[selzer]

Oh I don't know. I think that hunting down wild game and killing and eating it for survival is hard to actually duplicate. I mean a wild dog or wolf has to stay light, agile, trim and fast to run down prey animals. Prey animals stay trim and fast running away from predators. Prey animals eat grass and brush and when they cannot get grass trees, they do not load up on corn and other grains, they are fast, where herded animals are protected and pretty much kept quietly munching away to produce fatty meats.

A wild dog might not eat for a couple of days and then gorge on very lean meat. They will often eat everything but the squeal, including bones, organs, and if there are a number of dogs feasting on a carcus, they are eating the intestines and stomach contents too. C'mon folks our dogs eat grass and grains and veggies and fruit and cat poop, goose poop, rabbit poop, and dog poop given the opportunity. I don't think they are going to turn their noses up to stomach contents, especially if there are more than one of them chowing down.

I wonder if the problems that vets see with kindey and renal failure is actually due to the fat content of the meat that we give our dogs moreso than the protein in the meat. But they do tell you to knock down the protein if there are kidney problems. They say it doesn't cause them, well the pro-RAW people generally do.

I figure the answer is somewhere in between. I think dog food gives less meat and bone meal than a dog would likely get in the wild with respect to the amount of grains/veggies/fruits -- carbs they would normally eat; but I think that the types of meat that we would give the dogs would be far higher in fat, hormones, and antibiotics than what a dog eating wild would normally eat.

I suppose you could hunt daily with your dog, walking miles and miles and on those days you get pheasant, grouse, deer, or rabbit, you could feed it to the dog raw. And on the days you bring down nothing, the dog could go without. And that might be pretty close to how a dog would eat if they were in the wild.

Now, what is the average lifespan of wild wolves, and coyotes? Is it more or less than on average kibble fed dogs? Just curious.