The Raw Food Debate

In yet another installment of "I Read Salon.com So You Don't Have To" (also known as "Yes, I'm all out of creative ideas for today") we turn to the wacky world of folks who feed their pets raw food. The basic argument is that the ancestors of dogs and cats in the wild eat/ate raw food, so it must be better for household pets to eat raw food. It's an interesting article, but there's one unaddressed flaw in this premise. My dog eats poop. Every chance she gets--goose poop, deer poop, poop of indeterminate origins, whatever--it all goes in her mouth if she thinks I'm not looking. In other words, when left to her own devices, she's not just chasing after squirrels, she's munching on whatever disgusting things she can scavenge. By the logic of these folks, since my dog would naturally eat poop, I should feed her a diet rich in poop. And yet, I see things like "broccoli, carrots, sweet potatoes, red chard, parsley, garlic, ginger, kelp, alfalfa, zucchini or squash" on these dogs' menus, but no poop. You're going to tell me there's some large band of wild dogs (or wolves) running around harvesting kelp for themselves in the wild? That more dogs would rather eat parsley than poop? I'm just not convinced. Many of you oppose socialism because it eventually gives people no motivation to work, since there is no reward. But seriously, when you read about folks feeding their pets three to five hundred dollars worth of food a month, don't you, just for a second, entertain the idea of taking their spare cash away from them?