I think it is awesome that so many people are willing to try raw! Just remember, even if you are switching to a better diet, it can take the dogs time to adjust. Some dogs don't miss a beat, others take a week or two to get on track. Give it a month or two and you'll see a positive change.
I see the difference every day. I get constant compliments on Sadie's coat. She is just over 2 years old and her teeth are perfectly white without a hint of bad breath. More importantly, her energy is just unreal. Last weekend it took running 50 miles in two days to make her tired. She makes it through every hunt without a problem and bounces back within a day.
Yes, a lot of that is her personality, but raw capitalizes on the way dogs turn food into energy. If their diet is primarily protein and fat, their bodies can properly metabolize the calories, resulting in a steady stream of energy. But the carbohydrates in kibble are processed sporadically which leads to the inevitable energy crash. Real meat also encourages tissue generation to rebuild muscle that is lost during a hard hunt. And because the nutrients are leached out through cooking and preservatives, your dog actually gets the vitamins and minerals they need without a bunch of chemicals. Basically, when you buy meat, you are buying pure fuel. When you buy kibble, you're wasting a lot of money on filler.
Along those lines, I'm of the prey model school, which means you don't need to add anything extra to a raw diet. Meat alone is fine. You just need to make sure you get some variety and approximately the right ratio of muscle meat (80-85%), edible bones (10-15%) and organs (5-10% with half of that from liver). You don't need to hit those every meal, but over time that should be your goal. Feeding a variety of meat sources will help with that, plus the diversity is great for maximizing nutrition. Duck, fish, turkey… all those are excellent ideas.
This is my favorite site for answering myths about feeding raw:
http://www.rawfed.com/myths/index.html. Yes, it is geared towards pet owners, but all the information is there to apply it to hunting dogs.
