[SkeptVet]

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.

[SkeptVet]

C4D,
The blogger I linked to is a veterinary infectious disease expert, and he discusses specific scientific evidence in the post I linked to, so this is not merely opinion but opinion informed by evidence and relevant expertise. The second link was not about raw diets because, as I tried to make clear in my post, I was not making a broad claim about raw diets but only responding to the specific comment that dogs were not susceptible to Salmonella infection or associated illness, a false claim that is often used to deny any potential risk to feeding raw meat. Again, I try to be specific and focused in these discussions since otherwise people waste energy arguing past one another.

The evidence is clear that infectious disease is a risk from any type of diet, that it is a greater risk from uncooked foods than cooked foods, and that it is a greater risk for people with potential immune system vulnerabilities (very young, very old, pregnant, ill, on immunosuppressive medications, etc.). This evidence needs to be considered when making choices about feeding raw. If evidence emerges that there are significant health benefits to doing so, then such risks may be worth taking and, as you suggest, it is appropriate to minimize them as best we can. If, however, there are no benefits to feeding raw compared with cooked homemade or commercial diets, then why take the risk at all? I’m still waiting for controlled studies looking at the relative merits of different feeding strategies because I don’t think the existing evidence is at all definitive.

Until that evidence is available, of course, we all need to make feeding decisions, and some may choose raw on the basis of the theoretical arguments or indirect evidence. That’s fine, and I’m not here to dissuade anybody.

What is problematic is when people make definitive claims that are supported by personal belief or anecdotes rather than real evidence. If you say your pets are healthy on a raw diet, that’s a perfectly fair observation. My pets are healthy on commercial diets, and neither experience says anything generalizable about raw vs. commercial foods. If, however, people claim raw must be healthier because of their personal experiences with it or because of the dubious theoretical arguments put forward for it, that’s not a legitimate claim. And if people claim all sorts of dire health problems caused by commercial diets, again those aren’t legitimate claims either without appropriate scientific evidence to support them.

[SkeptVet]

So if we are believers in raw diets, we should ignore most vets’ opinions on nutrition since they don’t know anything about it (and yet, somehow, we do know about nutrition even without any formal education, presumably because we’ve read some articles on the internet or some books on the subject). This includes ignoring the vast majority of board-certified veterinary nutritionists, who agree that there is no evidence supporting the claims for raw diets. They don’t know much about nutrition even though it is their specialty.(Oh, right, they are either deceived or lying because they are all pawns/shills for the pet food industry.) Yet, if a vet recommends raw then we should listen to them because obviously they do know about nutrition since they agree with us and so must be both well-informed and completely without bias or outside influences.

What this kind of discussion suggests is that the real issue is not how much vets know about nutrition but simply that we are looking only for sources of information that agree with what we already believe. The same applies to asking a “holistic vet” about vaccines. There is no reason to think such vets are better informed or know more about immunology than any others, but they must be a more reliable source of information because they agree with what you already believe.

Everyone is entitled to an opinion, but all opinions can be fairly and equally ignored if they don’t come with supporting evidence. And discussions about the evidence are more productive than discussions about opinions because they are less likely to degenerate into personalized and pointless debate. So far, there hasn’t been much discussion in this thread about specifics or evidence, mostly just opinion and “credentials.”

I tried to respond specifically and with evidence concerning the particular statements that “vets don’t know anything about nutrition” and that certain microorganisms in raw meat can’t be harmful to dogs. That shouldn’t be taken to mean anything more or less than what I said on those specific issues. For the record, I don’t know if raw diets have any health benefits compared with cooked fresh diets or commercial diets, and I don’t believe anyone else does either because there is no specific scientific evidence to answer that question. there are lots of theoretical arguments in both directions, and of course the usual persuasive yet utterly unreliable anecdotes, but not real data. I tend to suspect the ultimate answer will be that there is no benefit, but that’s just another opinion until there is real evidence.

[SkeptVet]

“As far as I know, salmonella isn’t dangerous to dogs, only humans.”
Not true:

Yes, dogs can get salmonellosis

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24277916
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC339295/

“I wouldn’t bother asking your vet; chances are he will tell you not to feed raw, which is wrong IMO. Vets get very little education in nutrition.”
So you shouldn’t ask a medical professional for advice if it is likely you will disagree with that advice? Do most pet owners have more “education in nutrition” than vets, or just opinions gleaned from the internet and some books they’ve read? Of course, some like to discount the education vets do have as mere food industry propaganda and the alternative information on the internet as somehow more independent and legitimate, but that’s merely an excuse for dismissing an opinion they don’t like.

What do Veterinarians Know About Nutrition?

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