If you are here reading this article, you are probably interested in raw feeding and/or the concept of BARF and you might wonder whether or not you should spend money on hiring a nutritionist (like me) to create a food plan. You might think, that it is nothing but a waste of money, but maybe you think that there is no chance of feeding a dog healthily without a professionally created food plan.
Whether counselling is necessary cannot be answered with a just a "yes" or "no". Similarly to dog training, the answer is: It depends. On the circumstances. On you.
What does a nutritional counsellor do?
What can you expect? And why do the prices differ so much?
Generally speaking, nutritional advice can range from simple tips to comprehensive support in cases of illness. There is no clearly defined consulting package of what you can expect as a customer. Therefore, the scope, quality and price varies, depending on the offer.
It is safe to say that professional nutritional counselling should include the following:
Thorough anamnesis (collection of all relevant data about the dog in question)
Enquiry about the owner's preferences (e.g. frequency of feeding, desired additives, types of meat, etc.)
Based on that: Creation of the food plan (basic structure, exemplary plan), naming of any dietary additives (from different suppliers if available)
Explanation and additional information on the transition (if applicable), possible risks, the procedure, listing of the ingredients, important information (e.g. importance of the fat content in the diet), etc.
Answering questions about the food plan
This process takes at least 3-4 hours. The information needs to be evaluated, the plan has to be calculated and adapted, and the owner's questions have to be answered, etc. The more complex the case, the more effort - and time. Sometimes it already takes an hour or more alone talking to the customer in order to clarify ambiguities.
Because not every nutritionist meets all those points, prices differ.
In practice, the quality of the food plans also differs a lot:
They sometimes come without explanations, no specific ingredients, sometimes incorporating unnecessary artificial additives, lots of vegetable oil and carbohydrates. Often, these are not even close to a BARF food plan. As a BARF beginner it would be difficult to feed your dog based on plans like that, because of the lack of information provided.
On the other hand, there are – of course - really good food plans.
So if you are thinking about getting nutritional counselling, you should think carefully about what you expect and how much money you want to spend. In this case, it often helps to get in touch with the nutritionist beforehand and ask friends and acquaintances for experiences and recommendations.
Like everywhere else, inexpensive is not always bad and expensive is not necessarily good. However, you can rarely expect a lot of information and assistance for very little money. If you want to have a comprehensive plan, you should know about the fact that its preparation takes a lot of time, which is reflected in the price. People who need to live of their job cannot work for free. This is also the case in other professions: After all, no one expects to receive a 2 to 3 hour work from a hairdresser, mechanic or lawyer for free or for just 2.000 ISK...
If you are okay with less information, have the time, prefer to inform yourself and know where to get solid information, you can of course save the money.
For example, you can find free help in forums or Facebook groups. There, you are usually expected to have gotten fundamental information beforehand. So getting advice from these sources is a way to start, but it is usually necessary to read a lot more about the various topics in addition to that.
Who doesn't need nutritional advice?
I want to advise customers honestly and therefore I have to say: Not everyone needs a food plan. People can do it without counselling. If I would feel like the dog owner is already incredibly well informed, I would advise against booking my services.
Studying to become a dog nutritionist took a lot of time (9 months). Time is money and in all those hours that I spent studying, I COULD have worked and earned money.
If you want to read up on the subject of BARF, you will quickly notice that there is a lot of information out there - including contradictory information. You will first have to figure out what is right and what is not. If you find the topic interesting you might not mind and if you also have the time for it, you don't need a food plan from a professional. Not even for a puppy. BARF is not a science. It's simple. You just have to know the rules and implement them. What makes it time-consuming is filtering out useless or false information and overcoming one's own insecurities.
With self-confidence, good sources, maybe some help from friends or forums and enough time, you can put it all together yourself.
For whom is nutritional counselling suitable?
Not everyone is likes to get to know new topics on their own. Many people are annoyed by forums, loose the overview or simply have a family with two or more children, a job, friends and hobbies or duties. This is for whom professional counselling is for: For those who don't have the time to figure it out themselves and even for those who are insecure and just want to have some support.
So if you don't have time to read all kinds of things or if you simply find it too time-consuming to sort the wheat from the chaff of the information to be found on the Internet or even in books, or if you don't really like the topic, you are best off with professional nutritional counselling.
Dog owners who are worried about making mistakes can be helped, too with professional counselling.
A consultant saves hours of research and provides security.
However, nutritional counselling is particularly relevant if the dog suffers from health problems and a special diet is necessary to accompany the therapy by the veterinarian. It is not uncommon for "hopeless" cases to end up with a nutritionist as the "last hope" who then actually manages to help with a food plan.
When it comes to health problems, you could also figure out all these things yourself. But that also costs time. Here, even more so, in-depth knowledge and experience are necessary. Getting this knowledge is time-consuming. Further training, seminars and specialist literature are essential, because at a certain point the internet and forums do not help. Especially when it comes to diseases, you have to do even more thorough research.
How to find a good nutritionist?
This question is not easy to answer, because there is unfortunately no authority that carries out some form of exam.
The profession "nutritionist" is not protected. Anyone can call themselves that, even if there is no knowledge or adequate training at all. The customer is therefore faced with the problem of whom to trust. Unfortunately, even the titles "veterinarian" or "animal health practitioner" is no guarantee for a solid knowledge on the topic of nutrition or dietetics and especially not when it comes to the concept of BARF.
So all that can be done is to find out what kind of training/education the consultant has undergone (available is anything from weekend courses to extensive training). It is also important that the training/education is really about BARF and not about pseudo-BARF. How much worth is a 3-year intensive training on nutrition if the option of BARF is only mentioned and everything else in that training is about ready-made food?
Otherwise, recommendations from friends and acquaintances are - of course - also a good way to find a good consultant.
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