Blood Levels of Raw Fed Dogs

Many weeks ago I came across this. It claims there should be different "normal" blood levels for dogs depending on if they are fed raw or a processed food.

It is commonly thought that a different set of “normal” values should be developed for raw fed dogs. These slightly higher blood values are to be expected simply because these indicators are a measure of protein breakdown/metabolism and raw fed dogs receive a higher percentage of readily digestible and balanced animal protein in their diets. It may be valuable for your pet to have successive laboratory results from previous years in order to determine what is normal for your dog.

This claim is based on a study of 200 dogs fed a raw diet and points out 3 differences. Hematocrit, BUN, and creatinine. Unfortunately the link to the study itself doesn't work anymore and I can't seem to find it elsewhere. But something seemed wrong to me. Why would there be a difference in these 3 levels? Normal is normal for a reason, right? If the dog has eaten recently then it could cause elevated or reduced levels for a short time I suppose but to have a different normal level didn't make sense to me. I was doubting that there should be a difference, but thought maybe I just didn't know enough about it (which is true as well, I knew nothing at all about blood levels before I started looking into this). For example hematocrit basically, from my understanding, measures the volume of red blood cells and thereby the viscosity of the blood. Higher hematocrit = thicker blood = harder on the dog's heart as it has to work harder to pump thicker blood. So if it's higher in raw fed dogs, is that really ok? I dug around online and found a forum and where owners had been posting the blood level reports from their raw fed dogs. Despite the findings in the study raw fed dogs were falling within normal ranges or barely outside them in some cases, which is still ok. Kibble fed dogs can fall just outside normal ranges too.

This was bothering me for a while when I mentioned it to my friend (check out her blog about her village dog in Africa). She casually mentioned it would be interesting to see what the levels were in wolves. Of course!! The idea of raw feeding is to feed as wild canids would eat, so why not see what their levels are? I started looking online and came across the book "Wolves: Behavior, Ecology, and Conservation" by L. David Mech. The following image is from page 215.

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 I checked several sources online to find normal dog levels and compared. Guess what? The levels from these wolves, which are wild and eating a raw diet, fall within the normal dog range. Wolves and dogs are different animals but they are close enough. This is not apples and oranges. This is the gray wolf, canis lupus, and the domesticated dog, canis lupus familiaris. The wolf levels fell within normal dog ranges in all but 3 categories where the wolves were ever so slightly above the normal dog range. (Mean Corpuscular Hemoglobin, Mean Corpuscular Hemoglobin Concentration, and Band neutrophils).

That wolf chart did not include BUN or creatinine, two of the three levels mentioned in the raw feeding study. So once again, let's dig. I pulled this up, the wild wolf levels are outlined in the red box; the normal dog levels are on the right. This is a study apparently done by Champion pet foods so I'm not sure if there could be underlying bias or anything. Just something to keep in mind.

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Wolves seem to fall within the normal range, but have a big range when it comes to their BUN and BUN/creatinine ratios. Perhaps due to whatever meal they just ate, or if they haven't eaten recently?

Bottom line I'm getting is that a healthy rawfed dog should not be outside of normal levels and should not have a different standard than dogs fed a processed food. We can assume these wolves are eating a natural diet, as we try to mimic by feeding a raw diet. Therefore, since the wolves fall within normal ranges (which are the ranges for dogs fed a processed diet), so should raw fed dogs.


I was curious to see how my own dogs were doing. We went to the vet last week. Kaytu has never been to the vet since I've had her and we adopted her just over a year ago. Never a reason to go! I do want to make sure the raw diet is working well and there are no signs of underlying problems so now that Kaytu has been raw fed for a year, and Denali for 2 years, I thought it was time to have some tests done. I took them in for blood tests, fecal test, and also did parvo and distemper titer testing.

Note that we walked to the vet, which was 1.3 miles. The dogs had eaten about 1:00am right before we went to bed in attempt to give them full bellies and make some poop for a stool sample in the morning (which they didn't poop anyway of course) and the appointment was at 9:30am. It's commonly recommended to fast the dog for 12 hours before blood tests or thyroid testing, which I didn't know until looking for more information this afternoon. Oh well, now I know! If only vets would tell us these things.

Kaytu first. There are two tests.

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First, feel free to laugh at the comment saying Science Diet is a high quality food. We sure did. He is right though that raw meat alone is not a balanced diet. There has to be organ and bone too!

On the first test, the BUN/Creatinine ratio is slightly high. Her ratio is 32, and normal is 4-27. The ratio can be high if the dog has eaten within 12 hours of blood being drawn, which she had.

On the second one, Neutrophils are a bit low. Her level is 49, and normal is 60-77. According to this site, these are the primary white blood cells responsible for fighting infections. High levels of neutrophils indicate infection. Low levels can indicate sepsis, an illness in which the body has a severe response to bacteria or other germs. Her level of 49 is not low enough to be concerned. Read more about neutrophils here.

Her Lymphocytes are barely high at 36, with normal being 12-30. These white blood cells are also responsible for fighting infection and also develop antibodies to protect the body against future attacks. High levels of lymphocytes can indicate infection, viral disease or certain cancers. Again, 36 is not high enough for concern. Read more about lymphocytes here.

Denali's turn! Same two tests.

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Her first test was all normal. On the second, she also had low neutrophils (50) and high lymphocytes (38) which are very similar to Kaytu's levels of 49 and 36 respectively.

Denali also had low Monocytes at 2, with normal being 3-10. This doesn't really seem to mean anything. This white blood cell helps the neutrophils fight infections. High monocyte counts indicate infection. It is unlikely that there will be no monocytes and a differential with zero monocytes does not indicate any specific ailment. Read more here.

Both had normal sodium levels, fecal tests were negative which is good and means they did not see any parasites or other nasties, and both dogs had titer levels greater than 1:5 indicating immune response to vaccines (meaning they don't need boosters).

Healthy dogs!