Give Your Dog a Bone: The Practical Commonsense Way to Feed Dogs for a Long Healthy Life

by Ian Billinghurst

Give Your Dog a Bone by Ian Billinghurst is a runaway best seller based on the concept that a natural, raw food-based diet is best for your dog. Learn how to feed your dog(s) for maximum health, low cost and low environmental impact using raw, whole foods. This book contains valuable nutritional information for anyone who is involved with dogs, including vets, vet students, breeders and dog owners.

Genres: Nonfiction, Animals

320 pages, Paperback

First published June 15, 1993

About the author

Veterinary surgeon with over 40 years experience dealing with health problems in companion animals.

Reviews

[Vigoroso Danes]

Great advice for feeding your dog for ultimate health

[Christine]

Bought

Wow what a great source of information for raw and barf diets . I feed all my puppies this way now and have seen a great amount of good . I feed them at first with dog foods like blue etc I think I went through about 6 different brand and still my puppies had Diarrhea and vomiting allergies and vet visits . I now have solid poops 2 times a day ,no vomiting an.d haven't seen a vet in a month. so if looking for a better option in feeding this is a great start also look into forms and groups. I hope this helps you too. 10 stars

[Jacqui Rogers]

Finally DONE! I don't love non-fiction books (feels too much like I have to pay attention) but we got there! Very informative and interesting book. Quite repetitive but gets the point across.

[Jeffrey]

First Book for Raw Feeders

This should be the first book beginning raw dog feeders should read. It is THE baseline to build from. It should be a part of all raw feeder’s library.

[Abby Stopka]

This is a good book for learning how to start off raw feeding your dog's. But as the book says please check with your vet before doing a lot of this stuff. Or if you already know what you're doing. There's lots of good advice how to and more in this book.

[Kylie]

"Your dog is a carnivore... Your dog is a vegetarian." Excuse me but WTF? The fact that a wild dog may eat some vegetable matter does not make it a vegetarian. The lack of editing was already getting on my nerves but the point where he tried to argue that a dog is both a carnivore and a vegetarian was where I abandoned this book.

[Jaimela Dulaney]

Great book to calm you down if beginning to feed a raw diet

Loved the simplicity, common sense approach along side great science backed info
Short and too the point to get you started without fear
As a wellness human Cardiologist, I especially liked the references to avoid over feeding as being detrimental to longevity

[Cheryl Moore]

A decent book, but judge or research info

A bit repetitive, and some parts are confusing and contradictory. But the overall information seems good if you're interested in raw feeding and understanding the "whys"

[暁名]

Otro libro que leí de la nutricionista Jessica da Silva y tuve que coger este libro para ponerlo como placeholder.

En este caso fue su libro de dieta cocinada, del cual hay muy poca información por internet y en libros, así que lo agradezco.

Es simple, conciso y va al grano. Recomendable

[Katie]

Not the most exciting read but very educational!

[Ayshim]

Have a new puppy so this book is a must :)

[Leanne Roberts]

The ORIGINAL raw food diet book for dogs. Where it all began.

[Robyn]

this is a great read if you are on the fence about feeding raw

[Stacie Walton]

Going Raw

Just what I needed to start my puppy on a raw diet. Straight forward no nonsense approach. Easy Read well organized

[Wayne Henderson]

It was good. Could have been shorter, kind of repetitive. Gave me confidence to take the plunge!

[Ant]

A great intro to raw feeding. Simply written, accessible and encouraging. It gave me confidence to prepare raw at home.

[Julia DeBarrioz]

Full of very interesting information about feeding your dog in a more natural way than processed kibble.

[Allison]

It was a long time ago when I first read this book, when raw feeding was at the very beginning of it's resurgence. I remember being irritated by this books strong, badgering anti-commercial food message. And I see that feeling has changed, to infuriated by it.

This newer edition hasn't gained anything in it's alterations and some of the many contradictions are more apparent that ever. What are you trying to say Mr Billinghurst? I got the raw meaty bones bit, but after that it was all so confusing. Don't feed grains, but then feed grains. Don't feed scraps, but scraps are good. Is it because you are trying to appeal to as bigger audience as you can? If so, you have really not done your message much good at all.

If I wasn't already a Raw feeding convert, this book would have turned me off quicker than quick. It's sloppy, contradictory and makes some rather outrageous generalizations. More than once I found myself scratching my head in awed disbelief at some of the claims made.

Since this book was written there have been many more published. I've read some of them and while some of them also carry a rather strong anti-commercial food message it is not as odious as this one. They are also better written and a LOT easier to read.

Once this book was one I would have recommended as a must read, these days...not so much. In fact, I would almost flinch if people had based their knowledge and ideals on this book alone.

[Hannah]

To begin with, this is a great book for learning about raw dog food. It details how to feed, what to feed, and why to feed raw meaty bones and other raw food to your dog. It was actually recommended to me by the breeder we're working with and it does a good job of illustrating how easy it can be to give your dog a good diet that will benefit his or her lifelong health. If you are thinking about feeding raw, this is a great book to help you figure it all out.

That said, there were a lot of spelling, grammar, and editing errors that really bugged me. The book was still able to clearly lay out the information, but it could have used another editorial pass. Also, it can be very repetitive, offering a lot of the same points in different chapters. From my understanding, though, this is due to the fact that some people will pick and choose chapters or come back to read only certain chapters as a refresher. I think looking at it that way, it accounts for some of the repetition.

All things considered, I would recommend this book to anyone who is thinking of going raw for their dog, or really anyone who has a dog. It contains great information and made me much more comfortable about going this route.

[Peta]

I found this book a wealth of knowledge and it has completely changed my view on canine nutrition. It can be repetitive at times however I think it can be effective for getting across key points and to make sure anyone picking and choosing chapters gets any background info they may have previously missed. While some of the information appears to contradict itself, the underlying message that there is no exact recipe for ultimate health to me explains why there are such contradictions. There will always be people who want to know EXACTLY what, how much and when to feed their dog, and exact answers won't be found in is book because exact answers would be completely individual to each dog and have to consider every aspect of that dogs life, and even then it would probably still be impossible. It does however have so much useful information that anyone willing to put the effort in to their dogs diet would find useful. I would highly recommend it to anyone interested in canine nutrition and especially raw feeding or prey diets.

[Sarah]

We switched our dog over to a half raw food half kibble diet and had fantastic results. This is the book we consult with questions (along with a number of websites and blogs).

This book is very helpful in the process once you get in the mindset that this really isn't nearly as hard as it sounds. The book is written terribly....it contains great information but you have to expect the occasional minor contradiction of information and slightly confusing writing. This book should be used as a piece of raw food puzzle, not as a whole.

[Monique]

This little book drove me insane! I felt as if I was reading an infomercial! The only reason I'm giving it a four is because of the priceless information I found filtered throughout it. I recommend highlighting anything you find useful or you may never find it again! It was well worth the effort though...raw food has healed nearly all of my dogs issues. His skin allergies are gone, his coat looks and feels better, he doesn't have bad breath anymore and the tarter on his teeth is coming off!

[Patti]

excellent

[Alicia]

This is the book that started me on natural pet rearing.