Home(บางแก้ว): Wild Diet

I've researched raw and BARF diets for years and have been using modified versions of them. One thing that does concern me is the serious problems some dogs have with bone shards. I also study wolf behavior to give me some insight into dog behaviour, the Bangkaew have quite a few Dhole/Asiatic Wolf mannerisms. In my studies I found this passage that was rather interesting:

Quoted from:
The Whistling Hunters-Field Studies of the Asiatic Wild Dog (Cunon Alpinus)
By Dr. Michael W. Fox

Fecal analysis of 138 samples:

"Vast quantities of fur were present in many of the fecal samples in association with bone fragments, especially from fawns and small mammels (principally hare and occasionally, palm squirrel and field rat; one mongoose was also identifed). It would be highly adaptive for the wild dogs to ingest fur to protect the alimentary tract from possilbe injury, especially from the extremely sharp bone spicules from small mammels. Removing the matted fur that formed tight wads and balls around these splinters of bone was very difficult. Clearly, if carnivores in captivity are fed small mamals such as rabbits, the carcass should not be skinned but left intact so that ingested fur may form a protective bolus around any sharp fragments of ingested bone.

The compostition of successive stools passed by one wild dog reflected even more the animals' eating habits. Some stools contained little or no har, but mainly dark digested meat protien and occasional strips of partialy digested muscle and tendon. Other stools contained fur and a lower proportion of digested protien and bones. Bone fragments were never found in stools without hair. The dogs either purposefully ingest quantities of hair when crushing and swallowing bones, or in the process of digestion fur aggregates around the bone fragments and both are uaually voided together, seperate from the meat portion ofthe meal. Fragments of skull, teeth, claws and ocular lenses embedded in fur showed that small mammals were eaten whole."
Dhole

This makes a lot of sense to me, why wild canids aren't dying of pierced instestines like some dogs fed BARF diets. Now i just need to find a source for whole dead animals.

Amanda
Kyrie Siberians & Thai Bangkaew Dogs

When talking about Dhole or Cuon alpinus, it reminds me of Mr.Mha Bangkaew (Bangkaew Dog) who are keen on this topic, hope he will return to give some comments.

http://www.bangkaew.com/webboard/view.php?No=420

And as for BARF, it is interesting to hear that The dogs either purposefully ingest quantities of hair when crushing and swallowing bones, or in the process of digestion fur aggregates around the bone fragments and both are uaually voided together, seperate from the meat portion of the meal. Fragments of skull, teeth, claws and ocular lenses embedded in fur showed that small mammals were eaten whole.

Presently, I treat Dotcom with chicken raw bone with no fur or hair bought from the supermarket, maybe next time, I will buy a live chicken for him to chase and eat ( to see if he will swallow the hair together with the bone or not)

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Although I have just started raising dogs (three bangkaews) ten months ago with no experience before, I am quite interested in wild diet. I feed them with either fish or chicken once a week; two of them greedily eat it but the other one shows no interest in this kind of food. It is an interesting idea to give "Dotcom" a live chicken to chase and eat. In fact I also want to try the same thing with my dogs but I have no guts to see them eating chicken alive! A few months ago a full-grown peacock of my neighbor looked for food in my backyard, my dogs started chasing it, biting and pulling its feather. It was a violent scene and shocked me so much. It took sometime before my wife and I were able to barely save its life. Later my neighbor who raises a few peacocks told me that because the peacock was ill, it was not able to fly away. From that day no peacock shows up in my backyard.

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My dogs, Siberians & Bangkaew both have caught and eaten small birds, snakes and lizards. They've learned not to eat frogs and toads, but do still kill them if they come in the yards.
They keep trying to catch the armadillo that's been hanging around the kennels too.

Sounds like your neighbors' peacocks are smarter than the armadillos

I heard about a butcher for pets in Houston, TX that sells raw meat for dogs and cats and will leave the fur or feathers on for you. Next time I go and visit Jill Wolens (Barkarian Siberians & Bangkaew) in Houston I want to check that store out.

My dogs are fed a 75% kibble and 25% raw diet. The raw is from a freeze dried kibble:
http://www.olee.com/salmon_blend.htm
They also get a raw egg twice a week, raw chicken legs and wings and fruits and vegtables like strawberries, bannana, broccoli, apples.

Amanda
Kyrie Siberians & Thai Bangkaew Dogs

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Very interesting article , would you please kindly give the link of this full studied.

From my own experiences , mainly with GSDs , since I fed real barf from their weaning For quite a long time , I 'd never seen or come across such case of any dogs fed with REAL BARF , dying of pierced instestines . In most cases (which I over-heard) , they died of cooked(or half cooked) bones.. which were no real- bones anymore since the heat from cooking had already changed their natural properties .

Thanks.

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Recently on one of my other weboards a persons dog died from eating a raw lamb leg bone. It splintered and piereced his intestive and he died before the vet could operate. There have been other cases in the US also. Usually with larger bones (leg bones) and people not monitering their dog eating.

The book I quoted from I had to copy from the book, I haven't seen any web pages with the information. It is well worth trying to get a hold of a copy, very well written and the best information I've found on Dholes so far. I bought mine off of Ebay, amazon.com usually has them in stock also.

The author Dr. Michael W. Fox is a respected professor and veterinarian. He has written a number of other books including;
The Behaviour of Wolves, Dogs and Related Canids
The Dog: Its Domestication and Behavior
Understanding Your Dog

Here is one website about him and his work:
http://tedeboy.tripod.com/drmichaelwfox/index.html

Amanda
Kyrie Siberians & Thai Bangkaew Dogs

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Despite my vet's recommendation not to let the dogs eat bone, I still continue feeding them with fish such as mackerel or chicken with bone from supermarket once a week. However their main diet is regular dog food for the shelf. I have been doing this in the last five months. So far so good. No problem with my dogs.

Just like your dogs, my dogs kill and eat small birds, lizards and frogs but not toads. One of my dog learned a lesson from biting a toad which made his jaw swollen for a few days. However they still like kicking and tossing toads around on the yards but no eating any more! A week ago they just learnt how to chase a snake but could not finish it since the snake escaped into a wood pile. However I myself injured and caught the snake and let them play with their prey until its death so that next time no more mistake!

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Most of our native toads and frogs are somewhat poisonous, so the dogs will foam at the mouth if they try to eat them. They learn quickly to not eat them, but still like to kill and squash them. Then I get to scoop up dead toads when I clean the yards, yuch!

Sadly they have also killed a number of Texas Horned Lizards (Horny Toads) a lizard on the threatened species list in the US.

I have to watch out for snakes around here, we don't have as many poisonous ones as you do in Thailand but we do have Rattlesnakes, Cottonmouths, Coral Snakes and Water Moccisans. My Siberians and the Bangkaew have been smart enough to avoid poisonous snakes, but my friends' Siberians from Canada weren't. Two of her dogs were bitten by rattlesnakes while they were with me.

Amanda
Kyrie Siberians & Thai Bangkaew Dogs

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Thanks for you useful informations about the booksand the big bones , I also study and try to collect all documentaries concerning wolves and hybrids.

Your information about the barf-fed dogs died from big leg bones is already self-explained. I also do not feed my big dogs with big leg bones (such as cow or lamb) but only for puppies younger than 8-9 months just for their chewing pleasure , teeth- cleaning ,and jaw exercise....after maels.

Big bones are dangerous for big dogs because they have very strong jaws and teeth-sets(molars) which can break the hardest bones , just enough size for them to swallow through their big throat , but still too large to go through their digestive systems and cause serious pierced intestines.

This also depends on the individual eating-habit of each dog. Some of my big dogs would just have their good times enjoy chewing and licking aroung without breaking or swollowing . I give them sawn leg bones(about 3"- 4" in length) , so that they can lick the bone marrow from the inside.

BARF feeders must be well aware of the fact that way of BARF we feed our pets can never be a whole-natural condition . The best way is trying to get most useful informations as possible to ensure the safty of what we feed to our beloved pets. This is one of the best infos. for us ...BARF feeders . Hope to hear more from you on this topic.

Thanks again for the information about the books and website of Dr. Micheal W. Fox.

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I agree, you must use common sense when feeding BARF. My adult dogs get raw chicken with bones, whole raw fish and raw turkey necks and wings, but not other raw bones. I do use large smoked cow bones for them to clean their teeth with. But I only buy them from one person that very slow smokes all his products, in 14 years of using his bones I've never had one splinter. Even my most powerful chewers grind them down slowly.

I'm getting a few more books by Dr. Fox, this time about his studies with wolves. I'm sure they also have very good information.

Amanda
Kyrie Siberians & Thai Bangkaew Dogs

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Pingpong enjoys chasing and playing with dead-pretend mouse, but seems never like eating this kind of BARF, not to mention the fur and hair.

The mouse was trapped on the ceiling under the roof to provent them from biting the electric cable ,setting fire to the house ,and to let pingpong return back to jungle instinct.

Click the beneath link if the built-in media player don't work.

http://www.bangkaew.com/media/pingpong_rat2.WMV

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