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The Most Important Paper Ever Written on Cat (& Dog) Diet

(carnivore physiology)

Note from Doug Hines, publisher of CatNewsHeadlines.com:

In all of my studies I have never read a more clear, more concise, more important

article about the carnivore digestive process than this one.

Dogs & Cats are CARNIVORES

they are NOT omnivores like human beings

(and any other herbivore/omnivore animal on the planet)

by Mary Marseglia – Pets, Wolves & Wild Cats Expert

(reprinted with permission)

Mary Marseglia

Mary Marseglia, a certified dog behaviorist/trainer, knows everything there is to know about the physiology of dogs and cats. For over 40 years she has studied and observed almost every single wild cat on the planet and knows the anatomy and physiology of wolves, all wild cats, and all domestic dogs and cats.

Mary is also a Certified Pet Nutritionist – she became certified in the early 1990’s.

She is also a Certified Homeopath — a pet expert knowledgeable in proper, complete raw food feeding of both dogs and cats. She has studied the Banerji method, and she knows how to raise animals/pets Naturally without horrible vaccines; toxic heart worm pills; chemical flea, tick & mosquito products or de-wormers.

Mary is also a professional breeder of Elite 100% West German Bloodline German Shepherd pups/adults.

Dogs & Cats are CARNIVORES…

This whole vegetable feeding thing is nothing but humans wanting to treat their pets like they are furry human beings (and they are not as that is an insult to them) and then the Holistic vets that seemingly forget about the anatomy & physiology of dogs & cats as well.
THIS IS AN EXTREMELY LONG WRITE UP – PLEASE READ OVER AND OVER AGAIN UNTIL IT IS IMPRINTED INTO YOUR BRAINS!
 
Dogs and cats do NOT produce the necessary enzymes in their saliva (amylase, for example) to start the break-down process of carbohydrates and starches; amylase in saliva is something omnivorous and herbivorous animals possess, but not carnivorous animals. This places the burden entirely on the pancreas, forcing it to produce large amounts of amylase to deal with the starch, cellulose, and carbohydrates in plant matter. The carnivore’s pancreas does not secrete cellulase to split the cellulose into glucose molecules, nor have dogs become efficient at digesting and assimilating and utilizing plant material as a source of high quality protein. Herbivores do those sorts of things. (Canine and Feline Nutrition Case (one of many), Carey and Hirakawa Published by Mosby, 1995)
 
Due to the lack of any salivary enzymes in the dog’s/carnivore’s mouth, food spends little time in the mouth, it is shortly swallowed and travels down the esophagus. The esophagus is a tube which runs from the pharynx (back of the oral cavity) to the stomach. The walls of the esophagus are protected from damage by food by stratified squamous epithelium arranged in longitudinal folds. This also allows for expansion as the food travels down to the stomach. Food is passed down the esophagus by peristalsis which is the contraction and relaxation of longitudinal and circular muscles, pushing food down to the stomach in wave-like motion.
 
Carnivores have a highly elastic stomach designed to hold large quantities of meat, bone, organs, and hide. Their stomachs are simple, with an undeveloped caecum (Feldhamer, G.A. 1999. Mammology: Adaptation, Diversity, and Ecology. McGraw-Hill. pg 260.).
 
The carnivore stomach is not only a sterilizing chamber, due to the low pH (high acid content – HCL), but it is also the initial site of protein digestion – primarily by pepsin – secreted by the epithelial lining of the stomach.
 
God designed the dog’s and cat’s stomach acids to be much stronger than ours, and they are designed for digesting large lumps of meat and even good size pieces of RAW bone. The ability of the carnivore stomach to secrete hydrochloric acid is exceptional. Carnivores are able to keep their gastric pH down around 1-2 even with food present. This is to facilitate protein breakdown and to kill the abundant dangerous bacteria often found in decaying flesh foods.
 
The stomach volume of a carnivores represents 60-70% of the total capacity of the digestive system. Because meat, bone and fur is relatively easily digested, their small intestines (where absorption of food molecules takes place) are short — about three to five or six times the body length. Since wild carnivores average a kill only about once a week, a large stomach volume is advantageous because it allows the animals to quickly gorge themselves when eating, taking in as much meat as possible at one time which can then be digested later while resting.
 
They have a relatively short foregut and a short, smooth, unsacculated colon. This means they are designed to have food pass through quickly.
 
Vegetable plant matter, grains and cooked foods however, need time to sit and ferment and be broken down. This equates to requiring longer, sacculated colons, larger and longer small intestines, and occasionally the presence of a caecum. Dogs and cats have none of these, but have the shorter foregut and hindgut consistent with carnivorous animals. This explains why plant matter comes out the same way it went in; there was no time for it to be broken down and digested (among other things). Some educated people know this and will try to tell you that this is why vegetables and grains should be pulverized or pre-processed for your dog or cat to get anything out of them. Even if they are pulverized, the dog’s and cat’s digestive system is not designed to extract enough nutrition from them to amount to enough to make it worth while feeding them at all.
 
The small intestine joins to the large intestine, which consists of the under-developed caecum, the colon and the rectum. Again, In carnivores the caecum has no function (as it is used in herbivores/omnivores, their much more developed caecum is used as a site of bacterial fermentation of plant matter).

Coefficient of fermentation.

Herbivores have a high ability to extract nutrition from plant matter as the result of their capability to ferment it, and therefore they have been found to have a high coefficient of fermentation. Carnivores however, aren’t equipped to do this and therefore have a low coefficient of fermentation.
 
The large intestine (colon) of carnivores is simple and very short, as its only purposes are to absorb salt and water. It is approximately the same diameter as the small intestine and, consequently, has a limited capacity to function as a reservoir to hold and ferment/digest vegetable matter, grains or cooked food. The colon is short and non-pouched. The muscle is distributed throughout the wall, giving the colon a smooth cylindrical appearance. Although a bacterial population is present in the colon of carnivores, its activities are essentially putrefactive.
 
Experts agree that wolves and wild cats only eat the stomach contents of their prey when the prey is quite small and it gets consumed as a result of eating the entire animal (like a rabbit for example).
 
L. David Mech, is considered the world’s top wolf biologist. In his book ‘Wolves: Behavior, Ecology, and Conservation’ (2003) (and I have read and studied all his books among other so-called experts and I’ve observed wolves in the wild as well in my 20’s), he and other contributing experts compiled over 300 years of research and observations of the wild canine. An excerpt from this informative work clearly portrays the natural, instinctive eating behavior of the carnivore. “Wolves usually tear into the body cavity of large prey and consume the larger internal organs, such as lungs, heart, and liver. The larger rumen/intestines [one of the main stomach chambers] is usually punctured during removal and its contents shaken out or spilled. The vegetation in the intestinal tract is of no interest to the wolves nor wild cats, but the stomach lining and intestinal wall are consumed, and their contents further strewn about the kill site.
 
The Kerwood Wildlife Education center (Hunting and Meals pages) describes the eating habits of the wolf as: “The wolf’s diet consists mostly of muscle meat and fatty tissue from various animals. Heart, lung, liver, intestines and other internal organs are eaten. Bones are crushed to get to the marrow, and bone fragments are eaten as well.” The only part consistently ignored is the stomach itself and its contents. Although some plant matter (not vegetables) is taken separately, particularly berries, Canis Lupis doesn’t seem to digest them very well.” I have personally seen undigested berries come out into a wolf’s stool. Even my own dogs when I’ve fed them 2% to 3% of fruit away from their protein/organ/eggshell diet [proper complete raw diet] – I’ve seen undigested pieces of apples & pears in their stool including puppies.
 
Thus, feeding dogs and cats as though they were humans (omnivores) taxes the pancreas and places extra strain on it, as it must work harder (or more) for the dog or cat to digest the starchy, carbohydrate-filled food, vegetables and cooked food instead of just producing the normal amounts of the enzymes needed to digest raw animal proteins and fats.
 
Our dogs and cats do not have the kinds of enzymes or friendly bacteria that break down cellulose and starch for them as we humans/omnivores do. As a result, most of the nutrients contained in plant matter – even pre-processed plant matter – are unavailable to dogs and cats (they receive very little to none of the nutrients from vegetables, no matter what you do to them). This is why dog and cat food manufacturers have to add such high amounts of synthetic vitamins and minerals (the fact that cooking destroys all the vitamins and minerals and thus creates the need for supplementation aside) to their dog and cat foods. To compensate for this, the manufacturer must add a higher concentration of vitamins and minerals than the dog and cat actually needs.
 
The result of feeding dogs and cats a highly processed, vegetable and grain-based food is a suppressed immune system and the under-production of the enzymes necessary to thoroughly digest raw meaty bones.
 
Dogs are so much like wolves physiologically that they are frequently used in wolf studies as a physiological model for wolf body processes. (Mech, L.D. 2003. Wolves: Behavior, Ecology, and Conservation). All wild cats have the identical internal organs, thus domestic cats when you study their anatomy & physiology as well, you will see that their internal organs are identical to their wild ancestor, and work identically in “healthy” domestic cats as well.
 
Additionally, dogs and wolves share 99.8% of their mitochondrial DNA (Wayne, R.K. Molecular Evolution of the Dog Family). Cats are 99% identical DNA to their wild ancestor cats.
 
This next quote is from Robert K. Wayne, Ph.D., and his discussion on canine genetics (taken from www.fiu.edu/~milesk/Genetics.html). “The domestic dog is an extremely close relative of the gray wolf, differing from it by at most 0.2% of DNA sequence…”
 
Dogs have been reclassified as Canis lupus familiaris by the Smithsonian Institute (Wayne, R.K. “What is a Wolfdog?”(www.fiu.edu/~milesk/Genetics.html), placing it in the same species as the gray wolf, Canis lupus. The dog is, by all scientific standards and by evolutionary history, a domesticated wolf. And although many don’t want to hear about God in anything anymore whether for human beings or anything else, dogs & cats were always designed as carnivores eons of thousands of years ago when they were domesticated and they have not “evolved” into these animals where their internal organs have ever and will never change(neither have humans) so they are true carnivores.
(Feldhamer, G.A. 1999. Mammology: Adaptation, Diversity, and Ecology. McGraw-Hill. pg 472.). And domestic cats since they have always been obligate carnivores/felines they will always remain carnivores.
 
Those who insist dogs did not descend from wolves must disprove the litany of scientific evidence that concludes wolves are the ancestors of dogs. And, as we have already established, the wolf is a carnivore. Since a dog’s internal physiology does not differ from a wolf, dogs have the same physiological and nutritional needs as those carnivorous predators and cat’s internal physiology does not differ from any wild cat on the planet, so since their wild ancestors are obligate carnivores so are domestic cats, which, remember, “need to ingest all the major parts of their herbivorous prey, except the plants in the digestive system” to “grow and maintain their own bodies” (Mech, L.D. 2003. Wolves: Behavior, Ecology, and Conservation.). I have not listed any books for cats because although I have many of them to reference from I don’t have them memorized like I do with many wolf books. (If you want me to look them up after I move back to Upstate NY – then I will look them up when I unpack them after settling in sometime in Sept. or Oct. 2019)
 
However much, we humans have done to tinker with, and change, the dog’s & cat’s body design (resulting in varying sizes and conformations), we have done nothing to change the internal anatomy and physiology of our carnivorous canines. (came with human beings – our internal organs have always been the same and will remain the same – they will never change!) “Dogs and cats have the internal anatomy and physiology of a carnivore”. (Feldhamer, G.A. 1999. Mammology: Adaptation, Diversity, and Ecology. McGraw-Hill. pg 260 for dogs/wolves) — other books for cats I can get to them later but really I don’t even need these books when I’ve studied them for so long – you just have to know the anatomy & physiology of cats as well as dogs).
 
Some people are under the impression that the bacteria in raw meat may harm a dog and cat this simply is not the case.
 
Sadly, raw diets have also been blamed for causing things like pancreatitis and kidney disease, when in reality the underlying dis-ease/(disease) was already there and is/was simply brought to light by the change in diet and detoxing or going through a healing crisis.
 
Dogs and cats are surprisingly well-equipped to deal with bacteria. Their saliva has antibacterial properties; it contains lysozyme, an enzyme that destroys harmful bacteria. Their short digestive tract is designed to push through food and bacteria quickly without giving bacteria time to colonize. The extremely acidic environment in the gut is also a good bacteria colonization deterrent. People often point to the fact that dogs and cats can shed salmonella in their feces, (but, then again, even kibble-fed dogs and cats do this as well!) without showing any ill effects as proof that the dog and cat is infected with salmonella. In reality, all this proves is that the dog and cat has effectively passed the salmonella through its system with no problems. Yes, the dog and cat can act as a salmonella carrier, but the solution is simple – do not eat dog or cat poop and wash your hands after picking up after your dog or cat.
 
As mentioned above, even kibble-fed (processed commercial diets) dogs and cats can and do regularly shed salmonella and other bacteria. Most of the documented cases of severe bacterial septicemia are from kibble-fed animals or animals suffering from reactions to vaccines not raw fed. (and although the FDA in recent years is attacking smaller raw food companies – don’t let the FDA fool you – your dogs & cats bodies have always been designed to eating raw meat/organs/bones (or powdered egg shells for calcium).
 
Commercial pet foods have been pulled off shelves often because of bacteria AND molds that produce a deadly toxin.
 
What is the solution? Use common sense. Clean up well and wash your hands. Think about your dog and cat, this is an animal that can lick itself, lick other dogs and cats, eat a variety of disgusting rotting things, and ingest its own feces or those of other animals with no ill effects. The dog and cat especially “healthy” ones, plain and simple, has been designed to handle far greater bacterial loads than we can.
 
Let’s face it; a healthy dog and cat will not suffer from bacterial infections or bacterial septicemia. It is just common sense. A dog or cat suffering from “salmonella poisoning” is obviously not healthy, especially when compared to a dog or cat that ate the same food with the same salmonella load but is perfectly healthy and unaffected. The first dog or cat has suffered a ‘breakdown’ in its health that allowed the bacteria to become a problem; if one is talking in homeopathic medicine terminology, this is simply one more symptom that shows the dog is suffering from chronic disease.
 
I believe that it is the kibble, not the raw meat, that causes bacterial problems. Kibble in the pet’s intestine not only irritates the lining of the bowels, but also provides the perfect warm, wet environment with plenty of undigested sugars and starches as food for bacteria. This is why thousands of processed food-fed animals suffer from a condition called Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth, or SIBO. Raw meaty bones, however create a very inhospitable environment for bacteria, as RMBs are easily digestible and have no carbohydrates, starches, or sugars to feed the bacteria. And in Kibble fed mainly large breed dogs(& x-large breeds) dry kibble is the MAIN cause of BLOAT! It sits in their stomachs far too long, causing gas to emit from the dry kibble digesting in the stomach (usually takes 8 to 12 hours to digest when normal raw meat/organs/bones or powdered egg shells only takes 3 to 5 hours in a healthy dog – and only 2 to 3 hours in healthy cats) which then caused BLOAT which can be DEADLY to many dogs – many have died on the operating table from emergency surgery.

What about feeding Cooked diets?

There are several aspects of cooked diets that pose problems.
 
First – the effects of heat.
 
If you burn your finger, what happens? The skin tissue dies. Overly apply heat to food and the nutrients are progressively killed/destroyed.
 
The act of cooking foods alters the proteins, vitamins, fats, and minerals in a food. This alteration can make some nutrients more readily available and others less available. Cooking can alter fats to the point of being toxic and carcinogenic because fats become rancid. (The American Society for Nutritional Sciences. April 2004. Meat Consumption Patterns and Preparation, Genetic Variants of Metabolic Enzymes, and Their Association with Rectal Cancer in Men and Women. Journal of Nutrition. 134: 776-784.) Cooked proteins can be altered to the point where they cause allergic reactions whereas raw proteins do not. (Clark, W.R. 1995. Hypersensitivity and Allergy, in At War Within: The double-edged sword of immunity, Oxford University Press, New York. pg 88.)
 
Our dogs (and cats) were designed to eat RAW meat, organs, glands and bones! If all healthy carnivores were fed such you would see for yourself that they would be much healthier in the long run. They would Thrive! Not just survive! And… if you stop vaccinating them with toxic poisons and viruses in these vaccines… and other toxic poisons of HW pills; chemical flea tick & mosquito products; chemical de-wormer; over use of antibiotics from vets/STEROIDS — a huge no no!/NSAID’s and fed a proper complete raw diet primarily from herbivores – and these animals were well bred and not inbred nor too closely line bred – then they would live extremely Vital, Healthy, and Long normal life spans.

More from Mary Marseglia…

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