Can dogs being fed a BARF diet experience bloat?
Any dog can bloat but it is my opinion that dogs fed a raw diet are less likely to bloat than are dogs fed a commercial diet. I say this because out of the thousands and thousands of dogs in which I’ve come in contact over the years (both commercially fed and raw fed), the only dogs I’ve known who’ve ever bloated have been commercially fed. I have personally never known a raw fed dog who has bloated. I’m not saying it can’t happen, but I myself have never seen it nor heard of it. Because raw foods are very high in water content and do not expand in the stomach, gas is not produced and will not swell as happens so often in bloat cases. In addition, because raw foods are digested so much more quickly than cooked foods, that raw food is in the stomach for a much smaller amount of time. This too helps decrease the chances of bloat. However, feeding a raw diet is not an insurance policy against bloat. Lonsdale states in his book, Raw Meaty Bones, that the feeding of starchy foods is also a
