A question was asked at our ‘Are You Raw Curious’ event earlier this year, and it was so important that we wanted to make the answer more widely available than just to those who attended the event. The question was
“What to do when your vet is against you feeding raw food?”
It’s an experience that many raw feeders will have been through.
What you feed your animal is a personal choice, a financial choice, a medical choice and hopefully an educated choice. If you’re worried about making this decision, be sure to get more than one opinion and look at more than one reference. But just because a vet is a highly qualified (and often, also very experienced) professional, it doesn’t mean they necessarily know a lot about nutrition.
Most vets are not really that invested in what you feed your pet. Our colleagues who take referral cases know from reading patient histories that it’s unusual to see that diet has been recorded on a medical record at all. It’s likely this is mostly because many vets have not really been educated in the importance and intricacies of nutrition. They likely haven’t been exposed to animals eating anything other than a processed diet. It’s possible that they have not been taught about the positive effects of fresh ingredients and food-based nutrients. The vets in our society and community know, from their own experiences, of the thin and biased nutrition education received in vet schools. They were taught to parrot what the pet food industry told them.
Luckily, because of this, most vets also will likely be fine to avoid discussing nutrition if your opinion on the matter is firm. However, if you are still seeking information in order to make your decision then you can certainly listen to their side. Think about the physiology and the species you’re talking about, watch the results, and see if it makes sense to you. Species appropriate nutrition is absolutely the norm in exotic and zoo animal medicine.
It’s also useful to ask your vet:
- Where they get their resources?
- Do they really know about the ingredients in the food they are recommending?
- Maybe discuss each one from the label – Why was that ingredient chosen? Is it geared to make the animals super healthy or to create an expensive food?
- What about the percentages from the label? What do they mean?
Then, make your own decision based on what makes the most sense in terms of what your pet needs.
Don’t forget, veterinary medicine is a service industry, not a monarchy of power. All of our colleagues mean well and no doubt love animals. They just may not know enough about nutrition.
What foods you choose to spend your money on for your animal is, in the end, up to you. In addition, you are the customer and vets provide a service that you pay for. If you are not interested in a service — say, maybe you don’t want to pay for an appointment time that discusses nutrition, but you would like other services, you can ask for those services.
If your vet insists on talking about it when you’ve already made up your mind you can kindly ask them not to; you can change veterinarians, or you could even change your opinion.
If you feel you are comfortable and educated enough to feed an appropriate fresh raw diet, you can let your vet know that that’s what you’re doing. If your pet is unwell, you can seek the help of one of our members who can be found HERE.
You don’t need to convince your vet of anything or change their mind. You’re allowed to do what you feel is the best thing for your beloved pet.
Raw Feeding Veterinary Society
We would love to hear from you and if you have a vet that is against, for or mutual towards raw feeding. Please comment below (no naming) just simply put one of the following:
Poll: Against Raw Feeding – AGAINST For Raw Feeding – FOR Mutual – MUTUAL
I switched vets until I found a more holistic one. Her practice still sells sh*t dog food (what I call anything by Hills) but her attitude is “if you know what you’re doing, fine with me”. And after feeding raw since the mid 90’s, I certainly do.
Do any of your members do online consultations? I’m in Romania and want to know if I can do anything more to support my raw fed senior with multiple health conditions.
My vets accept my choice but cannot support me in anything I can do to support his health issues through diet.
I hope people read this artical, i have an 11 year old breast cancer survivor Doberman that i have been feeding raw for 10 1/2 years and she is still full of life,even keeps up with our 3month old german shepherd who I’ve been transitioning to raw as well. His vet gave me the evil eye and told me i should “rethink my dogs diet” lol, they thought my dobie was around 6 years old. I politely told him maybe he needs to “rethink canine diets” he chuckled.
Most don’t even ask what you feed as long as they have an appetite. Whole prey raw (ground) is what I feed. I Never ask a vet his advice on food because besides vaccines I’m never there. Proof positive for raw.
This is very good information. I believe it’s an injustice to the clients for Veterinarians to not have knowledge or have any interest in receiving knowledge of what’s best for your pets diet, other than the mainstream markets. It might be because the industry feeds money into the veterinarian needs due to the unhealthy nature of our pets. More kibble more health problems, the more they have to go to the vet.
Amy vet said he cannot argue with raw feeding as a lot at the practice do as every raw feed dog he has treated has been in excellent body condition
The three local vets practices are all against raw feeding reasons are mainly pathogens in the meat and on the dogs saliva. One also said if you are buying in loads of frozen meat how do you know how much to feed, she also said you must have a proportion of grain like wheat.
I have a very good vet and they have taken a lot of time out to find my EPI, GSD a diet to suit his illness. My husband and I have done the same and over the years have had to change diets as his body seems to reject the diets after a time. After getting bad colitis several time over the last year we turned to a veggi diet but he has lost loads of weight. So as a last resort I am turning to a raw BARF diet. I don’t know where this will lead yet but I don’t think I have much choice. I hope I don’t need my vet!