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Is Raw Pork Safe for Dogs?

cy1266

Well-known member
I have a question...I've been told before that raw pork is not safe to feed dogs. My dogs eat raw and have eaten chicken, turkey, rabbit, venison, beef, lamb and duck. I have never fed pork. I just received my Whole Dog Journal the other day, and I was reading an article on pasture-fed animals, and it said that raw pork was good for dogs...now I'm confused. Any thoughts on this?

Here's part of the article, I hope I'm allowed to post this portion:

Wild pig is a favorite food of dogs everywhere,” she says, “and it’s very good for them. The hide can be left on some cuts of pork, which the pups here just adore. Trichinosis, the parasitic disease caused by the roundworm Trichinella spiralis, is still associated with undercooked pork but it is all but unheard-of in the U.S. today. Even if it were in the pork, it is killed by five days of freezing, and all of our meats are sold frozen. In 2006, the Centers for Disease Control reported something like 38 cases of trichinosis, all of which came from wild game and none from farmed pork. Contrast this with 23,000 reported cases of salmonella. Pork is a really safe raw food to give to dogs.”
 
Well it is untrue that freezing for 5 days kills the worms. The CDC itself says that pork cuts thinner than 6 inches must be frozen for 20 days to be considered safe.

http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dpd/parasites/trichinosis/factsht_trichinosis.htm

There are still cases of trichinosis though it is correct that they have become quite rare. Someone, or someone's animals, make up those cases each year. And do those CDC cases include animals, or only humans? Few humans would be exposed to eating raw pork.

So it becomes whatever risk you are comfortable with.

I wonder how many of those 23,000 cases of salmonella came from handling raw meat in the household though? How many if any in animals?
 
The reason we do not feed raw pork is that it can contain Aujezky's disease which is lethal and untreatable in dogs. As the disease is not harmful to humsn it is not tested for in the coutnry where I live.
 
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