Barf Raw Feeding - Books and EBooks 

We have much to learn from the wolves

Wolves rely on their stamina and strength to survive. Any animal unable to hunt or compete with the others for food because of skeletal problems would certainly not survive. The free moving healthy looking wolves I have observed, appeared to have perfect bone and joint health. Why are the wolves - without the 'benefits' of modern veterinary technology, without truckloads of super premium dog food, and without calcium supplements - doing so well? The answer is very simple. They are living in a biologically appropriate environment in terms of food and exercise. They are getting what they need. They have no need of modern technology. By contrast our dogs are not receiving what they need in terms of diet and exercise. Despite our technology. .....our dogs are doing badly!

Let us go on and examine the lifestyle of a group of wolves. The lifestyle of any group of wild dogs. That lifestyle will show us the basic principles which we should use to determine how dogs should be fed and exercised today, for maximum present and future health. You will discover that such a diet is simple, straightforward, and uncomplicated. Just like the lives of those wolves.

First, the eating...
Wild dogs do not eat regular meals. Nobody plans their meals. Nor do they have an all meat diet. On the other hand, no one single meal is complete and balanced. Raw bones with meat are a major part of their diet. Lots and lots of it! In the winter they dig up and eat frozen food. They eat offal such as liver and heart. They eat raw eggs. They eat decaying material. Food that is slightly off.

They may eat once a day or five or six times a day, depending on the season and what sort of food is available. They have days when they go hungry. They have days when they pile food into themselves almost beyond capacity. They eat when food is available, and as the urge takes them. They eat a wide variety of foodstuffs. Insects, bark, soil, birds - complete with their tiny bones and feathers - whatever. Every meal they eat is totally raw. Not one skerrick of it is cooked. Ever.

They eat vegetables including herbs, from the gut of their prey. This vegetable material is raw, totally crushed and partly digested. They eat feces. A wolf's diet contain almost no grains. Wolves never eat cooked grain. In eating the intestinal contents of their prey they will eat some grain which is usually immature and green. Most certainly they do not eat a totally grain based diet like the modern dog, subjected to a lifetime of dried dog food. Even if their prey had been eating mature seed heads, by the time the wolf pup or adult gets to eat this grain, it has been ground to a paste and soaked in the juices of the herbivores intestines. A totally different product to the masses of cooked and processed grains fed to dogs today. Not only that, these few grains are mixed in with a mass of other grassy and herbaceous material.

For a wolf - not one single meal consists of dry dog food. They don't eat canned dog food either.

To learn more, consider one, or all of the books below. Good reading and great information!