Raw
Backed by Dr. Danielle Conway
INTRODUCTION
Few topics in pet nutrition generate as much passion or as much conflict as raw feeding. On one side, there is a growing and vocal community of pet parents who report remarkable improvements in their dogs. They describe raw feeding as the most natural, biologically appropriate way to nourish your dog. On the other, a veterinary profession that has raised serious concerns about food safety, nutritional balance, and public health risk. Both sides have valid points. Neither has the complete picture.
Raw feeding done well can be a legitimate option for some dogs in some households. Raw feeding done poorly, whether through inadequate food safety practices, unvalidated commercial products, or improperly balanced homemade recipes, can cause real harm. Understanding the difference requires moving past both the alarm and the evangelism to look at what the evidence actually shows.
GLOSSARY
| Term | What It Means |
|---|---|
| Homemade Raw Diet | Diets prepared at home using raw meat, bones, and organs |
| Commercial Raw Diet | Manufactured products sold fresh-frozen, freeze-dried, or dehydrated |
| Raw Hybrid Diet | Blends raw components with conventional commercial food |
| Biologically Appropriate Raw Food (BARF) | A structured framework homemade raw diets may follow, which includes fruits and vegetables |
| Prey Model Raw (PMR) | A structured framework homemade raw diets may follow, which attempts to replicate the whole-prey composition of a dog’s ancestral diet |
| Kill Step | A validated intervention designed to eliminate or reduce target pathogens (bacteria, worms, viruses, etc.) to safe levels |
| High Pressure Processing (HPP) | The most commonly used and best-validated kill step that uses extremely high hydrostatic pressure to inactivate pathogens |
What Raw Feeding Actually Is
Raw feeding is an umbrella term that covers several distinct approaches, and the differences between them matter enormously when evaluating both risk and benefit:
Homemade raw diets may follow a structured framework, such as BARF or PMR. They may also be assembled informally based on online recipes or community recommendations.
Commercial raw diets range from small boutique brands with minimal quality infrastructure to well-resourced companies with rigorous safety and formulation programs. The variation within this category is enormous. Brand selection matters significantly more here than it does with commercial kibble.
Raw hybrid and topper approaches use raw foods as a partial addition to an otherwise processed diet. This approach is increasingly popular and represents a middle ground that many pet parents find practical.
The risks and benefits of each approach are not identical. Homemade raw carries the highest risk of both nutritional imbalance and food safety issues. Commercial raw from a reputable, safety-focused manufacturer is fundamentally different than a homemade recipe assembled from internet sources. These distinctions are worth maintaining throughout any evaluation of raw feeding.
MYTHS vs. SCIENCE
For a long time, the veterinary profession’s response to raw feeding has been largely dismissive. Owner-reported benefits have been characterized as anecdotal. Owners who persist in feeding raw despite veterinary discouragement have sometimes been described as anthropomorphizing, projecting their own food values onto their animals. This framing has not served the profession or its patients well.
Some of the reasons people feed raw have a legitimate scientific basis. The question is not whether those benefits are real, but whether they can be captured safely and whether the risk-to-benefit calculation is appropriate for a given patient in a given household.
What It Is:
One of the most common justifications for raw feeding is the assertion that dogs share approximately 98% of their genetic material with wolves, and should therefore eat as wolves do. It is an appealing argument. It is also a logical fallacy.
What We Know:
Dogs and wolves share a common ancestor, but dogs have been selectively bred alongside humans for an estimated 15,000 to 40,000 years. During that time, dogs underwent significant genetic changes that distinguish them meaningfully from their wolf relatives.
Research published in Nature in 2013 identified key differences in the canine genome specifically related to starch digestion and fat metabolism. Both adaptations reflect a long coevolution with human agricultural diets, not a diet of whole raw prey.
The Bottom Line:
Two things can be true simultaneously: dogs are not biologically identical to domestic humans, and dogs are not biologically identical to wolves. The argument for raw feeding does not require the wolf comparison to stand on its own merits. It is stronger without it.
The relevant question is not what wolves eat. It is what the current science says about the nutritional and physiological effects of raw feeding in domestic dogs.
What It Is:
Veterinary internist and nutritionist Dr. Susan Wynn developed the CALMS framework to describe the theoretical mechanisms by which fresh and raw diets may offer benefits not replicated by conventional processed foods. CALMS stands for Complexity, Antioxidants, Low AGE load, Microbiome changes, and Synergy and matrix.
What We Know:
Fresh foods are structurally and biochemically more complex than processed foods. They contain a broader range of naturally occurring antioxidants and beneficial phytocompounds (flavonoids, berberines, sulforaphanes) that are reduced or eliminated by thermal processing.
They are also significantly lower in Advanced Glycation End-Products (AGEs), the inflammatory compounds formed during high-heat processing. Research has linked elevated dietary AGE intake to increased serum AGE levels, oxidative stress, and inflammatory processes.
The Bottom Line:
In human medicine, AGEs have been studied in relation to diabetes, cancer, and aging. Studies have shown that commercial pet foods, particularly extruded kibble, can be very high in AGEs.
Several studies have also demonstrated that feeding raw diets has a measurable anti-inflammatory effect in dogs. This is not merely anecdote. It is emerging science that warrants attention.
What It Is:
Some of the most compelling evidence for raw feeding comes from the DogRisk Research Group at the University of Helsinki.
What We Know:
In a study of 2,236 dogs, researchers found that if a puppy’s mother ate raw food during pregnancy, or if the puppy’s first solid food between 1-2 months of age was raw, there was a statistically significant decreased likelihood that the dog would develop environmental allergies as an adult.
The inverse was also true: puppies whose mothers ate kibble, or whose first food was kibble, had a statistically significant increased chance of developing environmental allergies.
A second DogRisk study of 7,015 dogs examined the relationship between early diet and inflammatory bowel disease.
The odds ratio for developing IBD in dogs fed raw during the early postnatal period (1-2 months of age) was 0.54, meaning raw-fed puppies were nearly half as likely to develop IBD compared to the reference group. Raw feeding during the late postnatal period (2-6 months) showed an odds ratio of 0.622.
Kibble feeding during those same periods was associated with odds ratios of 1.847 and 1.608 respectively, a statistically significant increase in IBD risk.
The Bottom Line:
These are observational findings, not controlled trials. They come with the limitations inherent in survey-based research, but the pattern is consistent and the sample sizes are substantial. They deserve serious consideration rather than dismissal. Most importantly, it provides a starting point for ongoing research.
What It Is:
A related framework is the hygiene hypothesis, the theory that feeding sterile, heat-processed food deprives the developing immune system of the microbial exposure it needs to calibrate appropriately.
What We Know:
The DogRisk findings are consistent with this theory: early exposure to a more microbiologically complex diet may support immune development in ways that reduce the risk of immune-mediated conditions later in life.
The Bottom Line:
The science here is evolving, not settled, but it represents a legitimate line of inquiry that the veterinary profession should engage with rather than dismiss.
SAFETY CONCERNS
The concerns that veterinary professionals raise about raw feeding are legitimate. They apply whether the raw diet is homemade or commercial.
Pathogen Risk
Raw meat is a vector for pathogens including Salmonella, Listeria monocytogenes, Campylobacter, and E. coli. Regulatory standards in the human food supply permit a certain level of Salmonella contamination in raw poultry and meat. This means pathogen-contaminated ingredients can and do enter the raw pet food supply chain legally.
Multiple studies have identified pathogen contamination in commercial raw pet foods at rates that would be unacceptable in ready-to-eat human food products. Studies have shown that:
Approximately 8% of dogs and cats presenting with diarrhea carried a potentially zoonotic bacterium, Salmonella, Campylobacter, Yersinia, or Listeria
4% of clinically healthy dogs and cats also carried Listeria in their feces
Healthy dogs have robust gastrointestinal defenses and may carry and shed pathogens without becoming clinically ill, while silently serving as a reservoir for human exposure. A 2006 pediatric study identified pet food bowls as a primary source of Salmonella transmission to children in affected households.
The risk is not evenly distributed. Humans in the household, particularly young children, elderly individuals, and pregnant women, may be significantly more vulnerable than healthy adults. Any household that includes immunocompromised people, regardless of your dog's health status, should carefully weigh the public health implications before choosing raw feeding.
Dogs who are immunocompromised are at meaningfully elevated risk from the pathogen exposure associated with raw feeding. For these patients, the risk-benefit calculation shifts decisively against raw. This includes dogs undergoing cancer treatment, dogs with conditions requiring long-term immunosuppressive therapy, and geriatric dogs with compromised immune function.
What We Know:
There have been documented cases of young, otherwise healthy dogs who became severely ill and died from Salmonella septicemia as a direct result of consuming contaminated raw food. This does not happen frequently, but those dogs would be alive today if not for that exposure.
The exact prevalence of raw food-related infection in dogs is not well established in the literature. This itself reflects how underreported and difficult to track these cases are, not that the risk is absent.
The Bottom Line:
The risk is real. How much risk is acceptable is ultimately a decision that belongs to the pet parent based on their own risk tolerance, household circumstances, and the quality of the product they are sourcing.
What We Know:
One consideration that is frequently overlooked is that the responsibility of a raw-feeding household extends beyond its own walls. A dog fed a raw diet and shedding pathogens asymptomatically does not stay home.
Pet parents feeding raw should be especially diligent about picking up feces immediately. Not at the end of the walk, immediately. They should be thoughtful about who their dog interacts with. The immunocompromised individual at risk may not live in your home. It may be the neighbor whose yard your dog passes through, the elderly person your dog greets on a walk, or a child in the household of the dog your dog plays with at the park.
The Bottom Line:
Raw feeding is a personal choice, but its biosafety implications are not entirely personal. Feeding raw responsibly means factoring in the broader community the dog moves through, not just the household it lives in.
Nutritional Imbalance
The second major category of risk is nutritional. It is the one most commonly underestimated by pet parents who are focused on ingredient quality. A raw diet that is not properly formulated is not a healthy diet regardless of how premium the ingredients are.
Research has consistently shown that more than 90% of homemade pet food recipes available in books and on the internet, including recipes authored by veterinarians without advanced nutrition training, are nutritionally unbalanced.
A landmark study by Stockman, Larsen, and Fascetti reviewing 200 such recipes found that only 9 met AAFCO complete-and-balanced criteria, and only 4 met both AAFCO minimums and NRC minimum requirements. Notably, those four were written by veterinarians with advanced nutrition training or veterinary nutritionists.
The calcium-to-phosphorus ratio is one of the most critical and most frequently miscalculated variables in homemade raw feeding. Raw meat without bone is significantly phosphorus-heavy and calcium-deficient.
Adding raw meaty bones addresses this in theory, but bone composition varies. The actual calcium contribution of any given bone source is difficult to calculate accurately without laboratory analysis. Deficiencies in trace minerals, fat-soluble vitamins, and essential fatty acid balance are also common in informally constructed raw diets.
EVALUATION
Commercial Raw
Not all commercial raw products are equal, and the gap between the best and worst in this category is wider than in almost any other segment of pet food. The questions below reflect the standards a responsible commercial raw manufacturer should be able to answer directly and transparently:
| Questions | Check once confirmed |
|---|---|
| Does the company employ a board-certified veterinary nutritionist or PhD animal nutritionist as part of their formulation team? | check_box_outline_blank |
| Does the product carry an AAFCO nutritional adequacy statement? | check_box_outline_blank |
| If so, was adequacy established through formulation analysis or an actual feeding trial? | check_box_outline_blank |
Formulation analysis is a floor, not a ceiling. A company that has invested in feeding trials and digestibility studies is operating at a meaningfully higher standard.
Food safety in raw pet food should never rely on a single intervention and should have a kill step in place. Reputable manufacturers operate on a multiple-hurdle model, with layered safeguards at every stage of production. Companies should not depend on one kill step or one round of testing to do all the work. No single measure is a silver bullet. All measures must be validated, and validation must extend across all protein sources in the formula, not just poultry.
What It Is:
A kill step is a validated intervention designed to eliminate or reduce target pathogens (bacteria, worms, viruses, etc.) to safe levels. In commercial raw pet food, the most commonly used and best-validated kill step is High Pressure Processing (HPP).
HPP uses extremely high hydrostatic pressure to inactivate pathogens without applying heat, cleaving the non-covalent bonds that pathogens depend on while preserving the raw character of the food, its bioactive compounds, and heat-sensitive nutrients.
What To Know:
A company has to validate their HPP protocol for their unique food composition. They have to test before and after each run to ensure they are achieving a reduction in the target bacteria.
What You Can Do:
You can absolutely ask the company what log reduction they look for in their HPP protocol. It should be at least 5 log reduction, and if the company has no idea what you are asking, that is a red flag.
What The Problem Is:
Even a raw product manufactured with rigorous safety protocols can be compromised after it leaves the facility. Unlike shelf-stable kibble, raw and frozen products require unbroken cold chain maintenance from the manufacturing plant all the way to the dog’s bowl. That journey can involve:
- Multiple truck transfers
- Overnight storage at distribution facilities
- Delivery windows that may not align with freezer availability at retail locations
- Freezer units at pet stores that are opened many times daily and may not maintain consistent temperatures
- Home delivery services where the product may sit at room temperature for hours before being discovered
What To Know:
Any break in that cold chain (a freezer malfunction, an extended delivery window, a product left on a loading dock) can compromise a product that was perfectly safe when it left the facility.
What You Can Do:
This is not a reason to avoid commercial raw categorically, but it is a reason to pay attention to how a product is stored and handled at every point between the manufacturer and your home, including in your own freezer and during thawing.
Freeze-drying and dehydration are not kill steps. These processes remove moisture which inhibits microbial growth during storage. They do not reliably eliminate pathogens present in raw ingredients before processing.
A freeze-dried product that has not undergone a validated kill step prior to freeze-drying retains whatever pathogen load was present in the original raw material. This is a meaningful distinction that product marketing rarely makes clearly. Ask specifically whether a kill step was applied and whether it has been independently validated.
Homemade Raw
Formulation
Homemade raw feeding presents all of the challenges of commercial raw, and then adds several more. The freedom to control every ingredient is appealing, but it comes with full responsibility for both nutritional adequacy and food safety. Neither of which can be delegated to a manufacturer. Homemade raw diets for healthy dogs should be formulated using validated professional software, such as Balance IT, Concept 5, or MixIT Winn, with input from a qualified nutrition professional.
IMPORTANT
Homemade raw diets for dogs with any underlying health condition should be formulated with the direct involvement of a board-certified veterinary nutritionist, nutritionist with a masters or PhD in small animal nutrition, or a veterinarian with advanced clinical nutrition training.
Homemade diet drift is the term for the gradual, often unintentional deviation from the original formulated recipe as ingredients are substituted, measuring practices become less precise, or portions shift over time. Drift is a documented and meaningful source of nutritional risk over time.
Periodic review of the actual feeding practice against the original formulation and an updated nutritional analysis when ingredients change are important parts of responsible long-term homemade feeding. If you are making your dog’s food at home you should schedule rechecks to ensure you are not accidentally causing diet drift and to ensure the recipe is still appropriate for your dog.
Sourcing of Meats
If you're feeding a homemade raw diet to your dog, there is no kill step in place. Where the meat comes from is one of the most meaningful variables in the safety of a homemade raw diet, and one of the least discussed. Not all raw meat carries the same contamination risk.
A skilled butcher who carefully removes the intestinal tract intact without rupturing it dramatically reduces the opportunity for fecal bacteria to contaminate the surrounding muscle meat. Intestinal contents are the primary reservoir of pathogens like Salmonella and Campylobacter in livestock. When the gut is breached during processing, contamination spreads.
Animals raised in clean, low-stress environments with adequate space, appropriate husbandry, and regular veterinary care tend to carry lower pathogen burdens than those raised in crowded or high-stress conditions without consistent health oversight.
A pet parent who sources meat directly from a small farm with transparent animal husbandry practices, or from a butcher they know and trust, is operating in a meaningfully different risk environment than one purchasing from anonymous bulk sources.
This does not make any raw meat inherently safe. No sourcing decision eliminates the need for proper food handling, but it is a variable that thoughtful sourcing can genuinely influence. Knowing where your meat comes from is not just a value statement. In the context of raw feeding, it is a biosafety consideration.
Safe Handling at Home
Homemade raw feeding requires consistent attention to food safety practices that go beyond typical home cooking habits. The following are the minimum standards for responsible raw food handling at home:
Handle raw meat on surfaces that are thoroughly cleaned and sanitized after each use. Wash hands thoroughly after handling raw meat and after handling food bowls.
Keep raw food refrigerated or frozen until use. Thaw only in the refrigerator. Never at room temperature.
Refrigerate or discard unused portions immediately after feeding. Do not leave raw food in the bowl between meals.
Wash food and water bowls after every meal. Plastic bowls require particular attention. Surface scratches can harbor bacteria even after routine washing. Stainless steel or ceramic bowls are easier to sanitize reliably.
Dispose of packaging, bones, and unused food carefully to prevent cross-contamination.
Minimize direct contact between raw food, food bowls, and children, elderly household members, or immunocompromised individuals. This includes limiting face licking from pets immediately after they have eaten raw food.
MONITORING
Dogs on raw diets, whether commercial or homemade, should be monitored with regular veterinary wellness care, with a few additional considerations. Regular exams should include evaluation of body condition score and weight trends, muscle mass, skin and coat quality, stool consistency and frequency, and energy levels. Routine bloodwork is especially important for dogs on homemade raw diets, where nutritional adequacy cannot be assumed. Deficiencies in fat-soluble vitamins, trace minerals, and essential fatty acids may not be visually apparent for months before they manifest as clinical problems.
Raw-fed dogs typically produce smaller, firmer, and less odorous stools than kibble-fed dogs. Smaller stools are not always better. Smaller stool can be a result of high digestibility. It can also be from lack of fiber, which is beneficial for gut health. Sacrificing smaller stools for gut health is not advised. Significant changes in stool character, loose stools, mucus, blood, or changes in frequency warrant veterinary evaluation. Stool quality can act as an early indicator of nutritional drift in a homemade recipe.
The Takeaway
As with every other feeding approach, raw feeding exists on a spectrum from done well to done poorly. The distance between those two ends of the spectrum is wide.
For pet parents who do want to pursue a raw diet, it can absolutely be done well:
- Source your meat thoughtfully
- Formulate with validated software under the guidance of a qualified nutrition professional
- Choose commercial products from manufacturers who can answer the above safety questions
- Practice rigorous food handling
- Stay current with your dog's veterinary monitoring
Raw feeding done with that level of care and intention is a very different approach from raw feeding done casually.
Done poorly, with homemade recipes from internet sources, commercial products with no validated kill step or pathogen testing infrastructure, or inadequate household food safety practices, raw feeding poses real risks to pets and people alike.
Raw feeding is a legitimate option for healthy dogs in households without immunocompromised members. The wolf comparison is not the argument. The CALMS framework and the DogRisk data are the argument. The emerging science on inflammation, AGEs, and early immune development gives the approach more scientific credibility than the veterinary community has historically acknowledged.
The argument for raw feeding is strongest when it is held to the same standard of evidence and rigor that it asks of conventional pet food. The standard is not whether the food is raw. The standard is whether it is done right.
For pet parents drawn to the potential benefits of fresh, minimally processed feeding, but the safety profile of raw is not the right fit, gently cooked or homemade diets are worth considering. The research on AGE generation and its long-term effects in dogs is still actively developing. It is not yet known whether gently cooked food produces meaningfully different AGE levels than raw or whether those differences translate to measurable clinical outcomes.
What is known is that gentle cooking eliminates the primary pathogen risk of raw feeding while preserving many of the characteristics that draw people to fresh diets in the first place: whole food ingredients, minimal processing, and high digestibility.
arrow_rightReferences
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Algya KM et al. 2018. Apparent total-tract macronutrient digestibility, serum chemistry, urinalysis, and fecal characteristics, metabolites and microbiota of adult dogs fed extruded, mildly cooked, and raw diets. Journal of Animal Science.
Freeman LM et al. 2013. Current knowledge about the risks and benefits of raw meat-based diets for dogs and cats. Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association.
Goldberg T et al. 2004. Advanced glycoxidation end products in commonly consumed foods. Journal of the American Dietetic Association.
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Hellgren J et al. 2021. Raw meat-based diets for dogs — a risk factor for salmonella shedding. Veterinary Record.
Hemida MBM et al. 2021. Early life modifiable exposures and their association with owner-reported inflammatory bowel disease symptoms in adult dogs. Veterinary Sciences.
Nikkilä MT et al. 2021. Puppies fed raw food had a lower risk of atopic dermatitis and chronic inflammatory bowel disease later in life. Scientific Reports.
Poulsen MW et al. 2013. Advanced glycation end products in food and their effects on health. Molecular Nutrition & Food Research.
Stockman J, Fascetti AJ, Kass PH, Larsen JA. 2013. Evaluation of recipes for home-prepared maintenance diets for dogs. Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association.
van Bree FPJ et al. 2018. Zoonotic bacteria and parasites found in raw meat-based diets for companion animals. Veterinary Record.
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