We switched our 2 boys to raw from kibble about 6 months ago. The switch came because we were simply exhausted from walking them 3 times a day because they had loose stool (we don't have fenced in yard, so we need to walk them to go to the bathroom). Our vet recommended more fiber in their diet to help with loose stool. This intuitively just didn't resonate with us. Basenji are one of the most ancient breeds of dog… why on earth would more fiber be a solution to their problem (I know the theoretical why, but logically it was counter-intuitive)? We read many sources or literature on the raw diet and thought this would be a good switch for them. Again, they are an ancient breed so moving toward raw foods seemed appropriate and logical. It took that about a month for them to get really accustomed to eating raw chicken quarters, rabbit halves or pork shoulders but now they have no problem gulping their meal right down, bone and all (for those of you who don't feed raw, gulping is a normal behavior and bone is an essential part of the diet). Their digestion issues have vanished and we've even seen marked improvement in their destructive behavior. Two super happy boys now, two super happy Basenji owners!!
Overall Eco-Friendly Pet Food Ratings
-
Interesting pet food rating chart from Greenopia, "Experts on Green Living." Ranking criteria based on 1) ingredient and environmental reporting, 2) quality of ingredients, 3) animal testing 4) eco-friendliness of packaging 5) supply chain (how the products are transported and whether locally or internationally-sourced ingredients are used), and 6) green building design at the company.
"It is worth noting that, as a whole, the pet food industry has very poor environmental reporting. Thus we could not assign weights based off the product's life cycle impacts (there was not enough data), but instead focused on the product itself and considered the impacts from the rest of the life cycle as supplementary information."
