Carnivore vs. Omnivore
In figuring out an optimum diet for the dogs, I've come across several dog professionals and mentors that are tied up on one question:
Are dogs omnivorous or carnivorous?
I've done more studying on canine nutrition than I ever planned on doing since not relying on kibble, and I've come to a 99.99% positive conclusion that they are omnivores. I feel that they tend to thrive when given a meat based diet supplemented with vegetation. Therefore, omnivore. So, I've been creating both raw and home cooked diets based on this fact. But getting support from those I rely on to give me the answers I do not know, well, they are split, right down the middle. It has become a heated debate between our vet and a raw feeder that I had come to know through a yahoo group (we use the same vet)
So, I'm kind of interested, what do you all think? and WHY?
Are dogs omnivorous or carnivorous?
I've done more studying on canine nutrition than I ever planned on doing since not relying on kibble, and I've come to a 99.99% positive conclusion that they are omnivores. I feel that they tend to thrive when given a meat based diet supplemented with vegetation. Therefore, omnivore. So, I've been creating both raw and home cooked diets based on this fact. But getting support from those I rely on to give me the answers I do not know, well, they are split, right down the middle. It has become a heated debate between our vet and a raw feeder that I had come to know through a yahoo group (we use the same vet)
So, I'm kind of interested, what do you all think? and WHY?
Comments
Sadly, I'm of no help - I wish I was!!! But I'm very interested to know everyone's opinions on this!
(If you ever have a dance question or need to know how to make killer fake-out wet burritos... come my way!)
I'm so confused now lol
[ & Kaddy; fake-out wet burritos...wth? lol
(Don't want to hijack (yet another) thread - so I'll post a link to the recipe later ;o)
Just as the breed standard for the Shiba calls for moderation, I think that whatever you chose to feed should not be too much of one thing but well balanced. Also, if you discuss meat vs mixed, I think with the primitive breeds at least it might be more beneficial to try and feed them a diet closer to what was traditionally eaten and what helped make them what they are. Traditional diets for Japanese dogs are thought to have consisted of a mixture of seaweeds, fish scraps, rice, a type of sweet potatoe, a type of cabbage, veggies de jour and whatever animals were hunted (pheasant, deer, boar, rabbit). I know at least with Shibas, they are very resourcefull and good at making use of what little food they take in.
I think some breeds are better off with more protein, some require less and ideally people would feed an omnivorous diet. Dogs are carnivores by definition but they have been domesticated for so long (except the primitive breeds), there is no reason to assume they wouldn't thrive on a balanced omnivorous diet. I would say that primitive breeds (Nihon Ken, Dingo, New Guinea Singing Dogs, Pariah dogs, Carolina dogs) should probably have more protein and veggies than grains.
What does everybody else think? Any thoughts about the Primitve Breeds having different dietary requirements than your casual mixed breed?
A carnivore wouldn't eat anything but meat.
I don't really think grain should be in a dogs diet because in the wild they wouldn't really eat grain - having said that, I don't think good quality whole grain would really hurt them as long as they are not allergic.
----
My only additional comment to what Lindsay posted [which was great, imo] is that I would bet for the "Shika Inu" [medium sized Nihonken] eat more boar (and maybe deer) than other proteins due to the fact they were used to hunt those animals.
I also agree that a more primitive dog would probably benefit more from a diet closer to their native land's diet compared to other less-primitive breeds - but, realisticlly, of the 6 "native" Nihonken the Hokka is the only breed that is not a "reconstructed" breed or was not mixed with other breeds in the beginning so the other Nihonken are very far removed from the indigenous dogs of Japan.
Also keep in mind that the Shikoku, Kai, and Kishu came from mountainous regions where there was not a great deal of fish - if the people used their dogs to hunt boar then I feel pretty confident that the majority of the protein the dogs got would be the leftovers of the hunt.
I personally think the protein levels you feed a dog should be based more on the breed "type" and the energy level of the dog and not as much the origins of its breed.
----
We will be adding a LGD to our pack to help with our Coyote issues. The specific breed we will be getting has been in existence for 6000+ years, practically unchanged, and is still used very similar to the way they were used back 6000 years ago by shepherds.
I was chatting with the breeder of our LGD and food came up, when I told her what we feed our dogs [Orijen + RAW] she reacted in the opposite way you would expect.
She said that because these dogs have survived for years off rodents, bread, and goats milk if you feed them a diet to higher in phosphates, calcium and good quality protein then their bodies were designed for you will cause issues in the first 2 years of their life, during their growing period.
She basically told us to feed shit food to our LGD. This kinda messed us up as Jen and I are freaks when it comes feeding high-quality foods to our pack. BUT I couldn't argue with the logic, its seems to work... and especially since these dogs are still used in the same capacity as their origin and all the lines are of indigenous working lines.
So we are kinda stumped on what to do - feed our LGD a crappy food even tho it breaks every feeding value we have had for our dogs for years????
What would you do?
Keep in mind this breeder is a Biology PHD, so she is kinda hard to argue with. lol.
[ I'm keeping the breed a secret, so don't ask, you guys will learn when we have the pup. hahahaha!
----
That just sounds...strange Brad. If I were you I'd ask another breeder who breeds the same breed. < - did that make sense?
Doesn't hurt to get another expert's advice
That's what I meant to say.~
"Weaned LGD puppies should eat puppy chow until they are about 4 mos. old. Goats milk can be mixed in to make it tastier if available. Between 4 and 6 mos old, puppy chow can be mixed 1/2 and 1/2 with adult diet food until they are eating solely adult foodby 6 mos of age. Most LGDs do better on natural lamb and rice diets. Some do have food allergies. Often a dog food can be found which does not cause reactions. Never feed a dog maggot infested or spoiled food. Never feed pups raw meat. Dogs can be supplemented with cooked liver or stewed boneless chicken. However, too much will overbalance the diet with too much protein.
Dogs will often eat stock feeds. Snacking is not usually a problem. If they are eating too much, they might not be getting the nutrition they need, and things like urea found in some stock feed could make them fairly ill. They should not be allowed to eat hoof trimmings as the sharp edges could cause serious intestinal damage.
Some dogs (particularly ASDs) will supplement their diet with rodents and small birds. Rabies shots should be kept current."
From here
I believe you should trust your own instincts. The LGDs I know are fed crap food, but that's because their owners have never done research into quality food. They buy cheap and in large quantities.
Thanx for that tidbit... That's helpful - tho our breed isn't listed on that site. lol
Oh... wait... it is listed on the "rare breed" page. ;o)
----
That said, I vote omnivore --- both dogs we've had seemed to like and thrive on a variety of foods other than just meat, and I read that even the so-called wild ones (wolves, etc.) eat a variety of plant and fruit matter. Same is true of bears... You can tell it for real in their scat (woodsmans word for poop), which we are able to observe at our farm.
I found Brad's point about the "native" diet of a Kai (no fish/seafood) to be very intriguing. Josephine turns her nose and will not consume salmon or the salmon skin (I'm blessed with a brother-in-law who makes an annual trek to Alaska and then ships the frozen goods to us). By contrast, our former dog Joe, a MN mutt, loved the salmon and the skin. There you go... a mixed breed including the Husky and Lab, and you know that MN is the land of 10,000 ++++++ lakes...
Sorry this is quite rambling but my thought is that no single recipe will work for all our dogs, even though they are a variety of Japanese breeds. That's my opinon and I'm sticking to it!
Oh, & you might find this page helpful as well. [ the dog in the 2nd picture is gorgeous ]~
< / end thread hijack >
A dogs gastrointestinal system is designed to eat meat it is shorter than a Omnivores or especially Herbivores stomach as nutrition from vegetation is harder to absorb it requires mored time in the stomach, small intestine and it is believed the cecum plays a large role in digestion of vegetation so in animals such as a koala who subsist on a only leaves are herbivores have a extremely long cecum, dogs as carnivores have a very short one and intestinal track in general.
With that being said they still eat vegetation, they just cannot absorb it as readily as a omnivore or herbivore. In the wild for animals there is a very complex interaction that is not completely understood for food. Often we we try to reproduce the food for an animal we don't know everything that goes into it. In the zoo often you see a herbivore kill and eat a animal such as a bird, or in the wild recently even though Hippopotamus are known to be herbivores, they are developed only to eat vegetation, they have been found to steal meat from crocodiles and eat it. They are still herbivores but supplement their diet with meat. A carnivore doesn't eat just a animal it eats everything the animal ate and drank, so it is really complex, maybe one area where this wolf that eats a deer who drinks from a stream that has a certain mineral in it then moves to a different area where this is not the case and have to supplement their diet with vegetation. Especially in captivity it is difficult to replicate these things that we may not understand and some animals cannot survive in captivity at all because of this. Also sometimes it is for medicinal purposes, such as eating grass is a instinctual cure for stomach ills in dogs and cats by eating a indigestible material grass it scrapes the sides of their intestinal system and makes them vomit, helping rid themselves of worms. Cats also eat cat litter when anemic for the minerals. It is a really complex subject of what makes the brain decide what is appetizing and for what reason he body needs it. I know this was a long ramble, and probably does not help, sorry! but dogs are carnivores who eat and need certain supplementation by some vegetation.
You have chimps, that are mainly vegetarians, but will hunt down monkeys to eat (and it's something that's is kind of hard to watch). You then have wolves, that are mainly carnivores, but they will eat whatever they need to survive. Both these examples makes both the wolf and the chimpanzee omnivores, but obviously not the same kind of omnivore.
A "strict" omnivore (i know it doesn't make much sense, since omnivores are the least strict animals about their diet) or a "true" omnivore, I think, will eat "anything" in all circumstances, not only because there's a lack of a certain food at some point. They have evolved in a way that they will get by perfectly with a varied diet. A pig, a human, or a bear do not need meat to survive, a dog does. A cat does even more.
On the LGD thing, Brad, as you might know we have a few breeds of LGD in Portugal, even more that there are in that site. They have eaten whatever the shepherd would throw them to eat through out the centuries that they have been doing their jobs, and have lived their lives and adapted to that lifestyle. When an interest in those breeds as companions and house guards started to grow they started being fed "normal" dog food, and I haven't heard of any issue with these breeds and their new food. Of course what passes as "normal" or "good" dog food around here is Pedigree or Friskies. The number of people that actually know better food than that is vastly outnumbered I'd say.
I don't know what to tell you about the food thing, on one hand I'd trust the breeder, since she'd be used to the breed. On the other a large breed on crap food, that doesn't have all the nutrients balanced out as they should be can get issues with their bone structure and muscle development. I'm not sure what you mean by crap food, did she tell you to feed Pedigree?
I agree that dogs are omnivores. I feed my dogs accordingly (as I have already written many times and will spare you) I really have nothing to add that has not already been stated (and far more effectively than I would have been able to).
A lot of good information in here about omnivores. I knew what the cecum was but did not know it's effect in length for different types of digestion for different animals. The bit about looking at a dogs mouth/jaw/teeth is exactly right, it tells you right there what they are meant to eat, and what they can manage to eat.
I think part of the controversy stems from the fact that dogs are placed in ORDER (As in genus, species, order, family scheme) CARNIVORA, not to be confused with being CARNIVOROUS. (For example: Pandas are included in order carnivora, but they don't eat meat at all). In general, members of carnivora have diverse food habits. The "canidae-ins" happen to be opportunistic predators and scavengers. Coyotes, dogs, foxes, jackals and wolves are primarily mid-sized flesh eaters but they have a huge variety in diets actually. They eat carrion, small mammals, birds, amphibians, and the feces of herbivores that does contain plant material (Mine love horse poop!). Canine predators routinely consume the intestinal tract of large herbivores which contains plant material (how many peoples' dogs around here get super excited about tripe??) Both wolves and coyotes will eat plants (berries, fruits, persimmons, mushrooms, melons) when in the "wild".
Any large breed puppy should be MEAL FED...no exceptions. Never free-choice. Large breed puppy diets are formulated to have higher concentrations of nutrients in a food with fewer calories. Do everything possible to avoid developmental bone diseases and obesity. Don't supplement their calcium either. Diets containing around 1% calcium will adequately meet the growing puppy's calcium requirement.
Brad is correct...most working LGDs are fed some sort of mash (barley commonly). If the dog is lucky, it may be mixed with goat or sheep milk or yoghurt. Maybe an occassional egg. They also get stale bread, table scraps (including cooked or raw bones), and whatever they can get out of the garbage when they are in a village. Not exactly the "ancestral" diet that the dog food companies would like to you envision...
Primitive hunting breeds didn't get a fancy diet either. They can work hard on very little food, in a harsh climate.
That said, mere survival is a poor rationale to the fitness of their diet. Dogs (and people) subsist on diets that are far less than optimal but they manage to be fast enough to outrun predators and live long enough to reproduce. Not all nutritional imbalances kill...they just impair.
The part about looking at a dog's teeth make sense, but then it also doesn't make sense to me when it comes to domesticated dogs. Most domesticated dogs where selectively bred to preform some type of task and in some cases part of that selective breeding was to alter the size of their teeth. So looking at those dogs teeth will not actually tell you what they ate but will tell you what teeth the "designers" of that breed felt they needed to perform a task.
----
----
All omnivores have active bacterial flora in their small cecum and large intestine and can absorb short-chain fatty acids at this point but not vitamins, which explains why canines cannot get a max benefit from raw vegetation and most grains.
The raw feeders I know all argue on the side of dental structure to prove function and intestinal size to prove diet make-up. I can understand to a point, if you watch a dog eat a bone-in raw chicken thigh for the first time, its like they were doing it their whole lives, like its what they are meant to do.
These raw feeders also blame the veterinary and some nutrition communities for knowing what is best for a dog or cat and yet formulate cost effective foods that are mostly grain fillers. Have you ever looked at science diet cat food formulas? First 4 ingredients: Ocean Fish, Brewers Rice, Corn Gluten Meal, Ground Whole Grain Corn. Thats some carnivorous meal for an obligate carnivore! So if dogs are obligate carnivores, how are similar ingredients in commercially studied dog foods adequate or appropriate for them? They survive, but they do not thrive.
So I can see their point, clearly.
The veterinary professionals (nutritionists included) I know say dogs are carnivorous but not carnivores and that the differences in the shapes of teeth are functional adaptations, not a cut and dry reason behind the carnivore argument, that dogs are omnivores because they have adapted to become eaters of plants and animal tissue. Dogs can synthesize nutrients whereas cats (or carnivores) cannot. Dogs can obtain nutrients from the intestinal track of herbivores - I know this to be true, Tripe is a miracle food for us!
So, obviously, I can see their point clearly and live and practice what they preach because I can see the benefit of a 65% meat, 35% vegetation (little [high quality] to no grain) diet for the dogs.
SO, I guess this is an argument with no real definitive end? To each their own where the proof of validity is in the dog himself?