poorly communicated and the difficulty of following it to the letter.

It is no coincidence that not all vets agree on the effectiveness of BARF feeding for dogs — not because it is inherently wrong, but rather for medical and veterinary reasons, and perhaps because many people struggle to follow it correctly, to truly identify what suits an individual dog and what doesn't, and above all because when we feed raw meat to dogs, that meat must be selected with great care in order to avoid the transmission of various diseases, parasites and other risks.

While it is important to acknowledge that dogs possess the enzymes and antibodies needed to fight off certain bacteria, it is equally important to remember that domestic dogs have long since moved away from life in the wild — and what may not harm a wild dog, even when the meat is infected or spoiled, does not necessarily hold true for our four-legged friends, who are often pampered like little royalty…