BARF Diet: Probably The Best Diet For Your Furry Friend (5 Great Articles!)

Last Updated on January 19, 2023 by Kunthida

Table of Contents

How to Wean Puppies to a BARF Diet

Starting dogs early on a raw dog food diet will allow them to gain the most benefit from this type of diet. If you can get them on this type of diet from puppy-hood, that would be the best. That will make sure they get all the nutrients they need in a form that their bodies are fully equipped to handle.

That is why I strongly advocate weaning your puppies to BARF as soon as this becomes possible. When you wean your puppies, you actually start off with milk meals to wean them from their mother. This means puppies as young as 2.5 weeks old can already be started on this type of diet.

If you prefer to wait till your puppy is 3 to 5 weeks old, that’s fine too.

When preparing milk meals, you want to use raw or fresh milk when you do. Goat’s milk is preferred because it’s easier for the puppies to digest it, but if that’s not available, other kinds of milk like cow’s milk are suitable as well.

Aside from goat’s milk, you would need to mix some other ingredients into your puppy’s milk meal to make sure that it gets all the nutrients essential for its growth.

Typical things to add include eggs (without the shell), unprocessed honey, flaxseed oil, and yogurt. Some pet owners also add vitamin c and vitamin b supplements just to make sure. Put all of these ingredients in a blender and mix them well together before serving to your puppies.

When they’re just a few weeks old, you will need to feed your puppy by demand, which is usually 4 to 5 feedings in a day. Take your cue from how they nurse from their mother.

When your puppies are around 6 weeks old, you can begin looking for indicators that they are ready for solid food. You may notice the mother regurgitating her food and feeding it to her puppies. You may also notice that your puppies now have teeth.

When you see these signs, you know you can start introducing some solid food into your puppies’ diet. An ideal first food would be a vegetable mush that has 50% protein content.

Here are some key things to remember when starting your puppies on solids:

Make sure to puree or to mix the food together very well. This will make sure that your puppies get all of the nutrients that they need from the meals that you serve them.
When serving vegetables, avoid greens from the cabbage family as they can give your puppy gas or thyroid problems.
Avoid serving grains at all times. Their puppies cannot tolerate grains and you may end up giving them allergies.
Serve one kind of vegetable or meat at a time for about a week, before moving on to another kind of meat or vegetable. This is to help you identify potential food allergies.
Once you are certain that your puppies are not allergic to a selection of vegetables and meat that you have served them, then you can go ahead and mix those food together to serve to your puppies.
You want to strive for balance and variety over a period of time. You can achieve this by alternating the meals that you serve your puppies.
When starting your puppies on solids, make sure that you still continue to serve milk meals.
Animal offal or organs are a good source of protein and other nutrients that your growing puppies need. But make sure that these do not make up more than 10% of your puppies meals.

Introducing the raw dog food diet to your puppies will require a lot of attention to detail. A great resource on this topic can be found in Maggie Rhines’ book called BARF Diet Basics For Beginners.

I strongly recommend it for anyone who is seriously considering putting their puppies or adult dogs on a raw dog food diet. Click Here to Learn More!

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How to Switch To BARF Diet for Dogs Who Are Picky Eaters

Getting some dogs to switch to a BARF diet will challenge your creativity.

But you know you need to persevere because it’s for the good of your dog.

Fortunately, there are some tips out there that will help you help your dog adjust to this new and healthier diet.

Here are 7 tips from Maggie Rhines “BARF Diet Basics For Beginners” to help you encourage your pick eater onto BARF diet food:

1. Adjust your feeding schedule. Some dogs are more open to trying new food when they are on a set feeding schedule. Other than being used to being fed and eating at a certain time, you are also certain that they are hungry by the time you give them food.

Another way to improve your dog’s reception of BARF diet food is to schedule his feeding after a vigorous routine activity – say after his morning walk or a jog around the block. A good run will help him work up an appetite.

2. Regulate how much food your dog is getting. If your problem is getting your dog to finish his serving of barf diet food, you may want to re-examine how much food you are actually giving him.

It may be too much for him to consume. One way to help your dog finish his food and finish it quickly is to set a certain amount of time for him to eat. Say you only give him 20 minutes to finish his food. After that, you’ll take away his food bowl.

That way, he’ll be encouraged to eat his food and to finish it quickly. Another reason why you want to do this is that with a barf diet, you don’t want to leave food lying around. This will allow bacteria to grow on your dog’s food, which could cause stomach upset when your dog consumes the contaminated food.

3. Lay off on the treats If your dog is often disinterested in his food, it could be time to examine what food your dog is getting outside of his meals.

Does he get to eat when he comes to you while you are preparing his food? What about when the family sits down for dinner, does he get a bite as well? Treats are meant to be rewards for good behavior and should not be something you routinely give your pet every time.

That will turn treats into snacks, which will only spoil your dog’s appetite during meal times. So if your dog seems full during meal times, check if unscheduled snacking could be to blame.

4. Variety is the spice of life When feeding your dog raw food, variety is key to keeping him interested. If you are feeding him the same kind of food all the time, it won’t be a surprise if there comes a time when he’s just not that interested in the same old thing.

Planning a varied meal doesn’t have to be complicated. You can rotate his meals every 3 days. Serve different kinds of meat or different kinds of fruits and vegetables to keep him excited during meal times.

5. Make it fun Just like with little kids, sometimes dogs need a little stimulation to encourage them to try and to eat new food. You can experiment with various activities and different kinds of toys that dispense food.

Or you can take his food (for example, raw meaty bones or whole carcasses) and dangle it a bit in front of him. That could work to get his attention to try the new food.

6. Maybe he’s not feeling well When you’ve tried different methods and your dog is still not eating, it could be a sign that your dog is not feeling well. If his lack of appetite is accompanied by a general lack of interest in any activity, you would do well to have him checked by a vet.

7. Do the slow switch method Some dogs just need more time to adjust to BARF diet food especially after being so used to a different type of food for a long time.

To facilitate his adjustment, you would want to consider doing the slow switch method.

What you do is mix his old diet with the new diet, gradually increasing the proportion of the new diet, until such time when you feed him just raw food. This will allow him to acquire a taste for BARF diet food at a less stressful pace.

Introducing the BARF diet to your dog isn’t always as easy as just giving him raw meaty bones too much on. There are a lot of things to consider, especially if your dog is the sensitive picky eater type.

A good resource to check out though would be Maggie Rhines’ B”ARF Basics For Beginners”. If you have a dog or a puppy that you want to raise on a BARF diet, her expert tips and guidance will go a long way in helping you make the transition as easy and as pleasant as possible for both you and your pet! Click Here to Learn More!

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Good Health Comes From Good Dog Nutrition (AKA the BARF Diet!)

The Good Old Days

Before the advent of commercial dog food, people fed their dogs scraps from the table and the dogs supplemented that food with other food found as they roamed throughout the day. In 1860, James Spratt invented the dog biscuit, which was made in England.

Over time, the dog’s range narrowed, leash laws were enacted and eventually the family dog became limited to his immediate home area. The cereal companies, needing something to do with their scraps, decided to make the scraps into dog kibble.

Choices In Dog Foods

Owners can choose from a wide variety of dog foods, some better than others for your dog. Dry kibble, semi-moist and frozen are three of the choices. Dog food also comes canned. Canned dog food is broken down into different styles: ration, all-animal, chunk style and stew.

The dog food known as ration has ingredients that are ground and cooked. None of the meat is identifiable. All animal food has some byproducts visible and identifiable.

The chunk dog food is ground, but then pressed into chunks. Stew has added gravy, more for the benefit of the owner’s eyes than the dog’s taste buds.

Chemicals Found In Dog Food

As dog food is more processed it becomes necessary to add more chemicals to it. Foods with gravy contain food starch, coloring and gums.

To make food tastier to the dog and visually appealing to the owner flavor enhancers and coloring is added.

To keep the semi-moist dog food moist, propylene glycol is added. Preservatives such as mold inhibitor, ethoxyquin, BHT and BHA are added to improve shelf life.

The Nutritional Needs Of Dogs

Many dog foods claim to have 100% of everything a dog needs to live; however, unless the dog can absorb the nutrients it does not matter how complete a food is.

For instance, plant protein needs to be processed so that a dog can absorb nutrients. If it is not processed, plant protein will not do any good for the dog.

Imagine eating the same thing day after day, week after week. Even if it said on the package that it had 100% of your daily requirements of everything you need to live, it is hard to imagine that at the end of a month you would be completely healthy.

Dogs, like people, need a variety of foods as minimally processed as possible. Ian Billinghurst, from Australia, has written a book about the BARF diet.

The dog eats raw bones and food such as fish or chicken carcasses, raw eggs, vegetables, fruits and yogurt. All grains are off-limits.

Many people insist that this diet has made their dogs more energetic and healthier. Other people are completely against feeding a dog a raw diet.

Whether the BARF diet or other raw food diet for dogs is right or wrong, dogs do need to eat food that they are adapted to biologically.

If they do not eat quality food with easily absorbed ingredients, their health will suffer and degenerative disease will set in.

Choosing A High-Quality Dog Food

Prior to purchasing healthy food for your dog, think about the level of activity and the age of the dog, as well as the dog’s state of health. These things will assist you to choose the food that is best for your dog.

The more you learn about dog nutrition, the better able you will be to make the right choices for your dog.

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Here’s Why Your Dog Is Vomiting And Having Diarrhea After Switching to a BARF Diet

Have you just switched your dog from a commercial food diet to a raw dog food diet or BARF? Have you noticed loose stools and vomiting in your dog? It could be going through a detoxification period.

Detoxification happens because your dog’s body is being cleansed from its previous diet. It’s a normal part of switching.

How long it lasts can vary depending on how much toxins your dog has in his system. But typically it starts within 1 to 2 days of switching to BARF and lasts a few days.

In some dogs, detoxification has been known to last for a few weeks, although I would advise having your dog checked by a vet if vomiting and diarrhea persist for more than a week.

Signs of detoxification include earwax build up, foul odor, vomiting, loose stools, itchy skin, increased bowels and bad breath.

Did you know that you can choose to have your dog detoxified even before you start him on a raw dog food diet? Some pet owners do this because of the benefits associated with early detoxification.

One benefit is that your dog’s body is cleansed of toxins beforehand and so his body is ready to absorb the nutrients from the new, healthier diet that you’re going to be introducing to him.

Another benefit is that since your dog is going to be hungry once it’s been detoxified, it’ll be easier for him (and you) to get used to the new diet. This is a great bonus, especially for owners with picky eaters.

If you plan to detoxify your pet before introducing him to a BARF diet, here’s what you do. Over a period of 2 to 3 days, you fast your dog or put him on a liquid diet. You stop feeding him the old diet. And then for the next couple of days, you only give him water.

You may also give broths if you’re concerned about a lack of energy. This will allow your dog’s body to get rid of the toxins lying in there. After this fast, you are now ready to introduce him to a raw dog food diet that’s healthier and better for his body.

Whether you decide to detoxify your dog before your introduce him to BARF diet or to let detoxification take place while he is being switched, the important thing is that his body is able to flush out the toxins in there.

This will allow him to get the most of out his new diet, which in turn will help him become healthier in the long run.

If you’re looking for help on how to introduce a raw dog food diet to your adult dog or puppy, a good resource that you can check out is Maggie Rhines’ BARF Basics For Beginners.

It’s a well-written, well-researched book about what pet owners need to know to get the most of this type of diet for their dogs. Click Here to Learn More!

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What You Should Learn About Organic Dog Food (And the BARF Diet!)

To get some dogs to switch to a BARF diet will challenge your creativity. But you know you need to persevere because it’s for the good of your dog. Fortunately, there are some tips out there that will help you help your dog adjust to this new and healthier diet.

Here are 7 tips from Maggie Rhines “BARF Diet Basics For Beginners” to help you encourage your picky eater onto BARF diet food:

2. Regulate how much food your dog is getting. If your problem is getting your dog to finish his serving of barf diet food, you may want to re-examine how much food you are actually giving him. It may be too much for him to consume.

One way to help your dog finish his food and finish it quickly is to set a certain amount of time for him to eat. Say you only give him 20 minutes to finish his food. After that, you’ll take away his food bowl. That way, he’ll be encouraged to eat his food and to finish it quickly.

Another reason why you want to do this is that, with a barf diet, you don’t want to leave food lying around. This will allow bacteria to grow on your dog’s food, which could cause stomach upset when your dog consumes the contaminated food.

3. Lay off on the treats If your dog is often disinterested in his food, it could be time to examine what food your dog is getting outside of his meals.

That will turn treats into snacks, which will only spoil your dog’s appetite during meal times. So if your dog seems full during meal times, check if unscheduled snacking could be to blame.

Or you can take his food (for example, raw meaty bones or whole carcasses) and dangle it a bit in front of him. That could work to get his attention to try the new food.

7. Do the slow switch method Some dogs just need more time to adjust to BARF diet food especially after being so used to a different type of food for a long time.

To facilitate his adjustment, you would want to consider doing the slow switch method. What you do is you mix his old diet with the new diet, gradually increasing the proportion of the new diet, until such time when you feed him just raw food. This will allow him to acquire a taste for BARF diet food at a less stressful pace.

Introducing a BARF diet to your dog isn’t always as easy as just giving him raw meaty bones to much on. There are a lot of things to consider, especially if your dog is the sensitive picky eater type.

A good resource to check out though would be Maggie Rhines’ B”ARF Basics For Beginners”.

If you have a dog or a puppy that you want to raise on a BARF diet, her expert tips and guidance will go a long way in helping you make the transition as easy and as pleasant as possible for both you and your pet! Click Here to Learn More!

⇑ Go to the Table of Contents – BARF Diet⇑

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