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So, for five weeks, I followed a new (to me) raw feeding model called “rotational monofeeding” with my dogs; I did modify a portion of this diet that I disagreed with (more below).  This is a raw feeding model that, like others, attempts to replicate the feeding habits of wolves and wild dogs.  And, after reading the book, it makes a lot of sense.  But I'm afraid I have to disagree with everything, and I'm excited to get your thoughts.

Please note that there isn't any science that tests the validity of this raw feeding model.  This doesn't concern me because philosophy precedes science.

What is Rotational MonoFeeding?

RMF is a diet that believes that dogs wouldn't naturally eat meat and vegetables on the same day.  In fact, it's believed that dogs would gorge on meat one day, forage on plants (available fruit and vegetables) several days a week, and fast for a few days. This is the only raw feeding model where a dog owner can feasibly feed their dog meat once or twice a week when on this diet.

What about fat?

People who follow the rotational monofeeding model believe in feeding a low-fat diet.

In my education in canine nutrition, I have come to understand that dietary fat plays an essential role in a dog's overall health and well-being. While fat is an important energy source and aids in absorbing certain vitamins, excessive intake or an imbalanced fat profile in a dog's diet can potentially contribute to inflammation and certain diseases.

Obesity: High-fat diets can lead to weight gain and obesity in dogs. Overweight dogs have an increased risk of various health problems, including diabetes, arthritis, cardiovascular disease, and certain types of cancer.

Pancreatitis: Excessive dietary fat, especially in the form of highly processed or fatty foods, can trigger pancreatitis in susceptible dogs. Pancreatitis is characterized by inflammation of the pancreas and can be a serious and potentially life-threatening condition. Recurring bouts of pancreatitis can lead to exocrine pancreatic insufficiency.

Hyperlipidemia: Certain breeds, such as Miniature Schnauzers, Shetland Sheepdogs, Beagles, and Collies, are prone to developing hyperlipidemia, which is an abnormal increase in blood lipid (fat) levels. High-fat diets can exacerbate this condition and lead to complications like pancreatitis or the formation of fatty deposits in the blood vessels.

Gastrointestinal Disorders: Some dogs may have difficulty digesting and tolerating high levels of dietary fat, leading to gastrointestinal issues such as diarrhea, vomiting, or gastrointestinal upset.

It is important to note that not all dietary fat is harmful to dogs. In fact, dogs require a certain amount of dietary fat for a healthy and balanced diet. The focus should be on providing a well-rounded and appropriate diet that includes essential fatty acids while avoiding excessive amounts of unhealthy fats.

Is Rotational MonoFeeding “Balanced?”

“Despite claims from the veterinary profession to the contrary, we don't know what optimal nutrient levels are for dogs.  We don't even know what optimal levels are for humans!” – page 41.

READ: NY Times, Is There an Optimal Diet for Humans? 

I think RMF is as balanced as a DIY Prey Model or DIY BARF Model raw diet that doesn't utilize meal formulation software or nutrient testing.  While I appreciate the need to meet a dog's nutritional needs, I also question the belief that we know what our dogs need.  I think we have a big piece of the puzzle, just not the entire puzzle.

The RMF community believes that no one knows what a dog needs nutritionally, and by modeling a dog's diet after wild dogs, we're coming as close as we can get.

“The idea of ‘balance' has been used to make home feeding far more complicated than it needs to be.  Canine ‘nutritionists' and ‘holistic' vets have been the biggest marketers of this myth, and the Prey Model Raw (PMR) and Bones and Raw Food (BARF) feeding community have adopted it as well, not realizing the effect it has on dog owners who would like to feed [raw dog food] but are too confused or intimidated to know where to begin.” page 7

Do I agree?

Yes and no.  As I said, I don't think anyone knows exactly what a dog needs nutritionally – all of the software and formulation services available are getting there, but it's not 100%.  However, I don't believe in modeling the diet I feed my dogs after that of wild dogs because my dogs aren't wild.  My dogs…

• don't get as much exercise as wild dogs
• have been exposed to vaccinations, unlike wild dogs
• experience the stress of living with humans

Looking at how wild dogs eat is a helpful start to better understanding how to model their diet.  However, that's not where it ends.

According to the RMF book, “PMR and BARF feeders too often assume when their dogs don't do well that the problems are caused by genetics, previous vaccinations, or nutrient deficiency.  Assuming incorrectly that they already doing everything correctly with the diet means that rather than seeking out the real causes of disease (which are almost always dietary in origin(m raw feeders will often blame other factors and resign themselves to disease maintenance or symptom management.” page 41

Damn, it's like she read my mind.

I'll address the comment about canine nutritionists and holistic veterinarians further down.

Let's Talk About Rotational MonoFeeding

According to RMF, a dog only has one chamber in their stomach, which those who follow RMF believe means that a dog's digestive system is set up to consume one type of food at a time.

While this doesn't make sense to me (when thinking of my diet and one-chamber stomach), Nora shared something that made sense as I kept reading.

“Digestion is compromised when foods are combined, because the acidic nature of the digestive chemicals required to break down proteins actually neutralize the ones that are required to break down carbs.  The cost of feeding more than one food at a time is that the percentage of food utilized is decreased and waste production is increased, which means both food and bodily resources are wasted.” page 27

The increased waste production is the leading cause of disease in dogs (pg. 27 of the book).

This is where the mono-feeding comes in.

There was a time when people believed that eating an alkaline diet was healthier, and someone created alkaline water.  The only information I found that promoted this diet for dogs was also promoting an alkaline (high carb) dog food. #redflags

Although separating acid-promoting foods from alkaline-producing foods makes sense to me based on the explanation above, I couldn't find the science that supports the belief that feeding meat and vegetables separately is beneficial for dogs. 

• Acid Producing Foods: meat, poultry, fish, dairy, eggs, grains, processed foods
• Alkaline Producing Foods: fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, legumes

Fats fall in the neutral camp.

I continued searching and eventually learned that some professionals believe that alkaline water doesn't work because it's neutralized once it hits the acid in our stomach.  This aligns with the belief that vegetables are wasted if fed with protein because the benefits the vegetables provide are neutralized.

But is this true?  I don't know.

Rotational MonoFeeding and Vegetables

So, if feeding proteins and vegetables together leads to disease and a dog's gut is highly acidic, why feed vegetables?

According to RMF, wild dogs eat prey one day and spend a few days hunting their next meal while snacking on local vegetation.  One of the tenors of RMF is to replicate, as much as we can, the diet of wild dogs.  

RMF is very pro-fruits and vegetables and doesn't see an issue feeding them to our dogs as long as we separate a plant-based meal from a meat-based meal by at least 12 hours.  Some raw feeders who follow the RMF model add a fasting day (or two) between meat and plant days.

The ratios recommended in the book are as follows (the plant-based days are to replicate scavenging):

• 1:1 – 1 plant day, 1 meat day
• 2:1 – 2 plant days, 1 meat day
• 1:2:1 – 1 plant day, 2 meat days, 1 fasting day
• 3-6:1 – 3-6 plant days, 1 meat day
• 1:4:2 – 1 plant day, 4 meat days, 2 fasting days
• 0:7:0 – all meat days

When it comes to feeding vegetables, cooking is better than raw, pureed vegetables because cooking makes vegetables easier to digest.  The book also recommends sweet potatoes, yams, peas (along with other vegetables), and quinoa (which is a seed, not a grain). 

Plant-Based Days

The first week of RMF, I made a mixture of cauliflower rice, chopped broccoli, chopped sweet potatoes (limited), green beans, a little quinoa, and Dr. Harvey's Paradigm.  My dogs weren't impressed and responded to this new diet differently.

• Rodrigo ate his food as long as it was warm and not mushy.  Canned pumpkin or canned sweet potatoes are great for a snack, but he doesn't want it to be his meal.

• Scout ate half of his food and walked away (crazy since he's on Prednisone and is always hungry).

• Zoey and Apollo ate their food with no issues.  If I didn't pick up his bowl first, Zoey would have happily marched her butt to Scout's dish to finish his vegetables.

Today, the dogs eat their vegetables with no issues.

According to the book, when feeding vegetables, we should feed 3-10% of our dogs' body weight on plant days.  To me, this is far too much, but to give this diet a fair shot, I fed my dogs 3.5% of their body weight (which is approximately 2 lbs. of vegetables on plant days).

The book also advises us to listen to our dogs and not add anything to tempt them to eat their vegetables.  In the past, I would add an air-dried organ meal topper (from Real Dog Box), bone broth, or fermented fish stock to the dish to get them to eat.  But not with RMF.  Because wild dogs can go days without eating, it's okay for my dogs to choose not to eat their vegetables.

But what about hunger pukes?

When I mentioned RMF on my Facebook page, a few people commented about the RMF group encouraging pet parents to ignore hunger pukes and wait for their dog's system to adjust to the new diet.

My dogs will vomit to empty their stomach when they feel unwell. To me, this is a natural response.  Hunger pukes are not.

I think hunger pukes are stressful for a dog, and stress contributes to an unwell system.  When I began incorporating fasting days, I started with a modified fast, feeding raw goat's milk or kefir instead of an actual fast of only water.  It took a couple of years before I became comfortable with an actual fast (no food for 20 hours), and I now do this once or twice a week.

Rotational MonoFeeding and Fat

A nutritionist in the group feeds one plant day a week, and the rest of the week, she feeds meat because this makes the most sense to her.  Reading that reminded me that many raw feeders modify the model of their choice to meet an individual dog's needs – franken-prey, franken-barf, and now, franken-RMF.

So, I decided to keep fat in my dogs' diet because I believe this is an integral part of my dogs' diet.

Benefits of fat for dogs…

• fat is an excellent source of energy, better than carbs and protein
• fat helps the system better absorb fat-soluble vitamins
• fat helps dogs feel fuller for longer, which is why I feed it when a dog needs to lose weight
• fat helps to fight inflammation
• fat boosts the immune system
• fat supports cognitive (brain) health
• fat helps to boost the metabolism, keeping dogs at a healthier weight

Of course, as mentioned above, too much fat will lead to weight gain and other health issues, especially when combined with a high-carb diet.  And, according to RMF, feeding too much fat can lead to inflammation.

“But it is my contention that fat consumption as a whole is what is largely responsible for acute and chronic inflammation in dogs, and decreasing overall fat is what we should be looking to do, not adding different fats to the diet.” page 49

For prey and BARF models, I've been told to limit fat to 5% of a raw food diet (unless you have a highly active dog or you're feeding a keto diet).  RMF, on the other hand, believes that dogs should be fed a lean diet, limiting fat as much as possible.  So, no coconut oil, raw goat's milk, kefir, eggs, or yogurt.  In fact, RMF recommends trimming all animal fat (fat and skin) before feeding our dogs.

There are days when my dogs' diet is too high in animal fat, which is offset by lean days. I only trim fat on meat when there is an excessive amount – like the excess fat on duck necks, beef roasts, and pork roasts. I don't trim the skin from whole quail, but I remove excess from duck and chicken.

Does Fat Cause Diabetes?

No! Being overweight can lead to diabetes, and eating a high-fat/high-carb diet will lead to weight gain, which can lead to obesity, which can lead to diabetes. But feeding healthy fats to our dogs doesn't raise their risk of developing diabetes.

• Diabetes: Surprising new role of fat revealed
• Keto Diet and Diabetes: Do They Work Well Together?, Dr. Axe

Rotational MonoFeeding and Supplements

There are two things about RMF that I'm entirely on board with, and they are:

• no one has it right when it comes to balance; I believe most are doing the best they can with the available information
• we over-supplement our dogs, not giving the diet a chance to do its magic before we order pills and powders online

“The practice of supplementing with vitamins, oils, herbs, etc., is not only costly and unnecessary, but also very unhealthful.  There are studies being done now that clearly show that subjects that are given supplements actually do much worse health-wise than subjects that are not given them. Dr. T. Colin Campbell references them [studies] in his book Whole.” page 62

When I tried RMF with my dogs, I didn't add any supplements, except Rodrigo's digestive enzymes, which are required.   It saved me time during meal times, and it would save me money if I chose to switch to RMF.

However, is it appropriate to remove all supplementation?

While I believe that pet parents new to raw feeding reach for supplementation too quickly, that doesn't mean that supplementation is wrong.  I think we should supplement to address a health issue and cover nutritional deficiencies when whole food isn't an option.

Switching to RMF allowed me to reduce the supplementation in my dogs' diet even more.  I realized I was falling into the same trap of reaching for supplementation instead of reviewing my dog's diet when a health issue cropped up.

A Few Questionable RMF “Rules”

So, while I love the idea of a new raw feeding model, rotational monofeeding isn't for me.

Dogs should be fed a lean diet that is low in fat.

I believe there are healthy fats that are beneficial for my dogs. Formulating my dogs' diet allows me to better control the amount of fat my dogs consuming, keeping it at a healthy level for each of them.

Veterinarians promote unhealthy things to keep our dogs sick.

I don't believe that veterinarians are in it for the money – I was surprised by the amount of anti-veterinarian messages in the book.  While I know some anti-raw vets out there, I have been fortunate to meet more pro-dog veterinarians open to raw feeding.  However, just because I've had more positive experiences than negative ones, I don't want to take away from someone's experience with a pet professional.

Whenever I hear backlash about veterinarians, I think of this video by a veterinarian giving a TedX about her day:

Sweet potatoes are great for dogs on plant days.

I prefer limiting organic sweet potatoes to treating diarrhea and loose stool. Thankfully, sweet potatoes are low glycemic (54).  The RMF model recommends cooked sweet potatoes because they'll add some sweetness to the meal that replicates overripe fruit, which is “universally loved by dogs.”

I don't know if wild dogs will eat sweet potatoes, but the point of adding them is to replicate overripe fruit.  Since berries and other fruits aren't ripe year-round, we feed sweet potatoes in their place.

Smelt are raw sardines; canned sardines should NEVER be fed.

I had to look this one up.  Smelt are not the same as sardines; smelt looks similar to sardines (and anchovies) but are not the same fish. Of course, Mr. Google could be wrong here, but I believe him.

The book also states that we shouldn't feed canned sardines because cooking makes the protein and bones indigestible.  I beg to differ.  From experience, the bones in canned sardines (if there are any) are mushy. Of course, this is just my experience with products available in my area of the country.

Eggs are bad for dogs.

According to the book, while eggs make a regular appearance in many raw diets, they should only be fed a couple of times a week due to the high fat and “because certain proteins in eggs interfere with the absorption of some nutrients.” page 79

I think the book is referring to overfeeding egg whites or feeding egg whites only.  The egg whites can act as a biotin blocker, so I lightly cook (poached, sunny side up, soft-boiled) the eggs I feed to my dogs. Cooking deactivates the biotin blocker in the egg whites.  To address the fat, I reduce the other ingredients in the bowl when adding eggs to their meal.

Dogs are omnivores, not humans.  

I believe that dogs are opportunistic carnivores.  Just look at the teeth and their counter/garbage can tendencies.  In the book, the author references a study…

“One study of Yellowstone wolves found that their consumption of prey dropped by 25% during the summer months when other foods (fruits, primarily( were more accessible.  Even when the wolves in the study had abundant food, they only ate fresh prey every 2-3 days on average.” page 41

However, according to the National Park Service (NPS.gov), the following is what has been documented about the feeding habits of Yellowstone wolves.

• Feeding habits: generalist carnivore; scavenges when possible and has been known to eat small amounts of vegetation
• Primary food sources in Yellowstone: Winter: elk (>96%), bison (3-4% and increasing in recent years; deer (1.5%); Spring: elk (89%), bison (7%), deer (7.1%); Summer: elk (85%), bison (14.1%), deer (<1%)
• Elk killed per month per wolf: 1.83 elk/wolf/month during winter
• Elk killed per year per wolf: 18-22 elk/wolf/year (all age classes, including neonate calves)
• Kilogram per wolf per day needed for survival: 3.25 kg/wolf/day; can eat 15-20% of body weight in one sitting

This contradicts what I read in the book.  But, then again, dogs aren't wolves.

Final Thoughts on Rotational MonoFeeding

I tried this raw feeding model, but it wasn't for me. I can't entirely agree with several of the tenets of the model, and I wasn't able to give it a fair shot. However, I'm not prepared to discount this raw feeding model.

If you would like to learn more about this diet, the best first steps are to order the book and join the group:

• Book on Rotational MonoFeeding by Nora Lenz
• Rotational MonoFeeding Facebook Group
• Rotational MonoFeeding on Instagram

Read More About Raw Feeding

• A Complete Glossary of Common Raw Feeding Terms Used by Dog Owners
• Ultimate Guide to Kombucha for Dogs: Benefits and Risks
• The Omnivore Misconception: Unraveling the Truth About Dogs
• How Soon Do the Benefits of Raw Dog Food Appear?
• Easy Venison Homemade Dog Food Recipe