Let's clean up a few myths- Part 1
Myth 1: Dogs can not get Salmonella from a Raw Diet.
Any animal can host a Salmonella bacteria. The only rate limiting factor is how in tune the species and serotype is with the host. Likewise any animal can get sick on the toxins producted by the Salmonella no matter what the serotype, or original native host.
Let's start with an article that proves there's at least one Salmonella species capable of producing an enteric infection in a dog
Salmonella infection of dog
In the second reference article The investigation was conducted at the request of a Greyhound breeder. The article does not describe the symptoms present. Wonder why a breeder would result such an epidemiology study?
Salmonella vs raw diet on a breeding farm
Note the conclusions of the study: Feeding meat that had not been cooked properly, particularly meat classified as unfit for human consumption, likely contributed to the infections in these dogs. Unless you are getting the chicken parts certified by the USDA from the store then by definition it's unfit for human consumption.
The third article did some analysis on commercial Raw dog food.
Raw sold to the public
Salmonella enterica was recovered from 17 (5.9%) samples, all of which were raw meat products.
In general the following can be concluded per typical Salmonella contamination of a raw food diet:
1. A healthy young dog may be able to readily ward off infections caused by consumption of low numbers of Salmonella.
2. An older or immune compromised dog may not be able to cope with eating salmonella infected meat.
3. No dog will be able to escape illness if they consume meat where the Salmonella have previous grown and produced toxins.
But the dangers of a raw food diet do not stop with the dog. There is a lot of discussion about the feeding of a raw diet increasing the chances of the dog passing Salmonella infections to their owners, where the very young and old are in danger.
In browsing around I ran across this article that discussed other disease agents in a raw diet. For those who believe it's ok to feed raw pork:
Aujeszky's disease
The most dangerous virus infection to be transmitted to cats and dogs via raw pork leftovers is Aujeszky's disease. The dog or cat, which is the last link in the infection chain, suffers an agonizing death.
If I were feed raw chicken to my dogs, I'd be tossing the pieces into boiling water for a couple of minutes to scald the surface contamination. But then again, I'd cook the meat period, as there's no reason not to.
