# Dehydrated Raw diet



## FrancoD13 (Aug 9, 2012)

Hello all,

I've been trying to do some research and can't find enough to make me happy regarding a dehydrated raw diet. We have a 2.5 year old male dog that has been struggling with food ever since we got him at 8 weeks. He eats everything, but he poops a lot. I mean 5-6x a day, and large amounts. It is impossible to pick up most times. We have tried everything. Oats, pumpkin, limited diets, and numerous brands and types of food. Orijien, TOTW, Fromm, Acana, Blue Buffalo etc. No luck with any of these. He doesn't have any symptoms of an allergy either. 

We then switched to a raw diet and it was perfect. No more issues. He loved it too. so excited to eat, poops were solid, small and less frequent. However we then had a human baby and the raw diet was too hard to manage. we live in the city, so feeding him became a challenge and it was a constant battle with the germs and contamination around the house, etc. So we switched back to kibble. Same old issues.

So now I want to ask about dehydrated raw. Is it good enough for the main meal source? Is it germ free? Anyone have any history with it or know of any places I can go to research a little more on this would be very helpful.

thx


----------



## einspänner (Sep 8, 2012)

I would suggest going to a cooked diet before I'd suggest dehydrated raw, but that doesn't solve sourcing/storage issues. My vet recommends this crockpot diet she developed and it looks like dogs have done well switching from kibble to that. 

I use a mix of Honest Kitchen and Vital Essentials, dehydrated and freeze-dried "raw" respectively, when we go camping or when I'm feeling a little lazy. That's what my local pet store recommended, but they also carry Sojos and Primal Pet Foods. Scout definitely does better on dehydrated raw than on kibble, so it's worth a shot. 

People can get salmonella from kibble too. In a way I think raw meat is safer because we've been taught to be really careful with clean-up. If cross-contamination is your biggest concern, dehydrated raw isn't going to solve that. I'd train Bryce to keep his food on a towel that you immediately pick up out of reach of baby or feed him in his crate to contain germs.


----------

