Quote:
http://skeptvet.com/Blog/2009/06/raw-di ... -and-cats/
Myth 1: Dogs and cats are carnivores and evolved to eat uncooked whole prey.
Dear one and all,
I really disagree with this statement.
Please take note that this text isn’t an “anti-vegetable†text. If people want to feed their dog a little bit of vegetables, there’s nothing wrong with that, if the rest of the dogs menu consists of raw (not grinded) meat-products. Though, feeding vegetables to your dog is an optional part, not an essential part for an carnivorous animal!
Very familiair with the wolf. Based on DNA evidence, the taxonomical status of the domesticated dog, changed in 1993 from species-status (Canis lupus ssp.), to subspecies status (Canis lupus familiaris). Which means that nowadays the domesticated dog should be considered as subspecies of the wolf. (Canis lupus ssp.) This means that in contrast to the wolf (Canis lupus), the domesticated dog has the same status as for example the Eurasian Wolf (Canis lupus lupus) and the Eastern Wolf.(Canis lupus lycaon)
Genetic research to the difference in the mitochondrial DNA of the domesticated dog, shows us a almost idencital (the difference is 0,2% ) basepairing with the gray wolf, which points to a direct evolutionary descendent from the recent past. The difference between for example wolves and coyotes is much bigger! (4%!)
The domesticated dog is more familiair with the wolf than most people realise. They can breed together and get fertile litters. We as humans can not mate with our ancestors the primats. This is another evidence that wolf and domesticated dogs are very familiair.
The cause of the fact that some of the wolves in the population in the USA are black is the fact that this animals have bred with black domesticated dogs in het past. Please google on: “molecular and evolutionary history of melanism in north american gray wolvesâ€.
Evolution and domestication. Wolfs and bears both have the same ancestor: the miacis. During the evolution bears developed special molars to crush vegetable matters, and so they are able to digest those. (and they have a larger digestive system)
In time of evolution, wolfs didn’t develop a physical development which enables him to digest any vegetable matter by themselves. Dogs can’t digest it either, you have to crush or boil the vegetables before a dog can digest these. The dog hasn’t got any anotomical adaptations which would indicate that a dog would be an omnivorous mammal.
And if the dog was indeed an omnivore, why should ‘we’ crush the vegetables? That’s not necesarry for any omnivorous animal, they do it themselves!
The saliva of the dog doesn’t contain amylase (a carbohydrate spliting enzyme), which is typical for herbivors and omnivorous animals. The digestion of a dog (or a canivore in general) starts in the stomach. In the case of pigs, bears and humans, who really are omnivorous animals, the digestion already starts in the mouth.
In the time of the domestication of the wolf to a dog, there haven’t been any changes in the digestive-system. Therefore the proces of domestication it’s just to short. ( same story if you talk about evolution, that takes even longer!).
Wolfs and vegetable matters. David Mech is considered to be the world's leading wolf biologist, and this book is a compilation of 350 collective years of research, experiments, and careful field observations.
In his book (which he wrote in 2003) “Wolves: Behavior, Ecology, and Conservation†you can find the following lines about wolfs and vegetable matters.
These quotes are taken from chapter 4, “The Wolf as a Carnivore.â€
“Wolves usually tear into the body cavity of large prey and...consume the larger internal organs, such as lungs, heart, and liver. The large rumen is usually punctured during removal and its contents spilled. The vegetation in the intestinal tract is of no interest to the wolves, but the stomach lining and intestinal wall are consumed, and their contents further strewn about the kill siteâ€
“To grow and maintain their own bodies, wolves need to ingest all the major parts of their herbivorous prey, except the plants in the digestive systemâ€
“The wolf's diet consists mostly of muscle meat and fatty tissue from various animals. Heart, lung, liver, and other internal organs are eaten. Bones are crushed to get at the marrow, and bone fragments are eaten as well. Even hair and skin are sometimes consumed. The only part consistently ignored is the stomach and its contents. Although some vegetable matter is taken separately, particularly berries, Canis lupus doesn't seem to digest them very wellâ€
There have been several articles about the stomach contents of the wolf. A low percentage of vegetable matter (between 0,001%-4%) was found which had no relation to the habitat of the wolf. Sure, wolves would eat almost everything to survive, they’re opportunists.
And sure, wolves will sometimes eat something else than animal-matters. It’s known that wolves sometimes eat other wolves faeces, but that doesn’t make them “faeces-eatersâ€.
The domesticated dog has always been an carnivorous mammal, and sure, nowadays they developed preferences for specific foods which they wouldn’t find in the wild, but preferences are not of vital importance.
Dogs have never had any ‘reason’ to become an omnivorous animal.
Raymond Coppinger is sometimes mentioned as a reference for a omnivorous-statement. Coppinger is first a writer of books, a musher and a breeder of Northern sledgedogs who is and was fully supported by the pet food industrie. And after that he is a biologist.
Raymond Coppinger have never done any scientific research. He calls his vision just a theory.
If we qoute him from the National Graphic 2002: " So they selected or a selection was made, by the animal itself, they had the ability to eat close to humans areaâ€
That way he wants to explain that wolves approached humans, and that humans didn’t search for contact with the wolfs themselves. Wolfs approached humans to eat their leftovers, without fear, so they had the ability to eat in the area where humans live.
As an example:
If we compare this with how the dogs in the “Hidatsa Culture†are fed, we see that those dogs are most of the time fed by RMB’s.
If we think clearly we see that there have never been any “reason†for a dog to change into an omnivorous animal.
“As dogs became adult we fed them meat and also cooked corn for
them, boiling it into a kind of mush. Anything that turned sour in the
lodge, like boiled corn, we gave to the dogs. Any food that was spoiled
or for some reason was rejected by the family, was set aside for them. If,
on the hunt, an animal was killed that was lean and poor in flesh, it was
given to the dogs. A man who killed a buffalo, saved the parts that he did
not want for himself and gave them to the dogs. Sometimes he would
gather up for his dogs the cast-away, pieces of another man's butchering.
The tough outside part of a buffalo's ham was stripped off for the
dogs, while the meat near the bone was kept.
The parts of the leg below the knee were also thrown away or given to the dogs.
When buffalo were abundant, the hunters kept only the best parts, for when two or three
buffalo were killed not all the meat could be carried home. The next day
after the killing anyone who wished meat for his dogs could go to the
place where the carcasses were butchered and get the cast-away pieces.
In times of scarcity the people cared for their dogs as best they could.
They ate the bones that were crushed and broken in cooking and then
thrown away. The dogs could chew and gnaw at them and get some food
in this way. “
Source:
THE AMERICIAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY; THE HORSE AND THE DOG IN HIDATSA CULTURE. BY GILBERT L. WILSON.
The first commercial dogfood arised in 1860, the food was made of grain, vegetables and blood. Most people in that time kept on feeding their dogs with RMB’s. It was after the second worldwar that people start to give their pets commercial petfoods. In such a short amount of time, evolution (big) physical changes) won’t take place.
The dog in the current form still hasn’t any bodypart that tell us it’s a omnivorous animal. In the matter of fact: everything points in the direction of the opposite.