Dr. Billinghurst's most important piece of writing is the book Give Your Dog a Bone. Because cats and dogs have different food requirements, (cats are obligate carnivores while dogs are omnivores with a carnivorous background), he decided they each needed their own book, and that he would write the dog book first. Thus was born Give Your Dog a Bone. This book was launched at a 3 day Bichon Frise conference in western Sydney on the 17th November 1993. The book was advertised in all the canine breeder magazines throughout Australia. Give Your Dog a Bone? proved an instant hit, with many breeders adopting its ideas. Since that time it has been making steady inroads into the minds of breeders and dog owners throughout Australia and overseas. To date nearly fifty thousand copies of this book have been sold. Give Your Dog a Bone is the book that began the worldwide BARF dietary revolution for pets and remains 'the book' to read on the subject of BARF. It remains the practical common sense way to feed any dog for a long healthy life. It is the only book available that deals exclusively with feeding dogs their natural or evolutionary diet. This book contains vital information for all dog owners. It is a must for the owners of new puppies. Its 320 pages are packed with practical authoritative dog feeding advice that will drastically reduce vet bills. It shows that a dog's diet, which is based on raw meaty bones, is simple to produce, promotes health and is inexpensive. Give Your Dog a Bone explains why processed foods are the major cause of growth, reproductive, dental and most of the degenerative diseases including problems such as cancer, diabetes, arthritis, kidney failure, cardiac disease, the auto-immune diseases etc.
Wow what a great source of information for raw and barf diets . I feed all my puppies this way now and have seen a great amount of good . I feed them at first with dog foods like blue etc I think I went through about 6 different brand and still my puppies had Diarrhea and vomiting allergies and vet visits . I now have solid poops 2 times a day ,no vomiting an.d haven't seen a vet in a month. so if looking for a better option in feeding this is a great start also look into forms and groups. I hope this helps you too. 10 stars
Finally DONE! I don't love non-fiction books (feels too much like I have to pay attention) but we got there! Very informative and interesting book. Quite repetitive but gets the point across.
This should be the first book beginning raw dog feeders should read. It is THE baseline to build from. It should be a part of all raw feeder’s library.
This is a good book for learning how to start off raw feeding your dog's. But as the book says please check with your vet before doing a lot of this stuff. Or if you already know what you're doing. There's lots of good advice how to and more in this book.
"Your dog is a carnivore... Your dog is a vegetarian." Excuse me but WTF? The fact that a wild dog may eat some vegetable matter does not make it a vegetarian. The lack of editing was already getting on my nerves but the point where he tried to argue that a dog is both a carnivore and a vegetarian was where I abandoned this book.
Great book to calm you down if beginning to feed a raw diet
Loved the simplicity, common sense approach along side great science backed info Short and too the point to get you started without fear As a wellness human Cardiologist, I especially liked the references to avoid over feeding as being detrimental to longevity
A bit repetitive, and some parts are confusing and contradictory. But the overall information seems good if you're interested in raw feeding and understanding the "whys"
It was a long time ago when I first read this book, when raw feeding was at the very beginning of it's resurgence. I remember being irritated by this books strong, badgering anti-commercial food message. And I see that feeling has changed, to infuriated by it.
This newer edition hasn't gained anything in it's alterations and some of the many contradictions are more apparent that ever. What are you trying to say Mr Billinghurst? I got the raw meaty bones bit, but after that it was all so confusing. Don't feed grains, but then feed grains. Don't feed scraps, but scraps are good. Is it because you are trying to appeal to as bigger audience as you can? If so, you have really not done your message much good at all.
If I wasn't already a Raw feeding convert, this book would have turned me off quicker than quick. It's sloppy, contradictory and makes some rather outrageous generalizations. More than once I found myself scratching my head in awed disbelief at some of the claims made.
Since this book was written there have been many more published. I've read some of them and while some of them also carry a rather strong anti-commercial food message it is not as odious as this one. They are also better written and a LOT easier to read.
Once this book was one I would have recommended as a must read, these days...not so much. In fact, I would almost flinch if people had based their knowledge and ideals on this book alone.
To begin with, this is a great book for learning about raw dog food. It details how to feed, what to feed, and why to feed raw meaty bones and other raw food to your dog. It was actually recommended to me by the breeder we're working with and it does a good job of illustrating how easy it can be to give your dog a good diet that will benefit his or her lifelong health. If you are thinking about feeding raw, this is a great book to help you figure it all out.
That said, there were a lot of spelling, grammar, and editing errors that really bugged me. The book was still able to clearly lay out the information, but it could have used another editorial pass. Also, it can be very repetitive, offering a lot of the same points in different chapters. From my understanding, though, this is due to the fact that some people will pick and choose chapters or come back to read only certain chapters as a refresher. I think looking at it that way, it accounts for some of the repetition.
All things considered, I would recommend this book to anyone who is thinking of going raw for their dog, or really anyone who has a dog. It contains great information and made me much more comfortable about going this route.
I found this book a wealth of knowledge and it has completely changed my view on canine nutrition. It can be repetitive at times however I think it can be effective for getting across key points and to make sure anyone picking and choosing chapters gets any background info they may have previously missed. While some of the information appears to contradict itself, the underlying message that there is no exact recipe for ultimate health to me explains why there are such contradictions. There will always be people who want to know EXACTLY what, how much and when to feed their dog, and exact answers won't be found in is book because exact answers would be completely individual to each dog and have to consider every aspect of that dogs life, and even then it would probably still be impossible. It does however have so much useful information that anyone willing to put the effort in to their dogs diet would find useful. I would highly recommend it to anyone interested in canine nutrition and especially raw feeding or prey diets.
We switched our dog over to a half raw food half kibble diet and had fantastic results. This is the book we consult with questions (along with a number of websites and blogs).
This book is very helpful in the process once you get in the mindset that this really isn't nearly as hard as it sounds. The book is written terribly....it contains great information but you have to expect the occasional minor contradiction of information and slightly confusing writing. This book should be used as a piece of raw food puzzle, not as a whole.
This little book drove me insane! I felt as if I was reading an infomercial! The only reason I'm giving it a four is because of the priceless information I found filtered throughout it. I recommend highlighting anything you find useful or you may never find it again! It was well worth the effort though...raw food has healed nearly all of my dogs issues. His skin allergies are gone, his coat looks and feels better, he doesn't have bad breath anymore and the tarter on his teeth is coming off!