dog study, diet related, different from wolves

This is a dedicated place for all of your questions and answers about Raw Diets. There are also some really cool groups like "Raw Fed" on the topic you can join. This forum is for people who already know they like the raw diet or sincerely want to learn more. Please remember that you are receiving advice from peers and not professionals. If you have specific health-related questions about your dog's diet, please contact your vet!

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the chi-weenie

Barked: Wed Jan 23, '13 7:56pm PST


	I was linked to this today: (I don't know if links work on here, someone please help me fix it if it doesn't work?) http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2013/01/dog-domesticat ion-tied-to-starch.html?ref=hp it's interesting and it's expected, but will this have an impact on raw feeding? I thought we were supposed to be mimicking the wolf diet. Is the difference between the dogs and wolves still negligible? Is the fact that dogs are better at digesting starches already accounted for since some raw feeders still feed plant matter in the diet or as treats? I just want to know what people think about it. What will people say? I stand by the prey model raw diet, I just now been using it for a year and I think it's obvious that it has awesome benefits. But for the study to say that dogs and wolves do not digest the same, makes it hard for me to back up my diet plan.

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Conker - CGC, CA

OBEY ME!

Barked: Thu Jan 24, '13 5:09am PST


	Until I can look at that study without having to pay for it, I will not have a real opinion on the matter. I prefer to read the actual study rather than someone else's interpretation. I tend to keep an open mind on canine nutrition and if it turns out that what this article is implying is true, I will not fight it. However, I think that it is difficult to give a blanket statement about these sorts of things since individual dogs can differ quite a bit from one another. My Shiba cannot handle wheat or corn very well but they do not negatively affect my other two dogs (digestion-wise) at all. And as awesome as the prey model diet may seem, my dog honestly did not do as good on it when he did after I added in oatmeal, of all things.

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Maxwell

I'm triple- superior MAD- now!

Barked: Thu Jan 24, '13 8:56am PST


	There is a space in 'domestication' that's all. "More surprising were genes for digesting starch. Dogs had four to 30 copies of the gene for amylase, a protein that starts the breakdown of starch in the intestine. Wolves have only two copies, one on each chromosome. As a result, that gene was 28-fold more active in dogs, the researchers found. More copies means more protein, and test-tube studies indicate that dogs should be fivefold better than wolves at digesting starch, the chief nutrient in agricultural grains such as wheat and rice. The number of copies of this gene also varies in people: Those eating high carbohydrate diets -- such as the Japanese and European Americans -- have more copies than people with starch-poor diets, such as the Mbuti in Africa. "We have adapted in a very similar way to the dramatic changes that happened when agriculture was developed," Axelsson says." This. 4-30 copies of the gene is telling. Dogs have a very plastic DNA compared to some animals like cats. Some breeds of dogs are known to have horrible digestive issues that are greatly helped by feeding a low carb diet. Bet 4 bits they have fewer copies of that particular gene. The sad thing is most dog owners cannot experiment with the diet to find out what works best for their pet. I had no clue that the minor condition issues Max had could be helped with a high fat high protein diet and that wheat was the reason his eyes were gummy.

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D'artagnan

I'm not lazy,- I'm just waiting- to play..

Barked: Thu Jan 24, '13 9:00am PST


	In this article I didn't see anything say it is BETTER for dogs to eat starch just that they have a better survivability if they can't eat protein. This quote said it all for me: "More copies means more protein, and test-tube studies indicate that dogs should be fivefold better than wolves at digesting starch, the chief nutrient in agricultural grains such as wheat and rice. The number of copies of this gene also varies in people: Those eating high carbohydrate diets -- such as the Japanese and European Americans -- have more copies than people with starch-poor diets, such as the Mbuti in Africa." It is showing that bodies adjust to survive and get more nutrients out of what is being forced onto the body, not that it is overall what their body needs. Wouldn't people all have the same amount of the gene if that was the case? Or are people in Mbuti evolving into carnivores? In other words, I can digest sugar perfectly fine but eating cake and ice cream as part of my diet is probably not the best way to go. Edited by author Thu Jan 24, '13 9:14am PST

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Charlie

The world is my- food bowl!

Barked: Thu Jan 24, '13 1:58pm PST


	Ugh, this is here too? I've spent the entire day fighting off people on reddit over this post, after someone had to be "that guy" and say that the study proves raw diets are useless. Now it's just a raw-diet bash fest.

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the chi-weenie

Barked: Thu Jan 24, '13 4:09pm PST


	thanks for responding everyone. I feel the same as you all, that some dogs adapted to digesting more starches so that they could survive off human scraps. But dogs who thrive on raw represents the dogs that can still process the diet just as their ancestral wolf. Maybe the dogs who can't handle prey model raw no matter what, are the ones who have lost something in their genetics. But to me, the dogs who do good on raw are proof that it's worth it and it would be dumb to say it's wrong, when it obviously has good effects. and that was a good point about humans having different numbers of the gene, but we are not turning into carnivores/herbivores, we all still the same species. Dogs and wolves are still the same species (or close enough since they can breed fertile offspring) no matter if this gene differs between them. but despite the use of the article as a bash on raw meat diets, I hope they continue to do more studies on the dog, so that we can really learn more about what's best for them.

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Winston-dog

Sir Winston- Crazy-dog - can we play yet?

Barked: Thu Jan 24, '13 6:35pm PST


	I love you guys I have run into this study 3 times so far on different forums today, and everyone is all "I don't care what anyone tells me, I 'm going to keep feeding my dog raw". Here, everyone has actually realised that so far as raw feeding for dogs goes, it doesn't actually make much difference. SENSE! on the INTERNET! Copy pasted is my response on a previous site: "Firstly, it doesn't surprise me. Natural selection dictates that the animal that does best in the environment it finds itself in will survive and reproduce more, leading to decendants that also do well in that environment. Wolves have the same amylase gene, it is noted to be a copy number variable gene, so it makes sense that when humans started throwing out starchy waste, the proto-dogs that survived best were the ones that could utilise that (i.e. have more copies of the amylase gene), leading to those with higher copy numbers surviving at the expense of others. However, what the paper does NOT say is that there are ingredients in starchy foods that dogs need that they can get nowhere else, only that they CAN use it as a source of energy. I think the authors have gone too far in concluding solely from this study that dogs do not benefit from on a meat based diet (nutrients as well as energy needs to be considered). Therefore, I will continue to feed my dogs a meat-based diet, and I will continue to drop potato peelings on the floor for them. Another interesting thought, as the gene for amylase is copy-number variable, that means there will be some domestic dogs who can get more energy out of starch than others, and thus do better on starchy diets, just saying"