Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) and RAW WILD

When serving RAW WILD raw meat dog food, you can feel confident in your choice. While Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) is a serious issue for wild cervids (deer, elk, moose, and reindeer), rigorous sourcing practices and a strong natural species barrier make it a non-issue for your pets.

What is Chronic Wasting Disease?

• The Basics: CWD is a fatal neurological illness belonging to a family of diseases known as transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSE). It is caused by misfolded proteins called prions. Other prion diseases include Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy ("Mad Cow Disease") in cattle and Scrapie in sheep.
• Affected Species: In nature, CWD strictly affects members of the cervid family (deer, elk, reindeer, sika deer, and moose).
• Current Spread: As of 2026, CWD has been detected in wild and captive herds across 36 U.S. states, five Canadian provinces, and parts of Europe and Asia.
• Where Prions Concentrate: In an infected animal, prions accumulate most heavily in the central nervous system and lymphatic tissues—specifically the brain, spinal cord, eyes, tonsils, spleen, and lymph nodes.

How is it Transmitted?

• Direct & Indirect Contact: Cervids spread CWD to one another through the exchange of bodily fluids like saliva, urine, feces, and blood.
• Environmental Persistence: Prions are highly resilient. They can bind to soil and plants and remain infectious in the environment for years, leading to indirect transmission when healthy animals forage in contaminated areas.
• Silent Spread: Because CWD has an incubation period of 16 months or more, an infected deer or elk can look and act completely healthy while shedding prions. Late-stage symptoms include drastic weight loss (wasting), stumbling, excessive drooling, and listlessness.

Is CWD a Risk to Me or My Dog?

• Zero Cases in Dogs: There is no scientific evidence that CWD naturally infects dogs, cats, or other domestic pets. Canines appear to have a robust natural resistance to CWD prions.
• Zero Cases in Humans: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports no known cases of CWD transmission to humans. (However, as a general precaution, health agencies always advise against knowingly consuming meat from infected animals).
• No Livestock Transmission: There is no evidence of CWD naturally transmitting to cattle or other traditional livestock.

How RAW WILD Minimizes Risk

While CWD is present in North American wild herds, the chances of harmful prions entering your RAW WILD dog food are exceptionally low due to our uncompromising standards:

• 100% Muscle Meat, Zero High-Risk Tissues: RAW WILD never uses brains, spinal cords, eyes, lymph nodes, spleens, or offal. We strictly use premium muscle meat (along with essential vitamins and minerals to make it complete and balanced). By excluding the central nervous system, we completely bypass the tissues where prions overwhelmingly concentrate.
• No "4D" Meat: We strictly prohibit meat from dead, dying, disabled, or diseased animals. (So-called "4D" meat is legally permitted in many commercial dog foods—but never in RAW WILD).
• Ethically Harvested: Our meat comes from game that hunters ethically harvested to feed their own families. These hunters carefully select the healthiest-looking game and strictly avoid animals showing any late-stage signs of illness, such as wasting or stumbling.
• Premium Quality Control: Because our wild game is sourced from hunters processing meat for human consumption, the care and scrutiny applied to the animals far exceed standard rendering plant practices.

We trust our rigorous standards completely, and we proudly feed RAW WILD to our own dogs.