Found this paper last night. Its relevant to the [link http://www.champdogs.co.uk/cgi-bin/board/topic_show.pl?tid=15919&hilite=BARF#110129]recent discussion [/link] about the BARF diet.

Nutritional Osteodystrophy in Puppies Fed the BARF Diet
[iJosepha DeLay and Jenny Laing

Dr Billinghurst's reply was posted to the Yahoo BARF-World group.

Very interested in comments on the paper and response.

Hi Sharon, as it says it is one unfortunate case & goes on to say *diets with abnormally high contents of meat*, which the diets I have used do not advocate. Pitcairns diet has all the ratios of phos/calc in different foods worked out for you in the book & the raw meaty bones diet stresses the importance of feeding bones, not just meat, hence the name, raw meaty bones It doesn`t say which *barf* diet the dogs& pups where on or whether the owners followed it correctly, it just says *so called barf diets*.
Funny enough Sharon I was reading Billinghursts reply last night but I couldn`t find what he was replying to, now I know! .
Christine, Spain.
Sorry, but only just noticed Billinghursts reply link, feel a right twit now! The reply I mentioned above is not the one Jackie has linked to. Need to add the importance of researching & following your chosen diet.

Hi Christine, I was interested that the paper addressed the danger to giant breed pups, which is one of my major objection to 'natural' diets. Billinghurst's reply then addressed the other when he 'blames' the pups' owners rather than the diet for getting it wrong.

Hi Sharon, wouldn`t it be great if the (unbiased) scientists did a properly controlled testing of all the diets then we could see what was what. Surely the ratio of cal/phos can be worked out for giant breeds tho? I thought all healthy dogs had the same needs.I`m not sure I understand why they are different from other size dogs re their nutritional needs. I understand the different growing rates between small/large/giant & the different protein needs of pups/adults. Can you understand what I`m trying to say so you can explain. Hope so
Christine, Spain.

Christine, there is some suggestion that adults of different breeds do have different needs (eg higher fat content for big sighthounds) but as far as I know most of it is anecdotal. Its large breed pups and youngsters that mainly worry me.

The correct calcium/phosposphorus ratio for dogs is well known because in the days when people gave calcium supplements willy-nilly, imbalance cause so many horrendous problems. The difficulty is achieving the correct ratio with a home made diet.

Yes I can understand your worry Sharon. But are you convincedthe dog food companies have got it right? They all seem to be coming out with *new improved diets* all the time. When I had mine on it(hills & eukanuba) there was a limited range, now there are so many the mind boggles. Look how many postsers on here don`t give their pups the food recommended by the dog food people cos the protein is too high/low or they skip pup food & pup goes on adult food etc etc. What to do?????? I find my dogs are great on the raw so I have to stay with it.
Christine, Spain.

Christine, I do think they do get it pretty near right, if only because its in their interests to do so.

This thread has made me read up on protein levels and large breed pups, and I'm now far less convinced than I was that its a good idea to change to a lower protein food early, and even more convinced that the biggest dietary favour we can do for dogs from ~ 3 - 4 months to old age is to feed tham less of whatever.

Hi Sharon, just looked at the site that you got the paper from
http://www.uoguelph.ca/research/acs/guidelines/GuidelineHTMLFiles/useOfAnimalsInResearch.shtml#21
They use animals for research & the only pet food they sell is from Iams/Eukanuba
http://www.uoguelph.ca/research/acs/petSupplies/index.shtml and Purina.
That means they probably receive a lot of money from these 2 companies towards research/grants/fellowships etc. Not too sure whether that would make them unbiased or not
Christine, Spain.

I would like to know exactly what was fed to those pups (and their mother before their birth) before I even thought about condemning a B*** (raw) diet.

How many people put their pups straight onto puppy food when weaning anyway - nearly everyone I have spoken to or read their diets seems to include such food as baby rice, wheatabix, scrambled eggs, mince and the puppies survive on this (plus their mother's milk) to more than six weeks without collapsing.

Christine

Was this conclusion reached on the research of one litter?I would have thought it not very safe to base and publish findings on one bitch and her litter.There could be all sorts of reasons why they didn`t thrive.
IF natural feeding is so wrong how come the dogs of yester years survived and thrived on table scraps?
Carole

Carole, its a case report on two litters not a research paper. Case reports are submitted to the journals when a few cases of something unusual turns up and are published so that other people watch out and also as a sort of suggestion that research is needed. There is no solid research on raw/natural feeding and its hard to see how there could be given the number of these diets being promoted. That's what worries some of us.

Christine all universities and research projects/establisments in the US have external funding. Its becoming almost the norm here as well and researchers, universities etc take an understandably dim view of people who suggest they sell their integrity and independence. Guleph's main parter seems to be OMAF (Ontario Ministry of Agriculture & Food). There are some duff PDF links on the page that lists the funding breakdowns but as far as I can see there isn't any from pet food companies. But does it matter? Are you going to dismiss the DCm research at Guleph because it has external funding?

Hi Sharon, no I won`t dismiss it because they have outside funding, I`ll dismiss it because I don`t think it was researched properly. The paper doesn`t say what the dams or puppies were fed, only that they were on a so called barf diet & fed mostly meat. It didn`t even say for how long the 2 dams were fed on the diet & that is not what I call proper reserch and the fact it was only 2 litters. What about the dams, they had no problems so, according to the paper, it`s only 2 litters with probs. I have raised a litter on it & they have no problems but no one would take my experience as research. The other Christine made a very valid point, most people wean their pups on to natural food & then wean again on to dry, I`ve had 3 litters fed like this & they have no probs but that is not research.
One of my bug bears is not the fact these places have outside funding, it`s the firms who are doing the funding! How can the research & their findings be unbiased when dog food & pharmaceuticals companies are funding it???? I also noticed Guleph has a real estate part & one of their tenants is Monsanto.Whether they take a dim view or not I know that if the findings don`t suit, there will be a lot of pressure for it not to come out. And if you don`t believe it`s true, then why where there quite a few people who would tell me that they thought it was the vaccine that caused the probs with my pups but didn`t want to be named??
Proper research would be great for everyone but I have my own research going on with my own dogs & they are doing wonderful on it.
Christine, Spain.

Hi Christine, see the reply to Carole above. All I can say is that both Ian & I have been involved in research funded by drug companies and it did not make one whit of difference to the findings and it hasn't in any other research that I've personally known of. Even if you don't accept the integrity of the vast majority of people doing reseach, drug companies etc don't want false results. They don't want to put out products that don't work or are even dangerous because that isn't good for their reputation or profits.