The more I’ve learned about the meat used in pet food, the more I’ve come to admire commercially produced frozen raw diets for dogs. The meat and poultry used in most of these diets are far fresher and more wholesome – far more like what most of us would think of as “meat” – than most animal protein ingredients in dry (or even canned) pet foods. The products tend to produce terrific results in the dogs who consume them. Whether this is due to the ingredient quality or the fact that this type of diet is more biologically appropriate for canines than dry foods is anyone’s guess. My guess is that both factors contribute to the success of the products.

A brief history of frozen raw diets for dogs

Before there were frozen raw diets, there were home-prepared raw diets. For decades, certain populations of dog owners fed their dogs diets that were largely comprised of raw meats or fish – namely racing Greyhound owners (in the case of the former) and sled dog owners (latter). But few average dog owners in this country had even heard of raw diets until the 1993 publication of Give Your Dog a Bone, a call to arms written by Australian veterinarian Ian Billinghurst.

The longer he practiced veterinary medicine, Dr. Billinghurst recounts in the book, the more he became aware that the dogs (and cats) he saw in his practice were less fit and healthy than the pets he grew up with. How could that be, given all the wonders of modern veterinary care and “complete and balanced” pet food at owners’ disposal?

Long story short, Dr. Billinghurst came to believe that it was all about diet. Australians embraced commercial pet food more slowly than Americans did, so when he was a kid, most people fed their pets the way humans have for hundreds of years: on scraps from the family’s kitchen, including (most importantly) raw meaty bones. The dogs and cats of his youth were fit, not fat; they had nice clean teeth and fresh breath; and their poop was small and inoffensive.

During the period that Billinghurst spent in college, vet school, and his early years in practice, however, Australian pet owners (including Dr. Billinghurst himself!) embraced the convenience of commercial kibble. It took the veterinarian some time in practice to develop the perspective to see what was right in front of him: that the overall condition of the pets he saw was declining. They had far more skin and coat problems than the pets of his youth, digestive issues were rife, and the state of their teeth! Ack!

After experimenting with the diets of his own pets (and eventually his clients’ pets, too), Billinghurst concluded that dogs (and cats) do best when fed a biologically appropriate diet. For dogs, he determined that ideal diet to be comprised mostly of raw, meaty bones, which provide most of the protein, fat, and minerals needed by the dog, with supplemental amounts of other foods (organ meat, grains, vegetables, fruit, dairy, eggs) providing the balance of nutrients needed.

Billinghurst’s book offered only rough guidelines – but tons of encouragement – for switching a dog to a home-prepared raw diet. He implored dog owners to give the diet a try and see for themselves whether their dogs’ health improved.

Billinghurst’s concepts made sense to many dog owners, and many began their own experiments with “BARF” (bones and raw food or biologically appropriate raw food) diets.

As raw feeding became more popular, various approaches developed. Some people, uncomfortable with feeding whole bones to their dogs, grind raw meaty bones into a pulp before feeding them, while others use alternate sources of dietary calcium. Some people use grains or other carbohydrate sources; others spurn the use of carbs altogether. Then there are the “prey model” people, who try to reconstruct, as closely as possible, the type of diet they imagine that wild dogs would consume. They often eschew the inclusion of grains, fruit, and vegetables (and indeed, many supplements), except as occasional treats, relying almost solely on raw meaty bones and organ meat to feed their dogs.

Commercial sources evolve

As the population of raw feeders grows, commercial enterprises have emerged to serve them with a variety of prepared raw diets. Freezing the products is necessary, so the foods can be safely shipped direct to owners or to retail outlets.

Today, there are products available for every type of raw feeder: “complete and balanced” diets and ones meant for supplemental or intermittent feeding only; products that include bone and ones that use another calcium source. Frozen raw diets are available at a wide range of price points; just as with more conventional pet foods, the price tends to (but might not, depending on the company’s size and marketing budget) correlate with the quality and provenance of the ingredients.

Some companies produce foods for a very local market – retail stores in a few counties or a single state. Others have been able to grow their production and distribution to the national level; often these companies have piggybacked their raw frozen diets on the success of their other types of pet foods or treats.

The distribution of frozen foods, particularly in a small market, is challenging. Obviously, trucks equipped with freezers are needed to move product around the country. Most companies that use retail outlets have had to help retailers purchase special glass-front freezers that safely store and attractively display their products.

Companies that ship their products directly to consumers have to consider all the uncertainties that go along with using package delivery services, such as delays that are out of their control due to weather. Most ship only on Mondays or Tuesdays, so there is no chance that frozen products thaw on some truck over a weekend somewhere. To do this, they coordinate their ingredient procurement, production, and shipping schedules, so they have enough product to ship early in the week; even a half-day’s delay can mean that some shipments can’t go out for another week.

Ingredient quality and other considerations

As a rule (there are always exceptions) raw frozen diets usually contain extraordinarily fine, fresh ingredients. Maybe it’s because frozen raw products are the least-processed of all the types of commercially produced foods you can buy for your dog, and you can see the ingredients with your own eyes (and smell the freshness or lack thereof); they haven’t been altered into anonymity by processing. Or maybe it’s because this entire segment of the pet food industry is aimed at owners who are seeking out the healthiest diet possible for their dogs – owners who are independent enough that they have not been frightened away by tales of deadly bacteria.

Really, it’s only in this niche that you see so many pet food companies using only grass-fed animals who were humanely slaughtered, and locally sourced organic produce. That’s amazing!

The thing is, it’s not absolutely necessary. Even the products that use fresh or fresh-frozen meat from conventional sources are way ahead of the curve, quality wise, than manufacturers of conventional dry or canned pet foods. You simply can’t make a safe, good-looking, fresh-smelling raw frozen product out of oxidized old meat scraps and compete in this niche. (Through the magic of rendering and extrusion or canning, you can, however, use pretty funky protein sources to make safe and appealing kibble or canned food; it’s done all the time!)

High quality ingredients; raw, biologically appropriate nutrition; and the convenience of a commercially prepared, complete and balanced diet are the factors that bring some dog owners to this type of food. There are, however, a couple of things that may drive others away.

One is the potential for a fat content that is much too high for some dogs. Diets that contain only meat, organ meat, and ground bone obviously contain no carbohydrates, so their protein and fat totals will be high. It’s possible that these diets will be too calorically dense for some dogs, especially inactive or older dogs. In this case, owners should seek out products that contain one or more carbohydrate sources and a lower fat content.

It’s the fear of pathogenic bacteria, however, that scares the most people away from considering a raw diet.

The bacteria issue

For years, bacterial contamination of meat – and especially poultry – was the most potent tool that veterinarians who were opposed to raw feeding could use to try to dissuade dog owners from trying these “radical” diets. It’s not enough, they warned, that you might make your dog sick; you could also sicken your entire family – and even kill a vulnerable family member – by having a bacteria-infested raw meat product in the house.

Today, most of us are aware that even the poultry purchased from your upscale supermarket for your own consumption is more than likely contaminated with Salmonella; the bacteria is that prevalent in conventional chicken-raising and ‑slaughtering operations. According to an article published in the September 2010 issue of the Journal of Food Protection, researchers from USDA and the University of Maryland mapped the distribution of Salmonella on young chicken carcasses. They found Salmonella on 57 percent of the carcasses (which they obtained in various retail locations over a three-year period). Of the contaminated carcasses, almost 83 percent had more than one strain of Salmonella present.

Other bacterial pathogens commonly found on meat include Escherichia coli (E. Coli) and Clostridium difficile (often called C. difficile or “C. diff”).

Good, basic kitchen sanitation and food-handling practices – and cooking – is what saves us humans (most of the time) from becoming sick from bacteria that’s on the meat and poultry we consume at home. People with immune-system disorders should avoid handling, or take extraordinary precautions when handling raw meat, whether the meat is for themselves or their dogs.

Very few raw-fed dogs contract infections from these common bacteria; the overwhelming majority of healthy dogs are able to combat the pathogenic challenge presented by these common bacteria.

However, raw diets are not recommended for dogs who are immune-compromised or receive immune-suppressant medications Other poor candidates for a raw diet include dogs who are weak or debilitated with chronic illness, dogs with inflammatory bowel disease, or dogs who have suffered from pancreatitis.

What about the risks to humans from the pathogenic bacteria shed in the feces and saliva of raw-fed dogs? As author CJ Puotinen explains in “Are Raw-Fed Dogs a Risk?” (WDJ July 2010), though it is possible for people to become infected with and get sick from pathogenic bacteria shed by their dogs, it doesn’t appear to happen any more frequently to owners who feed their dogs raw diets than to owners who feed dry dog food. In any case, zoonotic infections of all kinds can be prevented with basic infection control practices such as frequent hand-washing, especially after handling pet food, pet dishes, and pet feces. (See “Employ Common Sense and Basic Sanitation Practices,” below.)

Treated products

All of the companies that make their living by selling raw frozen diets take steps to buy wholesome ingredients, process them in a safe and sanitary manner, following a formal Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP, prounounced “hassip”) plan, protect them during freezer storage and shipment, and educate their consumers about the risks and benefits of feeding raw. But a few companies have taken additional steps to reduce or eliminate the risk to consumers caused by pathogens in their products: they treat their raw ingredients to kill any pathogens present. There are a few methods available for this purpose.

Most common among the producers of raw meat diets for dogs is a process that’s alternately called hydrostatic high pressure (HHP), high pressure processing (HPP), or Pascalization (after Blaise Pascal, a 17th century French scientist who experimented with the effects of pressure and vacuum). This process destroys or inactivates any organisms present in the food, without the use of heat.

According to a fact sheet published by the Ohio State University Extension, high pressure processing causes minimal changes in the fresh characteristics of foods: “Compared to thermal processing, HPP results in foods with fresher taste, and better appearance, texture and nutrition. High pressure processing can be conducted at ambient or refrigerated temperatures.”

In these high pressure processes, packaged food products are immersed in water and subjected to extremely high pressure; the water bath ensures that the pressure is equal on all sides, so the food product is not crushed as a result. (Imagine that you’ve dropped a grape into a full bottle of water; screw the top back on the bottle, and tightly squeeze the bottle. The grape can be subjected to tremendous pressure without deforming, because the pressure is equal on every aspect of the grape.)

Although relatively new, HPP is already commonly used to sterilize a variety of human foods, including fish, shellfish, fruit juices, jellies and jams.

A niche divided

Of all the methods available to treat raw meats to inactivate pathogens, including irradiation and ozone, high pressure processing seems the least likely to cause controversy. However, its use has sharply divided the raw diet producers. Some we spoke with embraced the technology as safe and natural (since nothing is added to the food); others voiced concerns that the pressure alters the molecular structure of proteins, and affects the food’s enzymes, vitamins, and essential fatty acids.

Every meat-based business is concerned about pathogens. But the defensive postures held by individual companies vary. Some put their trust in mainstream human food industry mechanisms and processes; if it’s good enough for human food, they reason, it’s good enough for dogs.

Other players have focused on alternatives to conventional agriculture and its practices – the naturally fed, humanely slaughtered, “slow food” approach. This is appealing to consumers who favor a natural, holistic approach to health, but these operations are necessarily small-scale, so their products tend to be very expensive.

Still others have embraced a science-based set of solutions, relying on lab tests of ingredients and of every batch of product; in this sort of “test and hold” model, a company releases no product until it’s tested negative for any pathogens. This approach is admirable in an age where pathogens are prevalent in the mainstream (human) food supply; it’s also expensive.

In the end, it’s up to you. Raw food products that have been treated to inactivate pathogenic bacteria are a useful option for some owners. Treated products may be especially appreciated by owners who are concerned about pathogens for the protection of a vulnerable family member or simply to win the support of a veterinarian who is opposed to raw diets. In contrast, natural food purists will probably shy away from diets that are pasteurized by any means whether or not there is credible evidence that the treatment method could be harmful. Consumers have to find their place on the continuum.

Selection criteria

On our list of top-quality products on the next pages, we’ve included only the companies that offer complete and balanced diets and are able to support either national distribution or, at least, distribution to a large segment of the country. Next month, we’ll present a list of additional companies that sell frozen raw diets that are meant for supplemental or intermittent feeding.

If we’ve missed your favorite maker of a complete and balanced raw frozen diet, just check to see if its products meet our selection criteria; if they do, rest assured that the diets are just as good as the products on our list. Here is our list of selection criteria for raw, frozen diets:

• A named, whole animal protein (such as chicken, beef, pork, duck, etc.) at the top of the ingredients list. No “generic” proteins (such as “meat” or “poultry”). No by-products.
• A good source of calcium. If raw, meaty bones are not used as the calcium source, another source will be needed to make the diet “complete and balanced.”
• Every other food ingredient (such as fruits or vegetables) should be whole and fresh; any grains present may be cooked but should be whole. No low-quality grain by-products (such as “cereal food fines”).
• More information about the food than the minimum required by law. The guaranteed analysis (GA) that is required on every pet food label need only contain the amount of protein, fat, moisture, and fiber found in the food. We feel most comfortable with products from companies who are able to share the complete nutrient analysis for their products. How can we feel confident that our dog is receiving “complete and balanced” nutrition if the maker can’t tell us how much calcium or phosphorus is in its food?
• No added preservatives. These aren’t needed in a frozen food.
• No artificial colors. These shouldn’t be present in any pet food!

Selecting a product

With so many good frozen raw diets on the market, how should you select the right one for your dog?

• Price and local availability will undoubtedly limit your options. Some of these products are pretty costly. It’s no wonder; they are made out of very expensive ingredients! Products that can be purchased in local retail stores are generally (but not always) less expensive than direct-shipped products. Direct-shipped products might be the only option for those of us who live far from stores that carry raw frozen diets. Only you know how much you can afford.
• Check to see make sure that it’s fresh! All frozen foods are more nutritious and appealing if they are thawed and consumed sooner rather than later. Look for a “best by” date; if the date/code lacks a date of manufacture, contact the company to learn the actual date of manufacture. Some companies suggest their products have a frozen shelf life of up to a year. Others aim to have their products consumed within three or four months of manufacture. If your preferred retailer doesn’t sell enough product to keep their stock fresh, ask if they can better manage their inventory. Otherwise, you may have to find another source – perhaps a company that ships product directly to you.
• Look for ingredients that suit your dog. Of course you’ve checked the ingredient list for quality; now examine it for any foods that don’t agree with your dog. If he’s allergic to or intolerant of certain proteins or grains, you need to make sure they are not in there.
• Check the fat content. These foods can be extremely high in fat. That might be fine if your dog is an active athlete, but potentially dangerous for a dog prone to pancreatitis, as one example.
• Decide whether you feel most comfortable with a pasteurized product or an untreated one. We’ve not seen studies that would lead us to avoid foods treated with a high pressure pasteurization process. But we also feel comfortable with feeding our dogs raw products from companies that use top-quality, naturally raised meats. You have to go with your own gut on this one.
• Switch it up. We don’t like to see any animal being limited to a static diet, comprised of nothing but the same protein for months or years . . . That’s a great way to help your dog develop a vicious allergy to that protein, by the way. Instead, rotate among a variety of foods that contain different proteins. (That said, don’t go out of your way to buy, in turn, diets that contain every protein available to pet food makers. Avoid a number of novel proteins so you can use them if you ever need to put your dog on an elimination diet to help diagnose a food allergy.)

Complete and Balanced Raw Frozen Diets

You know you’ve been feeding raw for a long time when it no longer seems like a radical, ground-breaking, or – ubiquitous adjective for beginners – scary way to feed.

When I started feeding raw – a dozen years and three generations of Rhodesian Ridgebacks ago – it was the Middle Ages of raw feeding. Ian Billinghurst’s Feed Your Dog a Bone was the hard-to-find illuminated manuscript (the lax editing could have stood some sprucing up by Benedictine monks), and everyone used the unfortunate acronym BARF, which stood for “bones and raw food” (or, later, the loftier-sounding “biologically appropriate raw food”). No commercial raw diets were available, and new converts dutifully ordered their Maverick sausage grinders over the Internet. The instruction booklet said the table-top grinder couldn’t be used on any bones harder than chicken necks or wings, but everyone ignored that. I can still remember the painful whirring of the motor, and then the crackles and pops as the thin ropes of ground meat and bone came out the cylinder.

Early days
Like many people, I started feeding raw reactively, not proactively. I had a new dog, my first show dog and first Ridgeback, who just wasn’t thriving on kibble. I remember setting down Blitz’s first raw meal with great fear and trepidation. And then – anticlimax – he didn’t choke, die, or even look at me cross-eyed. He ate, he thrived, and off we went and never looked back. Three more adult Ridgebacks followed, and dozens of puppies, who in turn had puppies of their own. All got their start in life on raw-food diets.

Back then (and still today), the Holy Grail of raw feeders was a quality meat source at affordable prices. Through local dog folk, I learned about Armellino’s, a butcher in nearby Huntington Station, New York, who was a wholesaler of naturally reared poultry – chickens and turkeys raised without hormones or pesticides. Joe Armellino was your go-to guy for a free-range Thanksgiving dinner. And he had turkey necks – dare I hope? Did I hear that right? – for a bargain 79 cents a pound.

By my second or third trip there, as I gratefully accepted my 10-pound bag of turkey necks, Joe asked me quizzically, “Are you starting a soup business or something?”

“No,” I replied with a chuckle. “I grind this stuff up for my dogs.”

And as I explained my feeding regimen – the noise, the blood, the guts, the time – lights started going off for Joe. Maybe he could buy a commercial grinding attachment. Maybe he’d order that BARF book. This was a bit of back to the future: His father, who had owned the business before him, used to sell minced meat for dogs.

Today, 12 years later, my dogs still eat at Joe’s. His business has gone to the dogs – literally – and his store walls are lined with dog photos, from Danes to Dachshunds, who get their sustenance there. Joe doesn’t do mail order, he doesn’t do any fancy packaging or marketing. He just gets the meat directly from the source, grinds it, puts it in 2- or 5-pound sleeves, freezes it, and then sells it to the steady stream of doggie customers who are now a major part of his business.

Passing it on
My puppies are weaned on Joe’s ground food mixed with evaporated milk at four weeks old. When the pups are around six weeks, I tell their new owners what I’m feeding, instruct them to order a good multivitamin and fish-oil source (for those nifty omega-3s), and have them stop by to visit Joe. (If they’re not local, many will invest in a freezer and schlep back for a food run every few months.)

I also provide them with a list of “don’t panic” points, including, “Don’t freak out if you don’t see your puppy drinking a lot. Her food is so well-hydrated, she won’t be constantly lapping up water like her kibble-fed counterparts.”

The three main problems with raw feeding for newbies are the time, the cost, and the learning curve. Joe solves the first two: His food is convenient (just thaw out overnight, dump in the bowl, and add supplements) and affordable (about the same price as a high-quality kibble).

As for the learning curve, I’ve fed this family of dogs for more than a decade. I know what to expect in terms of their growth needs. The biggest advantage to feeding raw is being able to control what you feed. (Which is the disadvantage to commercially prepared raw diets along with, frankly, price.) I am sure an Alaskan Malamute breeder instructs her puppy people to feed differently than I do, as would a Yorkie breeder. Our dogs, in their genetic programming, process food differently. So when my Ridgeback puppies hit 4 months, and their ears start doing a Sally Field (hello, “Flying Nun”) because teething is taxing their little bodies, I know to increase the calcium and fat in their diets, and I can literally watch their crimped ears flatten and their flat feet knuckle up.

Such breed-specific nutritional knowledge doesn’t happen in a decade, or two. I am fortunate in my breed to have a long-time mentor, Alicia Hanna of Kimani Kennels. She’s taught me how to reverse rickets in Ridgebacks; that’s what the above description is, really. And she drove home for me the importance of the old British saying “Half the pedigree goes through the mouth” – you really are what you eat.

Getting vets to buy in
Veterinarians are often the biggest obstacle to owners who would like to feed raw. And I understand why: They are worried about owners who will take shortcuts and compromise their dog’s health in the process, far more than any fear of salmonella contamination. (Your garden-variety smoked pig’s ear carries a similar risk.)

Any skeptical vet I have ever encountered has been put at ease when I tell him or her these two things: First, I know the source of my dog’s meat, which is raised as holistically as anything I can buy in the supermarket for my own consumption; and second, I understand the importance of having a calcium source. This meat has a more-than-adequate bone content, and it’s finely ground to the consistency of hamburger meat to mitigate any issues of perforation or compaction. (Supposedly, grinding the bones negates any teeth-cleaning benefit, but life is nothing if not a series of compromises. And that’s one I can live with.)

“Well,” the vet invariably says. “You’ve done your homework. But the average pet owner isn’t as conscientious.” Maybe so, but it’s my job as the breeder to instruct my puppy people on how to feed correctly. And there’s a huge piece of me that thinks the lowest common denominator is a terrible place at which to set the bar.

All this is not to say that raw-feeding doesn’t have its drawbacks. Last year, I almost lost a litter of puppies when they contracted enteritis, an intestinal bacterial infection, presumably from the constant licking of their very fastidious raw-fed dam. Desperately watching as my puppies faded, and unsure what to do, I put them on a liquid antibiotic, and they all rebounded. Now, all my expectant mothers go to a cooked diet with added carbohydrates for increased milk production about halfway through their pregnancy until the puppies are weaned at eight weeks.

It works, it works, it works
After that close call, why do I continue to feed raw, you might ask. Because in all the years I have been feeding this way, I haven’t had any major health issues with my dogs. They stay vibrantly healthy and look like a million bucks. The longer I am in dogs, and the more I talk with old-time breeders who themselves are becoming an extinct breed, the more I take this simple truth to heart: Health shows from the inside out. No matter how fantastic a pedigree, it can be ruined by bad nutrition and bad rearing. Common sense prevails: Dogs need sunshine, exercise, and good, whole, hydrated food.

Dog people – especially serious dog people – like to get all self-righteous about how they feed. It’s our way or the highway. I want my puppies to be raw-fed and I strongly encourage that way of feeding (just as I do minimal vaccination and pesticide-free landscaping), but in the end I realize I don’t have control. And I also realize that changes in lifestyle and economics also impact how we care for our dogs. In an ideal world, they shouldn’t, but who lives in an ideal world all their life?

My Ridgebacks aren’t the only litters I have around the house: My human kids consist of 6½-year-old triplets. When they were toddling, I was concerned about bacterial cross-contamination. And the cost of diapers and formula (I’m holistic, but breast-feeding triplets? – I’m not that holistic!) was beginning to make a real dent in our budget. So I began cooking the Armellino food, boiling it up in a pot with a grain source such as barley, to stretch it a little further. I did that for about two years, until the kids were bigger and could be trusted not to, say, lick the dogs’ food bowls or stuff fistfuls of raw turkey in their mouths.

But it wasn’t until I looked back over that time that I noticed some subtle changes in my dogs. They were still generally healthy on the cooked, carb-loaded diet, but I noticed an increased frequency of acute problems: the occasional ear infection or impacted anal sac, for instance. A homeopathic vet suggested I start a journal to note these little changes, and if I had followed that advice during that period, I’m sure I would have noticed additional “nickel and dime” changes that the cooked food brought – and not for the better. If ever I needed proof of the price we pay when we destroy the enzymes and nutrients in our dogs’ food by cooking it, there it was.

So, in my heart of hearts, do I think raw is better than home-cooked is better than canned is better than kibble is better than plasterboard? To be honest, yes. But do I think I loved my dogs any less by making the lifestyle and economic concessions that I needed to, when I needed to? To be honest, no.

In the end, what raw feeding taught me were the same life lessons we all take to heart: Never act out of a place of fear. Embrace common sense. (If whole foods are good for us, why should our dogs be any different?) Keep things simple. Act locally. (Thank you, Joe.) And master the use of the prepositional phrase “In my experience” at the beginning of any sentence involving a controversial subject like raw feeding. Because your experience is your experience, whether others agree or not.

Denise Flaim of Revodana Ridgebacks in Long Island, New York, shares her home with three Ridgebacks, three 6 ½-year-olds, and a husband.