Stomach contents

First let me say that if you have not had breakfast yet you may want to save this and read it later.  That of course depends on your stomach and the level of ease in which it is turned by what you read.  I am discussing the myth of wolves eating stomach contents.

I wanted to talk about this today because I saw a video on wolves last night and it reminded me of when I visited the Wolf Center in Julian, CA.   We had a private tour when we were there and I spent almost the whole time photographing the wolves while talking to our tour gal.  I asked a ton of questions and one of those questions was "do wolves eat the stomach contents of their prey?"  The girl told us that she did not think so, she hadn't seen them eat it.  So I also contacted another wolf site and they confirmed that wolves do not eat the stomach contents of large prey.

So this morning I was surfing around trying to find out more facts to back up this statement.  Why?  Because I wanted to know how much if any plant matter they truly ate.  I found out that they often eat the actual stomach lining itself; spilling the contents before consumption.  Of course some of the contents probably is consumed when this is done.  But typically the lining is eaten and the contents left.  With that 'eating the stomach contents' myth busted then we must look at our own dog's diet knowing this.

These are a few good raw sites.  Raw fed  Natural Canine

I feed my dogs plant matter; and these are my reasons.  Our meat protein today is far less nutritious than if it were taken from the wild.  A good majority of the feed animals are fed very low grade food offering little if any nutrients to the muscle itself.  That is unless you go to grass fed and free range animals.  Not everyone can afford to feed this to their dogs.  So we are left with a protein source that is far less nutritious than the wolves wild prey.

So even though wolves do not eat the stomach contents of their prey; they do benefit from a much more nutrient filled protein source.  I do offer my dogs plant matter and when I do it is either precooked or blanched and frozen previously making it much easier and quicker for the dogs to digest.  Dogs are not meant to eat a great deal of plant as they have a much shorter digestive tract than we do.  You will see for yourself what does not get digested by your dog simply by checking out their poop.  There is no point in feeding things that have no nutritional value to your dog.

Wolves like dogs are also opportunists; so along with their main diet of animal protein they pick up and scavenge on all sorts of things in the wild.   Sort of a little of this, a little of that.  Variety is the spice of life.