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Reply To: Is Raw Giving My Puppy UTIs?

#76814 Report Abuse
SkeptVet
Member

Wow! It appears to be impossible for some here to disagree with someone else without being abusive and outright lying about them. Apart from being dishonest and gratuitously mean, it doesn’t really help answer the OP’s question, so it’s just snarking to make yourselves feel better.

For the record-
1. I’m not “extremely against raw diets.” I think the arguments made in favor of them range from complete nonsense to reasonable but unproven. The bottom line is that such diets might or might not have health benefits but no one has yet done the research to prove it, and all the armchair theorizing and anecdotes in the world won’t substitute for that.

And while the benefits are unproven, some of the risks are known. They are small, and not a reason to avoid raw diets if some benefits do turn out to show up in scientific studies some day, but there’s no reason to take even small risks when the only evidence is guesswork.

So I am skeptical of raw diets, but like anyone who understands how science works I proportion my judgments to the evidence, and since the evidence is almost non-existent I don’t make definitive judgments for or against the practice.

2. As for the UTI mentioned in the OP, I am not aware of any evidence that suggests raw diets increase the risk of UTIs. Sure, they expose pets to additional bacterial pathogens, but most of the common UTI organisms are already ubiquitous, and it seems unlikely that a few more would make a huge difference.

3. I won’t bother responding to the vapid and silly personal stuff, but anyone who actually reads my articles on raw diets will see plenty of links to original research studies.

And it’s pretty bizarre to see in one paragraph a complaint that I don’t provide scientific evidence, then a suggestion such evidence doesn’t matter anyway since “science changes,” and then an argument that good evidence concerning raw diets is impractical anyway so we should all just rely on anecdotes. Since you clearly don’t think science matters, it’s pretty hypocritical (and, of course, factually incorrect) to complain that I don’t provide any scientific evidence.

Bottom line is that I doubt the diet has anything to do with the UTI problems in this case, and I cannot understand why adults can’t discuss and debate these sorts of issues without all of the hyperbole and personal abuse. Even if you don’t like my opinions, try to cite them accurately.