While a lot of people want to feed raw food to their dogs, there are also plenty of people that believe it’s a good idea to feed dry food alongside Raw Food as well. But you have to wonder whether this is actually a good idea or not. As you would expect, for the most part people always try to find the middle ground.
One of the primary reasons people consider a mix of dry and raw is to enjoy the huge benefits of Raw Feeding, but because dry kibble is so cheap, going 100% raw can be expensive, particularly for big large or multi-dog homes.
For most dogs, a combination will work quite well, and that’s the thing that really matters at the end of the day. However, you want to keep a close eye on the amount of carbs added via this method. That’s because many pet owners simply ‘add raw’ on top of the existing kibble. As a result they are increasing the amount of feed and can possibly lead to over feeding. Some pet owners have also reported that when adding a raw topper the dogs natural instinct is to stop eating the kibble.
Is eating dry and wet dog food harmful?
Nutrition experts are undecided as to whether the idea of ingesting both dry and wet food at the same time is helpful or harmful to pets. Claims around different digestion rates, stomach acids and enzymes, the rehydration factor are all discussed with no real definitive answer. Until science categorically decides, you can probably take the try it and see approach. From purely anecdotal evidence, people have been feeding a combination for many years without an issue.
Of course, you can try this approach and see it your dog likes it or not. After all, trying it one or two times is unlikely to cause any major harm to your pet. If anything, it will just be an experiment and you can identify what your pet likes and what it dislikes. Pets like variety in menu options too.
Given the huge number of potential benefits of feeding only a 100% raw diet, we would encourage dry foods to be kept to an absolute minimum. But if that’s hard to implement, or your budget simply doesn’t allow 100% raw, you can use this middle ground approach. It’s not the best system but it does start to unlock some of the impressive benefits from a prey model or BARF raw food diet. So yes, if you can’t feed only Raw Food to your dog, you should try to mix it with some dry food at least for a little while!
