The trouble with BARF

This is a radiograph of the abdomen of a dog which I treated today.

If you can imagine the dog - he is lying on his right side asleep (anaesthetised). On the left of this image you can see a few of his ribs, at the top of this image you can see his backbone, on the right of this image is his pelvis (towards the top) and his femurs (the thigh bones). Most of the "white" structures are bones but the wide bending tube through the centre of the image is this poor dog's large bowel, which also looks quite white. This is because this poor dog has severe constipation - he is impacted with bony fragments from eating a diet which is loosely described as BARF (for Bones And Raw Food).

The BARF diet has recently become a fashionable diet at least in part because (it is argued) it is probably what dogs have eaten for almost the entire time during which they have been domesticated (probably around 30,000 years). There are many controversies surrounding the feeding of dogs and a lot of dubious claims are made by various lobbies over this issue. If you want to waste a few hours you could try searching the internet on the subject of BARF. Prepare to tackle a deluge (much of which is bovine faeces of the male gender).

However, BARF food is not a panacea and can be problematic; this poor dog has a deformed pelvis because of a major accident years ago (the more astute of you might ave noticed that the pelvic floor looks to have an irregular shape). This deformity has narrowed the dog's pelvic canal so that he cannot pass large stools.

If you feed a dog a diet principally or solely formed of BARF and the dog is able to break-up, crunch-up and swallow a lot of bone then this will eventually end up in his faeces. Sometimes it causes impaction which is very uncomfortable to the dog, can be dangerous to his health, and ultimately might need to be relieved by veterinary intervention (one of my least favourite jobs).

If you want to feed your dog a BARF diet look into it carefully and perhaps discuss it with your vet.