A cornerstone of our English Labrador care strategy is feeding raw dog food. You might be thinking – why raw food? We would counter – why commercially manufactured kibble?

Many dog guardians do not realize that “dog food” as a concept is fairly recent. The first commercially available “dog foods” in the United States were canned horse meat, made from slaughtered horses that were no longer needed after World War II. In other words, the original “why” behind commercially manufactured dog food was not “because it’s better for dogs” but rather “because it prevents a financial loss.”

The combination of convenience and perceived luxury helped commercially manufactured dog diets to flourish (and as the profits grew, the offerings became more plentiful and the sense that commercially available dog food was the “norm” began to take hold). Unfortunately, the American dog population began to see other problematic increases – health problems that were rare in dogs who were fed raw meat and table scraps (such as tooth issues, GI problems, dull coats, and weight management struggles) became commonplace. Dogs began to be described as “grazers,” likely in some cases because they found their food unappetizing

More and more veterinarians and other dog professionals are acknowledging that there was nothing broken with the “feed raw food and table scraps” system of the past, and that kibble created more problems than it solved. At On The Bluff Labradors, we have observed over the years that our dogs have fewer yeast-related problems, better body conditions, shinier coats, and overall fewer health problems while eating a raw diet. They also LOVE their food! We partner with a local raw dog food seller, State of Nature, to source freshly made raw dog food for all of the dogs on our grounds, including the puppies.

As for dried dog food … there is no good one. Period. Have you ever tasted it? We have. It is salty beyond belief because that is the only way they can get the dogs to eat it, and it has a kind of cardboard taste. That is why most of them are filled with synthetic vitamins and minerals. There is no nutrition in the food part of it. It has been cooked out.

We will not recommend any dog food. They are all overly processed, do not have an expiration date so you have no idea how long it has been sitting on the shelf and they are made with inferior ingredients to meet the corporation’s bottom line. A dog was not designed to eat over processed food put together by humans. They are not designed to eat grains but even those dog foods without grain still are over-processed with all of the nutrients cooked out of them.