The Billinghurst Diet advocates the feeding a raw bone-based diet.

Why feed your pet a raw diet?

All raw foods are abundant in enzymes. Cooking kills all enzymes and all commercial foods are cooked. Food enzymes are a major component of an animal”s anti-aging, anti-degeneration mechanism. Enzymes help to prevent and even reverse some aspects of joint disease or arthritis. That is part of the reason fresh fruits and vegetables are important in alleviating arthritis in older dogs.

Facts about commercial processed dog foods

1. Most processed commercial dog food is high in cereal – Dogs are made to eat meat. Cooked cereals have not figured in a dog’s nutritional history, and dogs fed on a predominantly cereal-based diet develop numerous health problems, including such things as obesity, pancreatic insufficiency, sugar diabetes, arthritis, bladder stones, skin and dental problems, cancer, and so on.

2. All processed commercial dog foods are COOKED – When foods are cooked they turn into a product the dogs are not designed to digest, for the cooking process removes such nutrients as vitamins, enzymes and anti-oxidants, in effect “killing” the food.

3. Processed commercial dog foods have low vitamin levels – The minimum levels of vitamins the law requires in dog foods are far less than the amounts required to promote optimum health. This is particularly true in times of stress i.e.: growth, lactation and sickness.

4. Processed commercial dog foods are low in natural and added anti-oxidants – These nutrients help prevent degeneration both in foods and living tissues.

5. Processed commercial foods are low in essential fatty acids.

6. Most processed commercial foods contain nutrient excesses – after cancer, kidney disease and heart disease are the leading causes of death in the modern dog. Excesses of salt, phosphorus and protein, consumed over a lifetime, are a major cause of both kidney and heart disease, and excessive levels of calcium result in problems with growth, as well as with the reproductive and immune systems.

Dog foods are not required (by LAW) to provide optimum or ideal levels of nutrients; so long as the product contains nutrients in excess of a legal minimum, there is no limit to the amount the food can contain. This is one of the most insidious and dangerous aspects of commercial dog food. Vets and owners often worry about deficiencies, but we rarely worry about excesses.Unfortunately too much can be just as bad as too little. At the moment in Australia commercial dog foods contain approximately 5-9 times the required levels of phosphorus, 10-20 times the required levels of salt and anywhere from 3-11 times the required levels of calcium.

7. Most commercial processed dog foods contain “meat by-products”- ask yourself what exactly these are? The Billinghurst diet advocates feeding dogs the way THEY are best able to cope, the way they would probably eat in the wild (with a few of the comforts of home). This diet is based on 60-70% RAW meaty bones, of that 60% would be chicken. We feed backs (carcasses) which have a good mix of meat, skin and bone. In the backs they also get small amounts of liver, kidney and other offal. The other percentage of meat/bone is lamb which is cheap over here but I know of people over in the States who find that beef, turkey and other meats are cheaper.

All the bones are given RAW. When you cook bones they splinter, because cooking changes the physiology of the bones. Before bones are cooked, they are very soft and, as such, cause no problems. We have had no problems with salmonella, but I believe that some people in the States who feed the diet wash their meat in GSE (grapefruit seed extract) which is a natural anti-bacterial agent. I’m not sure how to use it as we never have had a need, but you can use it.

Our dogs get a bone meal 7-8 nights out of 10; the other nights they get a meal of veggies and fruits which are pulped and fed in a mushy mess. I put in any vegetables (mainly the green leafy kind) that I have left over, as well any fruits laying around.
They fast about once a week (although less often in winter).

Mornings they get what we call a milk drink which consists of Acidophilus yogurt, raw egg, brewers yeast, kelp, Vit E, Vit C, wheat germ and garlic. To that, we add anything extra we have, like leftover rice, pasta, vegetables and fruit plus things like honey, cheese, cottage cheese, milk, sardines etc. We mix a bit of warm water with the mixture to make it drinkable. Puppies and bitches in whelp or lactating get this drink each day (puppies till 12 months). The other adults have it about 3 times a week. Occasionally they get a meal of beans and pasta. They get a balanced diet over a two week period, the same as we do. Each meal follows the concept of separating predominantly starchy meals from predominantly protein meals. No meal attempts to be complete and balanced, which gives the body a chance to absorb just what it needs from each meal.

We find feeding this diet as easy as feeding dry food, except the nights I pulp vegetables, that takes about 20 minutes to do in either a juicer (best) or a food processor.
The last time I worked out the cost of this diet, it was around $3.00-$4.00 (Aust) per dog per week, though now I get my meat cheaper since moving back to Canberra cost would be much less.

Our dogs are healthier and happier on this diet. In the two and a half years they have been fed this diet, they have not been to the vet once (not even one of them, and we now have four Dals). So, if nothing else, this diet has saved me money on vet fees. We have no fleas (and we use no chemicals), no flea allergies, no skin problems, no dental problems, no anal sacs that need to be expressed.
On this diet our Dals are livelier than they were before (is this a good thing for Dalmatians!!!) even to the point that Kayla, who was starting to slow a bit at age 8 and is now 10, races around lure coursing livelier than she was at 8 with no hint of any arthritis or other problems.

I love this diet, and so do the dogs. So far the only downfall has been that I now have a dog who is a chicken killer. She started the diet as a baby, so I don’t know if she would have been a chicken killer anyway. It’s hard to say, as none of the others care about the live chooks* at all.

We are about to have our first litter in 3 years, and we have been planning our natural diet for whelping mother, lactating mother and weaning pups with much excitement. The bitch is in excellent health; time will tell how it goes, but during the whelping period she has been in glorious condition, coat, mind, and body. She is not as ravenously hungry as during previous litters. We can only put it down to better quality food.

Well, this has been our experience with diet, and for us there is no looking back. I still do a lot of reading, and just as the evolution of what we feed came about over a period of time, so to anyone who is interested in making the switch I suggest doing a bit of reading and be prepared for the unconventional. Below are some books I recommend as a good read and which helped us in our diet choices.
Many of you will say, “Oh, my dog is just fine on ****** “, but I challenge you to add some raw fruits and veggies to your dog’s diet (and, to the brave, some chicken wings, RAW of course), and see what a difference real food makes to your dog’s condition.

Some dogs live a long and happy life on processed dog foods, but then again some people live a long and happy life on an exclusive diet of McDonalds….

I hope, if nothing else, it gives you something to think about. Books we have found helpful:

1. “Give Your Dog a Bone” “Grow Your Pups with Bones” Dr. Ian Billinghurst
2. “The Holistic Guide for a Healthy Dog” Wendy Volhard & Kerry Brown, DVM
3. “The Complete Herbal Handbook For the Dog and Cat” Juliette de Bairacli Levy

*chook means chicken Down Under

by Leanne Bullard
(originally published in the “Coaching Lines”, newsletter of the Dalmatian Club of Southern New England)

(Dr. Billinghurst now has his own web-site where you can learn more about this diet. It can be found here: http://www.drianbillinghurst.com)