I am not so sure about this... Sure, some things are not meant to be eaten by dogs (like corn cobs and bottle caps, underwear and chunks of wood) but there are some things that dogs are made to eat... As far removed as they are from wolves, dogs ARE a natural predator and scavenger who will eat anything. We would be sick if we ate 1/10th of the stuff our dogs put in their mouths! Their stomachs are made to digest things like bone (as long as its raw) and to deal with bacteria thats been brewing on the carcass of a wallaby thats been dead for a week. Thats their nature.
So we keep them safe from things that we know will cause trouble (like corn cobs, dangerous toys and electric cords), and we dont let them eat things that disgust our human sensibilities (like dead things and possum poop), but we cant really demand that a dog eat something as unnatural as dry dog food, which is made from all kinds of things we would never feed to our dogs if we were processing it ourselves, and nothing more. At least thats my opinion.
Now, dont get me wrong. I AM a person of this age, dog food is there and it does have its uses... So I compromise. I feed my dogs a diet which consists mainly of raw chicken, some raw lamb (hearts, liver, pet mince) and whatever else I have. I cook up pots of food for them too occasionally so they get some cooked pasta and a bit of rice and vegies in that. I give them leftovers from my food. They have dry food in a bowl in the kitchen which they will munch on when/if they are hungry and I give them dog biscuits (the bone shaped ones) and dog treats too. I call this the 'old fashioned diet' where a dog ate whatever you had to give it! I add some supplements now and then to make sure things are balanced, but I dont go overboard. I take care of them but I am not fanatic about every meal.
So I disagree with vets (my old one for instance) who said I should feed Scooter nothing but dry dog food his entire life and never give him table scraps. I dont think its natural. I also disagree that keeping a dog on a diet of dry food is safer. Dogs bloat more from dry food than raw. Sure, there are always dangers. But you just have to use your common sense I guess. I'm lucky in that my kids never tried to eat a bottle cap or broken toy pieces. They may de-stuff but they dont eat the bits. If something they are playing with or eating concerns me I'll take it away. I keep them away from cooked chicken bones and things I know are bad for them.... I do the best I can to keep them safe. But if they were living free (wild poodles of Tasmania
) they'd be eating dead things and killing to eat as well as raiding bins cause thats what they would like to do!
