Animals are classified in many ways, one of them is their diet, in this case we will take dogs and cats to position ourselves in the correct one. Dogs have one of the best digestive systems, strong and more developed, than that of cats, since they have been domesticated for much longer.
Doctor Milton Mills when comparing the anatomy of animals, in relation to their type of food, concluded that by the size of the opening of the mouth of dogs and cats it can be determined that they are naturally carnivorous.
Its jaws are designed to be articulated like powerful levers, its teeth cut meat like a knife, its esophagus is capable of transporting large pieces of meat to its stomach and in its gastrointestinal tract (the one in charge of the absorption of food molecules) it has the record in transit time that is usually between 6 (raw natural food) and up to 30 hours (concentrated).
Practically the stomach of dogs is a real machine, the hydrochloric acid is surprising, they have the ability to keep the gastric PH very low, between values of 1 and 2, excellent for facilitating the digestion of protein.
The pH of the canine and feline stomach is much more acidic than that of a human, this very low pH helps to destroy harmful bacteria, so a healthy dog will not have problems with salmonellas or even damaged food.
Your stomach is too large, occupying 60-70% of your entire digestive system. It was designed to be an advantage when hunting, by needing to store food in the shortest possible time, taking into account the possibility of a distant feeding.
To digest large portions, the stomach is able to store, digest, mix and especially crush it thanks to very strong muscles. Its gastric juice is made up of hydrochloric acid and the enzymes pepsin, gastrin, and lipase – a truly powerful mix that it can handle whole rabbits.
Mills assures that the stomach of dogs is surprising, since there are cases of large dogs that have eaten up to 4 kilos of meat in a single meal without problem, the only side effect is that in the following days there is a lack of appetite .
As he says in the book The BARF diet by Doctor Ian Billinghurst, creator of the BARF diet, dogs love to feed other animals, they are like wolves, they love internal organs, meat, bones and everything they have. From the Chihuahua to the Great Dane. What they want is for us to feed them a varied diet, made up of animal parts.