The Veterinary Information Network (VIN) has an interesting article about feeding your pets raw meats. They quote a New Hampshire veterinarian, Dr. Richard McAroy, who is against it and doesn’t allow it in boarding clients. Here’s a sample of the article, but do read the whole. It is a balanced report of the pros and cons of feeding your do or cat uncooked meat.
November 22, 2010
By: Carrie Peyton Dahlberg
For The VIN News Service
“Raw food and boarding don’t mix for Dr. Richard McAroy. In the face of a surge in the number of his clients feeding their pets uncooked meat, the New Hampshire clinic owner has instituted a rule for boarders: no raw diets.
He believes the diets bring too high a risk of spreading pathogens in the environment. “If one of my staff members gets signs of something like Salmonella or E. coli, that would hit my workers compensation (insurance),” McAroy says. “I can’t guarantee the sterility of the food as delivered to me by the owner.”
His concern is not unique. Earlier this year, the Delta Society, a nonprofit group that promotes the use of therapy and service animals to improve human health, banned raw-fed animals from its “Pet Partners” program, saying the animals may shed pathogens that could infect vulnerable people.
The bans represent a sharpening in the division between proponents and opponents of raw protein pet diets, with veterinarians falling on both sides of the line and sometimes straddling the middle….”
