The 8 Red Flags of Raw You Need to Know
If you’ve been hanging out with us for a while, you know we talk a lot about what goes into your pet's bowl. We're thrilled that raw food has become the fastest-growing segment of pet food in the pet industry. More and more pet parents are looking at fresh food to help their dogs and cats live longer, healthier lives, and we love that people are asking big questions about nutrition!
You've likely heard us say it before, that any raw is better than no raw, so whether you feed a premium kibble with a little raw, mix in some fresh toppers, or feed a fully raw diet, there is a wild side to the pet food industry you need to know about.
Here is the honest truth: Not all pet food is created equal. And unfortunately, bad raw food can make your pet incredibly sick. In Canada, we have zero regulations on pet food. You read that right...zero! That means anyone can throw together whatever they want and call it pet food and there's literally no one there to stop them.
We want to share a few insider secrets on what to look out for when it comes to raw food, how a bad food vs. a good food actually behaves inside your pet, and how to protect your furry family member. With no regulations and raw food being the "new thing", there are a lot of "backyard feeders" who have slid into the pet space and are selling products that are actually dangerous for our pets and disguising it as "raw pet food".
🎙️ If you'd prefer to listen to this blog, you can find it here anywhere you love listening to podcasts! Look for S1 E33: "The Red Flags of Raw".
🥣 What Happens Inside the Bowl (And Inside Your Pet)
Think of food like fuel for a car. If you put cheap, contaminated gas into a high-performance engine, it’s going to sputter, stall, and eventually break down.
When a dog or cat eats a high-quality, properly balanced diet, their body handles it like a breeze. Their system absorbs all the good stuff easily, leading to those amazing perks we all want: a shiny coat, clean teeth, lots of energy, and those beautifully small, firm poops that make backyard cleanup so much easier!
But when someone whips up a batch of cheap "backyard raw" without knowing the science, it takes a heavy physical toll on your pet:
🚩 The Pancreas Panics: Cheap raw food is usually loaded with heavy, greasy fat scraps because fat is cheap. When a dog's system is flooded with that much low-grade fat, their pancreas has to work into absolute overdrive to break it down. This can trigger a painful, dangerous condition called pancreatitis that can land them in the emergency vet.
🚩 The Skeleton Suffers: Animals need a very specific balance of calcium (from bone) and phosphorus (from meat). If a backyard maker is just guessing at the recipe, your pet's body will actually start stealing calcium from its own bones to keep its blood levels steady. Over time, this leads to weak joints, micro-fractures, and painful bone issues.
🚩 The Skin and Coat Cry for Help: This is the number one thing we hear from pet parents who have tried cheap, unformulated raw, their dog’s fur starts falling out in clumps, and their coat becomes incredibly greasy and smelly. When a food is mostly cheap fat and lacks high-quality lean protein, zinc, and proper omega fatty acids, the skin simply starves. A dull, greasy, shedding coat isn't just an eyesore; it’s a direct cry for help from a body suffering from severe nutritional deficiencies.
🚩 The 8 Red Flags of Raw Food 🚩
As we mentioned earlier, Canada actually has zero pet food regulations? It shocks almost everyone when they first hear it. It means literally anyone with a meat grinder and a roll of Saran Wrap can make pet food in their shed and sell it as a "healthy diet."
Most food manufacturers in Canada formulate to meet AAFCO (Association of American Feed Control Officials) or NRC (National Research Council) regulations at a minimum. Many go above and beyond to ensure they are manufacturing a highly nutritious, complete and balanced meal for our pets. They do this through research and testing. When a manufacturer isn't testing, we truly do not know what we're feeding our pets.
Whether you're shopping for raw today or just researching for the future, here are 8 red flags that mean a food just isn't safe:
🚩 1. The "Parking Lot" Shady Deal
If you have to meet someone in a parking lot to buy unlabeled bags of meat out of the trunk of their car, that's your first big warning sign. Safe food needs a strict "cold chain", meaning it stays perfectly frozen from the minute it's made until it gets to you. Meat sitting in warm plastic bins in someone's trunk is a literal breeding ground for nasty bacteria before it ever touches the bowl.
🚩 2. The Missing Guaranteed Analysis
Take a look at the packaging or the maker's website. Do they clearly list the "Guaranteed Analysis"? (That’s the legal breakdown showing exactly how much protein, fat, fibre, and moisture is inside). If it’s not there, they aren't laboratory testing their food. They are completely guessing, which means you have no clue what you're actually feeding.
🚩 3. They Only Exist on Social Media
A Facebook page or a local buy-and-sell group is not a real business profile. A passionate, legitimate manufacturer needs a real website. They should proudly show their ingredients, stand behind their quality, and honour returns if something isn't right with a batch. If they're hiding in the shadows of private messages, run!
🚩 4. The Price is Too Good to Be True
We get it! Everything is expensive right now, and feeding our pets is no exception. But cheap food is cheap for a reason. Think of it this way: if clean, quality chicken costs around $11/lb at the grocery store, how is a backyard seller offering a "complete meal" for $1 to $2 or less per pound? What are they actually putting in there? Usually, it's the leftover waste, heavy fat trimmings, and feathers that no reputable company would ever use. The saying "you get what you pay for" has never been more true then when we're talking about our pet's food.
Oftentimes, these "backyard manufacturers" claim that because you're buying direct from them, the price can be much lower but that just isn't the case. The cost of the ingredients used to make the food doesn't change when you buy direct. We buy several of our foods direct at wholesale prices and we're still not paying less than $2/lb. Raw food priced that cheaply isn't food that will fuel your furry family, it's a food made by low standard manufacturers who have found a creative and profitable way to recycle their garbage.
🚩 5. No Safety or Pathogen Testing
Great brands don't guess; they test. Every single batch should be screened in a lab for dangerous bugs like Salmonella and Listeria. You have every right to ask a company for their test results! A manufacturer who truly cares about your pet will happily show you those receipts. If they get defensive, it means they're cutting corners and putting their profits above your pet.
🚩 6. Labeled "For Intermittent, Supplemental or Adult Feeding Only"
If you see any of these phrases hidden in the fine print or on their packaging, it means the food is not a complete meal. It’s just a blend of low quality meat. Just like we can't survive on low quality ground beef alone, dogs and cats can't survive on just muscle meat or grinds (the parts no one should be eating), they need specific vitamins and minerals. Feeding an unbalanced diet long-term causes serious, painful nutritional deficiencies.
🚩 7. It's Missing the Essential Extra Steps
A truly healthy raw diet isn't just an identified batch of "meat, bone, and liver." Because modern farm-raised meats don't have the same wild nutrients they used to, great brands add targeted whole foods to fill the gaps, things like kelp, green-lipped mussels, manganese, zinc, and antioxidant-rich veggies. If an ingredient list is just three items long with no extra nutrients, it's missing the mark for long-term health.
Aside from a vague ingredient panel, if the manufacturer does not even provide an ingredient list, you get your answer real quick! Just because a food is "raw" doesn't mean we don't want to know what's in it. The ingredient panel is just as important on a raw food as it is on a dry food.
🚩 8. Zero Professional Formulation
Who actually made the recipe? Was it a certified animal nutritionist or a holistic vet? Or was it someone who read a quick blog post and decided to start a backyard business? Nutrition is a precise science, not a casual hobby. If they can't tell you the professional expert behind the recipe, they're using your pet as a science experiment.
✅ We've Always Got Your Back
No matter where you are on your pet health journey, whether you love a quality kibble, do half-and-half, or feed raw exclusively, we just want you to have the facts so you can make the best choices for your family.
At House of Paws, we are totally obsessed with product integrity. We thoroughly vet every single brand on our shelves and in our freezers so you never have to worry about these red flags. We do the homework so you can confidently feed anything we sell, knowing it will positively impact your pet's health.
We made a promise when our doors opened to extend the lives of pets through nutrition and that means we are constantly researching and monitoring the brands we carry as well as any brand we choose to bring to in. If a brand doesn't meet or exceed our standards, we don't feed it to our pets and we'd never recommend it for yours! That's why the brands we carry don't always stay the same. If they fail to meet the mark, they're removed from our store and we'll always tell you exactly why! We won't just say "it no longer meets our standards" we'll tell you what changed, why it concerns us and what we'd recommend in place of it.
Have questions about labels or want to chat about what's out there? Come on in and visit us. We are always here to chat and look Beyond the Bowl with you!