Kate wrote ...

I hate to break it to you...But did you know even a wolf is an omnivore? Yes...The diet is mostly meat, but there are greens as well. Wolves will feed in wheat fields...Have you never seen your dog eat grass? HELLO...It's a plant

Latinomasti wrote ...
Just because your finishing a degree in animal nutrition doesn’t mean a damn thing. I did not post to flame you but to inform you. Trust me you don’t impress me with all your studies. I am simply telling you that a dog is a CARNIVORE! Just by stating the fact that you think a dog is a Omnivore.. tells me enough. I am not going to change your mind since it is pretty obvious you are already convinced. Wolves and dogs DNA are 99.8% Idenitical. We evolved dogs from wolves. Wolves are dogs… dogs are Wolves. Let me state some facts. These facts are from another website. I have just shortened it for you. Hopefully you may learn a few things. 1.) Dentition: Look into your dog mouth. Those huge impressive teeth (or tiny needle sharp teeth) are designed for grabbing, ripping, tearing, shredding, and shearing meat. They are not equipped with large flat molars for grinding up plant matter. Their molars are pointed and situated in a scissors bite (along with the rest of their teeth) that powerfully disposes of meat, bone, and hide. Carnivores are equipped with a peculiar set of teeth that includes the presence of carnassial teeth: the fourth upper premolar and first lower molar. Contrast this with your own teeth or the teeth of a black bear. A black bear is a true omnivore, as are we. We have nice, large, flat molars that can grind up veggies. Black bears, while having impressive canine teeth, also have large flat molars in the back of their mouth to assist in grinding up plant matter. Dogs and most canids lack these kinds of molars. Why? Because they don't eat plant matter. Teeth are highly specialized and are structured specifically for the diet the animal eats, and the difference between a bear's teeth and a dog's teeth (both species are in Order Carnivora) demonstrates how this can be. One can logically ask: If a dog has the dentition of a carnivorous animal, why do we feed it pelleted, grain-based food? 2.) Musculature and external anatomy: Dogs are equipped with powerful jaw muscles and neck muscles that assist in pulling down prey and chewing meat, bone, and hide. Their jaws hinge open widely, allowing them to gulp large chunks of meat and bone. Their skulls are heavy, and are shaped to prevent lateral movement of the lower jaw when captured prey struggles (the mandibular fossa is deep and C-shaped); this shape permits only an up-and-down crushing motion, whereas herbivores and omnivores have flatter mandibular fossa that allows for the lateral motion necessary to grind plant matter. This translates to a simple fact: everything about a dog body design says they were designed for a carnivorous, hunting lifestyle geared toward killing prey. However, humans have done some major tinkering with this body design (resulting in varying sizes and conformations), but we have done nothing to change the internal anatomy and physiology of our carnivorous canines. 3.) Internal anatomy and physiology: Dogs and cats have the internal anatomy and physiology of a carnivore. They have a highly elastic stomach designed to hold large quantities of meat, bone, organs, and hide. Their stomachs are simple, with an undeveloped caecum. They have a relatively short foregut and a short, smooth, unsacculated colon. This means food passes through quickly. Vegetable and plant matter, however, needs time to sit and ferment. This equates to longer, sacculated colons, larger and longer small intestines, and occasionally the presence of a caecum. Dogs 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 came in; there was no time for it to be broken down and digested (among other things). People know this; this is why they tell you that vegetables and grains have to be preprocessed for your dog to get anything out of them. But even then, feeding vegetables and grains to a carnivorous animal is a questionable practice. Dogs do not normally produce the necessary enzymes in their saliva (amylase, for example) to start the break-down 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. Thus, feeding dogs as though they were omnivores taxes the pancreas and places extra strain on it, as it must work harder for the dog to digest the starchy, carbohydrate-filled food instead of just producing normal amounts of the enzymes needed to digest proteins and fats (which, when fed raw, begin to "self-digest" when the cells are crushed through chewing and tearing and their enzymes are released). Nor do dogs have the kinds of friendly bacteria that break down cellulose and starch for them. As a result, most of the nutrients contained in plant matter—even preprocessed plant matter—are unavailable to dogs. This is why dog 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 foods. If a dog can only digest 40-60% of its grain-based food, then it will only be receiving 40-60% (ideally!) of the vitamins and minerals it needs. To compensate for this, the manufacturer must add a higher concentration of vitamins and minerals than the dog actually needs. Is the dog an omnivore? Its dentition, internal and external anatomy, and physiology say it is not. Even its evolutionary history says the dog is a carnivore. Now the question to you… What about a dog makes you think it is an omnivore? Class is dismissed...

Kate wrote ...
I hate to break it to you...But did you know even a wolf is an omnivore? Yes...The diet is mostly meat, but there are greens as well. Wolves will feed in wheat fields...Have you never seen your dog eat grass? HELLO...It's a plant

Anna wrote ...

You know I had a professor once who would cite Wikipedia constantly as a source of "scientific information" . . . you remind me a lot of him, LatinoMasti.

Humans and Bonobo monkeys share 96% of their genes, does that mean a human could thrive on a diet of termites and bark? Your argument would suggest they could. . . why don't you give that a try for a while and let me know how that works out for ya. Put your money where your mouth is, if you will. Or, if you'd like a GI tract example we could talk about hogs and how their systems are SO similar to ours that we are now breeding pigs for the explicit purpose of being "donor animals" for humans needing organ transplant. I know you're a pig, but I doubt the rest of the species would appreciate being considered one just because we have similarities anatomically.

That you are misinformed and rather unintelligent is clear to everyone, we won't stress that point further. That you are closed minded and hateful, is your choice. What needs to be addressed is how you continually berate the other members of this community for having a different of opinion than yourself. Never mind that we all serendipitously have the SAME opinion while you share yours with no one. My "suggestion" (because I won't be this nice the next time you pirate my post as a platform for your Bullsh*t) is to stop trying to teach everyone else and focus on yourself and your own dog. Go to a show, let your dog speak for you. Being that nobody here has ever met you, I'll guess that pup of yours isn't nearly as fantastic as you'd have us all think.

Thank god for megalomaniac tendencies, because you've already alienated yourself from everyone else here. I was told to "rip you a new one" by 6 other members but I think you do a phenomenal job of that all on your own. Cheers to you.