Have you ever noticed that dog owners tend to select one expert to follow in the area of nutrition and another for training? And they’ll often adhere to their personal guru’s program no matter what? Is it our unconscious dog-like loyalty, or what?
Many of our readers are already preparing their dogs’ food themselves, and generally, they are following the guidelines of some canine nutrition expert. We hear three names a lot – Dr. Ian Billinghurst, Kymythy Schultze, and Wendy Volhard are mentioned most frequently – and they are often being compared to the others.
However, many more of our readers have not yet sorted out the differences between the raw diets being promoted today. To help the readers who fit this description understand the differences between the leading raw food gurus, we present (via the links below) our own objective comparisons of the competing diet plans.
Interestingly, each of the three experts we spoke to had different foods on their lists of desirable ingredients and inappropriate ingredients – despite the fact that each characterizes their nutritional plans as recreations of a dog’s “evolutionary diet.” In other words, their ideals and goals are the same, but the routes they take to there are quite divergent.
Also very dissimilar are the personal styles with which our three experts approach the task of feeding dogs for optimal health. This should come as no surprise; each of these knowledgable people have strong personalities – necessary, perhaps, for buck-ing the commercial dog food establishment! Interestingly, their personalities are reflected in their diets, and their diets, in turn, tend to attract dog owners with similar personalities.
For these reasons, we couldn’t begin to rank these diet plans; it wouldn’t make any sense for us to tell you which one we think is “best” for your dog. In our opinion, based on our research and observations, each of the experts we interviewed has a viable and valuable plan for improving the health of your dog. But you are the person who has to plan ahead, purchase, prepare, and serve the foods to your dog; you have to approach the task with confidence, and take responsibility for the results. Choose the approach that makes the most sense and feels best to you.
Even more to choose from
Please note that there are dozens more raw feeding proponents who promote different “natural” diets for dogs, several of whom have also published books and articles and who frequently lecture on the subject. For this article, we decided to focus on the three people whose names we hear most frequently from our readers. We will examine some of the other leading experts in the field of raw diets for dogs in future issues.
For more information about the raw feeding experts discussed in the above article, refer to their books – each of which is available through DogWise (800-776-2665 or www.dogwise.com) – or the expert’s personal web pages:
Dr. Ian Billinghurst: www.drianbillinghurst.com.
Kymythy Schultze: http://home.earthlink.net/~affenbar/.
Wendy Volhard: www.volhard.com.
-By Nancy Kern
