# Therapy Dogs and Raw Food Diet



## KellyH (Sep 5, 2010)

Has anyone seen this statement by the Delta Society that says it will not allow your dog to be a Delta Therapy Dog if you feed it a raw food diet?

Delta Society - Raw Protein Diet Policy

Has anyone run across this problem? Thoughts? Opinions?


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## Megora (Jun 7, 2010)

What do they mean by shed? 



> 1. Animals fed raw protein will *be more likely* to shed *certain* pathogenic bacteria, *such as Salmonella*.
> 
> 2. Animals fed commercially prepared or cooked, home-made diets *are less likely to shed Salmonella and some other pathogens*, which reduces the risk to the patients/clients they visit.
> 
> 3. All pet and human foods have the potential to be recalled due to outbreaks – the difference is *that Salmonella contamination of raw animal protein is expected, while Salmonella contamination of other foods is a less common and unexpected even.*


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## jackie_hubert (Jun 2, 2010)

It is the same for many many dog therapy groups. Here too and this is something we might run into as well as we plan to feed raw soon and do therapy work eventually. We have found one group here that does not have this requirement and probably will join that group.


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## mylissyk (Feb 25, 2007)

Shed means the bacteria getting passed from the dog to the environment or people touching the dog. The concern is for people already in fragile health possibly being exposed to salmonella virus by dogs that are being fed raw diet.


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## Dallas Gold (Dec 22, 2007)

This is a policy of the two bigger pet therapy dog groups here in the Dallas as well.


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## Dallas Gold (Dec 22, 2007)

jackie_hubert said:


> It is the same for many many dog therapy groups. Here too and this is something we might run into as well as we plan to feed raw soon and do therapy work eventually. We have found one group here that does not have this requirement and probably will join that group.


In my own personal opinion, and speaking from the perspective of a relative of a nursing home in fragile health, I would want to know if the pet therapy group visiting my relative allows raw feeding, simply because my relative doesn't need the extra added risk due to his fragility. The nursing staff doesn't have the time to go wipe down his hands after each visit. He tends to put his one good hand in his mouth constantly too. I recognize proving the source of the contamination is probably impossible because there are all sorts of germs floating around in the nursing homes. What I would hate to see happen is all pet therapy groups being banned because of an incident involving a pet therapy group without strict cleanliness standards.


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## AmberSunrise (Apr 1, 2009)

I stopped bringing my dogs to Nursing Homes etc due to the raw food issue, and the vaccination requirements. My dogs were with Delta Society and were loved everywhere they went, but I feel my first responsibility is my dogs, not Delta Society so they are no longer Therapy Dogs.


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## Bender (Dec 30, 2008)

Honestly, I think there's just as much bacteria in kibble, and pigs ears etc. are always being recalled due to contamination. My son came home from the hospital and never had a problem with the critters eating raw - he had open heart surgery and the doctors had no concerns. I also worked in long term care and let's just say if you have a loved one in a nursing home, assume everything is contaminated. Some of the things I saw would make you loose your lunch! 

It's a shame they don't allow it though, but I guess they have their reasons.

Lana


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## Ranger (Nov 11, 2009)

Is raw feeding not allowed at all or could you just feed kibble a day or two before the visit and raw the rest of the week? I completely understand why they'd be hesitant to take that risk when the health of the people the dogs visit is compromised.


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## Bender (Dec 30, 2008)

The thing is, I don't think there is 'contamination' with raw fed dogs, no more than with kibble fed dogs. Both will shed bacteria in their poop, like it or not. It was a common thing for kibble reps to say 'oh your dog will have bacteria in their poop' as if it would kill your children and become a bio hazard - but how many of us handle dog poop with bare hands than eat? 

In many nursing homes today pets are allowed to come visit relatives, and they don't screen them.

I do know of one PALS (Calgary pet therapy group) dog who is raw fed, not sure if the group knows about it or if the people just didn't say anything, but the dog has been doing visits for years with no problems.

Besides, how would the therapy group really enforce that rule? They're not going to move into everyone's house. I'm sure there's lots of raw fed dogs who do pet therapy and their owners just say the dog eats kibble and leaves it at that.

Lana


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## jackie_hubert (Jun 2, 2010)

Dallas Gold said:


> In my own personal opinion, and speaking from the perspective of a relative of a nursing home in fragile health, I would want to know if the pet therapy group visiting my relative allows raw feeding, simply because my relative doesn't need the extra added risk due to his fragility. The nursing staff doesn't have the time to go wipe down his hands after each visit. He tends to put his one good hand in his mouth constantly too. I recognize proving the source of the contamination is probably impossible because there are all sorts of germs floating around in the nursing homes. What I would hate to see happen is all pet therapy groups being banned because of an incident involving a pet therapy group without strict cleanliness standards.


I agree with Bender but I also obviously care about the people we'd go and visit. I've spoken with our local group and they want us to be doing Reading Pals mostly (and potentially a new program for kids testifying in court), so will not generally be working with immune compromised individuals.


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## hansen (Oct 12, 2010)

I think the rule makes sense.. Dog eats contaminated raw food. Goes to work at hospital where his face is in contact with patient's hands. Contamination is passed. 

It just one more safeguard against spreading of disease.. Obviously there is no real way to enforce this, but they are expecting you to be a responsible therapy dog owner.. One case of salmonella passed from a therapy dog to a patient and you better believe that hospitals will be changing their stances on therapy dogs in general.


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## tippykayak (Oct 27, 2008)

Megora said:


> What do they mean by shed?


They mean leave bacteria or bacterial cysts in the environment.


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## FlyingQuizini (Oct 24, 2006)

I'm sorry, but I think the rule is ridiculous. So, my dog can eat a cat turd (or in general, otherwise "be a dog") but I can't feed raw. And if I feed my therapy dog kibble, but my OTHER dog eats raw, I can no longer do visits with my kibble-eating therapy dog.

If they're that concerned about cross contamination - especially in immuno-compromised patients - perhaps dogs shouldn't visit the ill.

I forget which one, but a kibble manufacturer is a major supporter of Delta.


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## FlyingQuizini (Oct 24, 2006)

I'd like to know if there were any cases of a patient contracting salmonella following a therapy dog visit. Compare that to the number of patients who develop (and in extreme cases, die from) staph infections while in the hospital.... Yeah. It's the dogs that present a risk.


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## Megora (Jun 7, 2010)

> Dog eats contaminated raw food. Goes to work at hospital where his face is in contact with patient's hands. Contamination is passed.


I gather this is what they meant by shedding... and I can see that happening. <- I mean, my golden ate the head of a mouse that our cat rejected this morning. It's stupid, I know, but I'm going to be washing his mouth out before I let him lick me. And he is going to be getting a lot of yogurt and probiotics to prevent infection. Because yuck. Our cat eats birds and mice year around, but he doesn't lick hands. 

I gather therapy dogs are trained not to lick people, but they still probably have bacteria on their fur. 

Dog food kibble is not supposed to have salmonella on it. That is why Eukanuba and Iams recalled a whole lot of food earlier this year. It is a hazard to the owners and kids handling the food.

- I should point out that one of my brothers was in the hospital a few years ago. He had aplastic anemia, which means his immune system was attacking his bone marrow. So in order to keep him alive, they had to take out his immune system for a while. He had zero immune system at the time and limited immune system even months later when he was sent home. We had two dogs and a cat at the time, and they did not cause him any problems. So I don't think the average dog is going to be causing major league problems for people, providing they are taking common sense cautions (washing hands, etc). 

It is possible that bringing a dog who eats raw into the hospital won't cause any problems if the patients get their hands washed afterwards. But I don't know if I would be thrilled as family finding out that my brother had been possibly exposed to salmonella while he was in the hospital. Yanno?


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## tippykayak (Oct 27, 2008)

There have been a couple of small-scale studies on raw feeding that showed increased shedding of dangerous strains of salmonella and E. coli in raw fed dogs. I don't think there's a lot of consensus that the evidence is conclusive, and there has been some research that showed no difference.

I think it's a reasonable safety precaution, even though it's pretty draconian. There is a lot of salmonella, for example, out there on raw meat. For a normal immune system, it's no problem. For a compromised immune system, though, even a tiny amount of salmonella from a raw-fed dog's spit could mean a serious problem.

It's a better-safe-than-sorry situation, which is why some therapy organizations aren't adopting the rule.

I think Quiz raises a good point that truly immunocompromised patients shouldn't be seeing dogs anyway, so raw food seems like a really arbitrary tipping point to apply to an animal that can eat poop and lick its own butt without violating the guidelines.


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## solinvictus (Oct 23, 2008)

According to one study out there kibble fed dogs also get salmonella just at a lower rate. So, letting kibble fed dogs into the facilities still make the patients at risk.

Raw Fed dogs - 40
Raw Fed dogs - 19 had salmonella

approximately that works out to 1 out of every two dogs

Kibble fed dogs - 156
Kibble fed dogs - 12 had salmonella

This works out to 1 out of every thirteen dogs

If it is a risk for one group why isn't it a risk for the other group?


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## tippykayak (Oct 27, 2008)

solinvictus said:


> According to one study out there kibble fed dogs also get salmonella just at a lower rate. So, letting kibble fed dogs into the facilities still make the patients at risk.
> 
> Raw Fed dogs - 40
> Raw Fed dogs - 19 had salmonella
> ...


Yup! These are the kind of numbers I saw when I researched the issue. Any visitor, human or otherwise, carries infectious agents. There are mold spores on your clothes that would never bother you but could cause horrible fungal pneumonia in an immunocompromised person, for example.

I think it's really about managing the risk since eliminating it is not a possibility. I think it's a strong argument to say it's going overboard, though.


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## Megora (Jun 7, 2010)

> Raw Fed dogs - 40
> Raw Fed dogs - 19 had salmonella
> 
> Kibble fed dogs - 156
> Kibble fed dogs - 12 had salmonella


But looking at these numbers, a bigger percentage of raw fed dogs had salmonella than kibble fed dogs. + We don't know what kibble those dogs were eating (they could have all been eating Eukanuba before the recall). 

But the raw food dogs - 19 out of 40? That's nearly half! To match up, the kibble fed number should have shown 78 dogs with salmonella.


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## solinvictus (Oct 23, 2008)

Well for Delta we know that 1 out of 2 is to high but for 1 out of 13 is a risk they are willing to take. I bet the family member of the person that gets contaminated from a shedding dog from that 13 wouldn't be agreeable to that risk. I believe according to that study their are other pathogens that are higher in the kibble fed dogs but Delta isn't as concerned about them.


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## Megora (Jun 7, 2010)

solinvictus said:


> Well for Delta we know that 1 out of 2 is to high but for 1 out of 13 is a risk they are willing to take. I bet the family member of the person that gets contaminated from a shedding dog from that 13 wouldn't be agreeable to that risk. I believe according to that study their are other pathogens that are higher in the kibble fed dogs but Delta isn't as concerned about them.


Keep in mind that Delta is probably protecting their organization's ability to go into hospitals. 

There have been plenty of therapy dogs taken into hospitals to visit the sick and they do a world of good, especially for kids.

8% of these (156 total dogs) kibble fed dogs might be carrying salmonella, but they apparently are not causing any problems for the patients. That is why they are continuing to let these dogs visit. Otherwise, you can betcha the powers that be would insist on locking the dogs out. 

50% of (40 total dogs) raw fed dogs is a more alarming percentage, and I imagine Delta is thinking about people like my family who would be irate if there was a 50% likelihood that our relative was in some way exposed to ecoli or salmonella. 

And I hate to imagine the percentage of salmonella if they tested as many rf dogs as they did kibble fed dogs. It probably would be a lot more than just 1/2.


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## IowaGold (Nov 3, 2009)

solinvictus said:


> Well for Delta we know that 1 out of 2 is to high but for 1 out of 13 is a risk they are willing to take. I bet the family member of the person that gets contaminated from a shedding dog from that 13 wouldn't be agreeable to that risk. I believe according to that study their are other pathogens that are higher in the kibble fed dogs but Delta isn't as concerned about them.


My question though, is how many raw fed dogs were in the program to begin with? I'd venture to guess that less than 5% of the general pet population is raw fed (probably higher for "involved" dog people, but still probably no more than 10-15%, I'd venture). So let's say they have 1000 dogs in the program. Maybe 875 are kibble fed, 125 are raw fed. So that would mean that potentially 67 kibble fed dogs are shedding Salmonella. And potentially 62-63 raw fed dogs are shedding. Hmmm. Looks like pretty similar overall numbers when you figure the percentage of raw fed dogs.

I don't do therapy visits, so it doesn't really effect me, but I'm sure Delta has lost a lot of good teams by this ruling.


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## Megora (Jun 7, 2010)

Well, either that or in hospital terms... 

It could be 2 raw fed dogs and 2 kibble fed dogs who routinely visit your local hospital. 

According to those above percentages, neither kibble dog has salmonella or ecoli junk on them, but one of the two raw fed dogs has junk on him. 

So, would you really ban all dogs because of that one dog who was covered with bacteria? Or would you make it easy and lower the percentage possibilities of germy dogs wandering around the hospital by enforcing no raw rules?


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## AmberSunrise (Apr 1, 2009)

As a former Delta Society member with 2 actively volunteering dogs, I understand Delta Society needs to make rules they can live by. Since I will not lie or in any way cover up how I feed and care for my dogs, they have lost me and other active members.

I honestly do not feel how I feed my dogs is their business, but this is a choice they felt they had to make - perhaps it is actually for insurance reasons since insurance seems to be behind many of our present day restrictions, and I was automatically covered on Delta's and my sponsoring clubs policies.


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## FlyingQuizini (Oct 24, 2006)

I still suspect this is largely the reason:

(From Delta's website)

Thank you to our incredible partner, the passionate pet lovers at Purina.


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## jackie_hubert (Jun 2, 2010)

I really hope that's not it but unfortunately I've seen dog food sponsorship in action...

Do any of you know who conducted the studies that have been done?


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## T&T (Feb 28, 2008)

Dr Becker's thoughts 
http://healthypets.mercola.com/sites/healthypets/archive/2010/08/05/nations-leading-dog-therapy-organization-shoots-self-in-foot-with-ban-on-raw-fed-pets.aspx


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## tippykayak (Oct 27, 2008)

T&T said:


> Dr Becker's thoughts
> http://healthypets.mercola.com/sites/healthypets/archive/2010/08/05/nations-leading-dog-therapy-organization-shoots-self-in-foot-with-ban-on-raw-fed-pets.aspx


I know who Mercola is, but I didn't realize he had a holistic vet as a contributor to his company.


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## inge (Sep 20, 2009)

What about The Honest Kitchen? There the meat is dehydrated...


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