Choosing the best diet to feed your dog can be a minefield, especially if they are fussy. In this episode I discuss the main risks and benefits of feeding raw and cooked diets, along with some strategies for getting your fussy dog to eat!

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"I believe there are both benefits in raw diets and processed diets. However, my dog has a hard time being interested in his food enough to eat it and he struggles with keeping weight. I have tried all different mixes of foods so I was wondering if I could mix both cooked chicken and other cooked items of a raw diet into his daily ration of processed food?” - Justyce

• As far as raw vs cooked diets go, there is a lot to consider and certain risks and potential benefits everyone needs to be aware of:
  • Raw diet risks include - Parasites, Infection (a risk to pet AND owner!), a lack of balance
  • Raw benefits - nothing proven
  • Cooked commercial diet risks - Contamination, Formulation errors, Faddy/boutique diets are unproven
  • Benefits - Specific diets proven to be valuable treatment option in certain conditions
• Mixing cooked chicken and other cooked ingredients into a raw diet or cooked commercial diet is absolutely fine in my mind, and in fact, cooked chicken (or other meat) has fewer risks than raw meat.
  • One thing to consider is that adding a significant amount of "extras" to a commercial diet may have the effect of making it unbalanced. If fed as a topper though, to improve the palatability of a diet, this is really unlikely to be a problem.

Head of to the full show notes for more information and further resources

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