Dogs are like humans: the better we eat, the longer and better life we live. When my sisters and I got our first 2 dogs, we fed them Blue Buffalo Kibble. We realized that kibble was extremely vile and unhealthy for them. Kibble is a man made food that has a massive amount of chemicals in it. Kibble companies are loosely regulated by health companies, meaning that they can put almost whatever they want in the kibble. I read an article written by Dog Food Advisor called “The Truth About Animal By-Products In Dog Food” which explained that the feet, backs, livers, lungs, heads, brains, spleen, frames, kidneys, stomachs, intestines, and undeveloped eggs of all slaughtered animals and all the leftovers of meat that are unfit for human consumption, are put into all commercial brands of kibble. Also, since kibble companies do not have to specify where they get their “meat” from, they can take a dead horse that they find somewhere and stick all of it in a grinder and put it into kibble labeled as “chicken”.

The risk of getting a adulterate bag of kibble is very high and if you do get one, your dog could get sick and end up getting put down or needing a surgery to clean out their stomach which starts at a cost of $3,000 due to the procedure lasting a little over an hour and the vet having to put the dog under, cut them open and drain out their stomachs with a tube. Our first dog, Rex who is almost 4, was a bit overweight, some people even compared him to a pregnant female dog! We were wondering why he was so overweight since we regularly took him on long walks, jogged with him and took him to the dog park, so we did our own research and realized that kibble is the worst option for dogs. We continued researching and found out that raw food was the best option for them. We looked into raw food and read great reviews and multiple touching stories about dogs who survived through horrible health conditions and others on how it increased a dog's lifespan.

We were a little skeptical about how real these stories were, but surprisingly, a couple days later one of my sisters coworkers told her that her Great Dane was on the same raw food we were looking into. Great Danes have a lot of health problems since they are huge. They typically live up to 7 years, but my sisters friend shared how she was doing her own research a couple years ago before she switched him and the company says that it will increase their life span by 3-5 years. That’s a huge amount considering how short of a life they usually live. She told us about her journey and how the claims about raw food are actually true: her dog Tony, so far, has been living for 9 years and is still living his best life. Tony no longer has to regularly visit the vet. Now he only goes in when he needs his shots, which is yearly and can withstand longer walks since his joints do not hurt as fast anymore.

After hearing this amazing story, we started buying a brand called Stella and Chewys Raw food and it is pretty pricey depending on what type of meat you get, but they typically start at $35 a bag which has 12 patties inside. Rex has lost over 10 pounds and is now a healthy weight! Our pups are stronger and healthier than ever. If we ate McDonalds or any fast food restaurant every single day for breakfast, lunch and dinner, we would gain an excessive amount of weight and a become more prone to getting diseases such as cancer and diabetes. Therefore, Raw food is like our dogs’ organic, non-gmo type food.

Since the switch, Kona, our youngest, is no longer looks like a chubby little brick and isn’t super skinny to where we can see her rib cage, no longer has dandruff, and has gotten rid of her allergies that used to make her scratch herself until her ears bled. She no longer drinks as much water as she used too since she gets water from her food instead of having water pulled from her system in order to help process the kibble.  Also, Our pit bull mix Stanley, now has more energy even though he is almost 6 and has been playing more with our energetic puppy Kona. His grip has also gotten stronger, and I can never win in a game of tug of war. Rex of course has lost weight, but he has also mostly gotten rid of most of his allergies, gotten off his medication and has built more muscle. He used to throw up at least 3-4 times a month and we didn't know what made him upset. His throw up was gooey and smelled worse than a garbage truck. It always contained the kibble we fed him, but we just thought that was a coincidence. Now that he is on raw, he hasn’t thrown up any more than 2 times in the past couple years, and that’s only because he ate some grass and too much grass makes dogs vomit.

The only downside of the raw food would be that we have to take out the raw patties in advance because they need to defrost, and although kibble has a longer shelf life and does not need to defrost, it does suck water out of their bodies since it is dehydrated and needs to be dissolved while the raw food gives them water. Also we have to disinfect the countertops and wash their bowls after they eat since the food is raw and can make us sick. Raw food can also only be eaten out of stainless steel bowls so that bacteria doesn’t grow on them. Although we spend almost $400 dollars a month on their food, you do get 10% off a bag when you purchase 5 bags. Depending on what store you go too, you  could get a frequent buyers gift which gives you one free bag after buying 12 bags, and they don’t all have to be bought at once which makes the spending more reasonable. Also, the benefits that I have seen on Rex, Stan and Kona such as not having dandruff, becoming a healthy weight, being able to play longer and get water through raw food rather than getting dehydrated by kibble, have been too marvelous to pass up and we are glad that we no longer have to worry about spending thousands of dollars on our dogs surgery, due to our cheapness, laziness and poor food choice.