Rating: 
Summary: Thinking about a natural food diet for your pet?
Review: If you are, I highly recommend this book. It's written in a easy to read style and is a great introduction on what is needed to successfully implement a raw food diet. This book covers a variety of material, including nutrition aspects, how to make up a meal, how to switch your animal over, and a basic guideline with amounts of various ingredients listed.The book itself is spiral bound, making it easy to set on the counter the first couple of times you try the menu. There are 118 pages, which includes a natural care yellow pages at the end. Included in these pages are a list of books and newsletters to further your understanding. The last chapter of testimonials from various people who have switched their pets over to a raw foods diet are touching and inspirational. This book made it easy for me to understand the benefits and the mechanics of a natural diet, that I've been left wondering why I didn't switch my dog over sooner.
Rating:
Summary: The best introduction to BARF
Review: Kymythy Schultze has done the best job of simplifying a raw diet. If someone were to buy one book on the subject, I would definitely reccomend this one. It breaks it down into each part of the diet and the reasons behind feeding each part without being overly scientific. I read the entire book in one sitting and constantly refer back to it. I must say though that personally, I do not agree with all of her ideas on feeding, but read it with an open mind, there is some great information packed into that book.
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Summary: A miracle!
Review: Miracles do not happen often, but surely this time one occurred after having read Kymythy Schultze's book. We have a 2 year old Jack Russell, Max, who, despite his lively and affectionate nature, was very difficult as to what he accepted for food. We tried tens of different brands of (dry) dog food, but each time after a few days he refused to continue to eat the stuff. His coat became dull, more and more often he had all kinds of skin affections, small injuries did not heal normally and so on. We bought a range of books on how to best care for your dog, but to no avail. Until I found this book with Amazon and started to feed Max The Ultimate Diet from the day we both read it. The change has been fast and dramatic. His coat has become thick and glossy, not the slightest trace anymore of exzema, injuries (resulting from his buldozer approach when out in the surrounding countryside) heal within a few days and he has become more gay and playful than ever! I think we are even more happy than Max himself since this Good Book came to us! Roel and Catherine Van Zummeren, Condom-en-Armagnac, France roelvanzum@aol.com
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Summary: This book helped save my dog
Review: My Golden Retriever has suffered from allergies most of her life.She has been on the diet in this book for six months. After a detox period(explained in this book) which lasted 6-8 weeks,her overall health has improved tremendously.My dog is off all of her previous medication(antibiotics and prednisone), and her skin is clear,her coat is soft and thick, and her attitude is great. I would definetly recommend this book.I would also recommend seeking help from a homeopathic vet when switching to the diet.
Rating: 
Summary: Not much evidence for this
Review: Schultze offers no hard, convincing evidence, or argument for her beliefs. It would seem the natural food is better than the junk from the stores. But who knows? Maybe the animals who are doomed to live with man have acclimated to the commercial stuff. I would like to see real and controlled studies to see if there is any significant difference between what this book touts and doggie bisquits. Personal belief and hype just does not cut it.
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Summary: A travesty worth no stars at all
Review: Schultze's book attempts to provide "the ultimate pet diet," and it may be that raw or natural foods are wonderful for pets. But her book contains so much misinformation that it's impossible to rely on it at all. On page 4, while summarizing the results of a study she does *not* provide any citations for, she states: "The cats that were fed cooked food swiftly deteriorated in health until, by the third generation, they could no longer reproduce." Unless there is something she's not telling us - like that the cats were also deprived of critical nutrients - this can't be true. If it was, we wouldn't have to worry about spaying and neutering pet cats - we'd have to worry about bringing them back from the edge of extinction. Virtually all commercial cat foods are cooked, whether kibble or canned, and many cats eat nothing else their whole lives - even for generations - and yet somehow we still have cats. On page 5, she states: "When the first- and second-generation cooked-food cats were placed on a raw food diet, it took four generations for their line to recover from the ill effects of consuming cooked food." Unlikely. For any diet to have an effect as strong as the one she describes beyond the second generation after cessation of use, it would have to cause *genetic* change. Feline genes aren't so susceptible to mutation that a diet of good food that is cooked in a normal way - food like humans eat - could cause it, and if genetic change did occur, the cat line wouldn't have recovered. These are just two examples, culled from the first pages of the book, but there are many others. I simply do not feel comfortable trusting my pet's health to a diet based on such unreliable information.
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Summary: Killing Little Poochie
Review: The book starts with a study from the 1930's that showed that it took four generations for cats to recover from a cooked food diet. A study that advances Lamarckian theory is an inauspicious start for any book, let alone a book that could endanger the life of your favorite friend and companion, your dog.
To a very large extent, this book bases its theories on what is "natural" for your dog, e.g. what your dog would do in the wild. Since there are no references to studies of the diet and lifespan of domesticated dogs that have reverted to a feral state, you will have to take on faith that your highly domesticated animal is either akin to a wild wolf, or that a feral dog is healthier than your animal that will probably live well over a decade. My Border Collie wouldn't make it a week in the wild, let alone five years.
Exposure to heartworm, fluke, trichinosis, and other parasites is dangerous and a leading cause of death for any wild mammal. Exposure to e-coli, salmonella and other food-born bacteria is highly dangerous - diarrhea is the number one cause of death in human infants in the world. I won't risk my dog's life because cooked food is so "deadly" due to build up of "toxins" as this book proposes. I have weighed the risks and have come up "no contest" for cooked food. There are Web resources that refute the safety of giving your dog raw chicken necks, backs and wings. I feel the very real risk of choking, injury to gums, teeth, throat, stomach and intestines from long-term use of bones in the diet far outweigh unsubstantiated and anectodotal evidence that this will keep my 50 lb. animal healthier. See secondchanceranch.org/rawmeat.html for a serious debunking of these theories.
You will need to do some critical thinking about the "natural" argument. Do you think you would make it over 40 living like a caveman without sanitary plumbing and indoor heating, a clean water supply and cooked food? Believe me, in places where they don't have it, they don't. Do further research before exposing your omnivorous, highly domesticated mammal to this level of risk.
Rating: 
Summary: Good Book Not Great
Review: There are lots of books on the market for feeding your pets the BARF diet, this is just one of them. While I agree with the concept, this book makes it a little more comlicated then it needs to be. Good starting point, but I wouldn't base my whole thought process on it.
Rating:
Summary: Good Book Not Great
Review: There are lots of books on the market for feeding your pets the BARF diet, this is just one of them. While I agree with the concept, this book makes it a little more comlicated then it needs to be. Good starting point, but I wouldn't base my whole thought process on it.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Book
Review: This book convinced me to switch my dogs to a raw diet. It explained in simple, easy to understand ways why it is the best thing for my dogs. It also explained how to go out doing it. I think it's a must read for anyone thinking of feeding a raw diet or anyone who wants their dogs to eat the best diet they possibly can.
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