Raw feeding cats and dogs – interesting and useful books
‘Outside of a dog,’ advised Groucho Marx, ‘a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.’ Quite where that leaves books about dogs’ insides we are not entirely sure, but here are details of our favourites.
Dr. Becker’s Real Food for Healthy Dogs & Cats
Beth Taylor and Karen Shaw Becker
A brilliant explanation as to why dogs should be eating a natural diet, and with lots of recipes.
Dogs, Diet and Disease
Caroline Levin
This book explains how canine metabolism and endocrine functions work in a normal dog. A relatively plain-English guide to your dog’s innards.
Foods Pets Die For: Shocking Facts about Pet Foods
Ann N. Martin
The title says it all. Ann Martin exposes the dog food industry for what it is.
Give Your Dog a Bone
Dr Ian Billinghurst
The first popular book to promote the idea of feeding dogs raw food and meaty bones. Its author is considered one of the world’s leading experts on the subject.
Grow Your Pups with Bones
Dr Ian Billinghurst
Aimed at breeders, this book contains lots of useful information on feeding pregnant mums, new mums and puppies.
Natural Nutrition for Dogs and Cats
Kathy Schultze
A comprehensive raw feeding guide. Schultze takes a strong line on certain ingredients (such as dairy and honey), which we are more relaxed about.
Pottenger’s Cats: A Study in Nutrition
Dr Frances Pottenger
Dr Pottenger discovered, quite by accident, that cats’ health degenerated unless they were fed raw food. In his 10-year study of 900 cats, he found the optimal diet for his cats was two-thirds raw meat and one-third raw milk, plus a little cod liver oil.
Raw Food for Dogs: The Ultimate Reference for Dog Owners!
Mogens Eliasen
Available online. An easy read and packed with useful information and research.
Raw Meaty Bones: Promote Health
Tom Lonsdale
Tom Lonsdale has been fighting a long and bloody battle with the various veterinary professional bodies over canine and feline diet. First class book.
Raw & Natural Nutrition for Dogs
Lew Olson
A plain-English approach to quite complicated subjects (well, complicated if one only just scraped through biology at school).
Real Food for Dogs and Cats
Dr Clare Middle
This book is short and well written and provides a comprehensive and easy-to-understand guide to raw feeding. Contains details of relevant raw feeding research.
Ruined by Excess: Perfected by Lack. The Paradox of Pet Nutrition
Richard Patton
An expert in canine nutrition, Patton provides plenty of scientific evidence to back up his claims that canine health is being ruined by modern dog food.
Unlocking the Canine Ancestral Diet
Steve Brown
This book contains fascinating original research into what dogs would eat in the wild and how best to replicate it using ‘domestic’ ingredients.
And last but not least – Honey’s Natural Feeding Handbook for Dogs – by our founder Jonathan Self