Yes, dogs can eat raw chicken.
Whether to feed raw chicken is a controversial issue. The opponents insist that raw chicken is loaded with bacteria, even has salmonella, which can cause over one million illnesses each year. Raw chicken is more difficult to digest than the cooked chicken.
The supporters think that the nutritional content of commercial dog food is really rather small, dogs can’t get enough nutrients, raw chicken offers more nutritional value. Dog’s immune and digestive system could easily handle the bacteria in the raw chicken. As far salmonella, if salmonella contaminated food, boiling could kill the salmonella but can’t kill the toxins produced by salmonella. That means cooked chicken also would cause food poisoning by salmonella not only raw chicken. It depends on the food but not the handling method.
I believe that both two views are credible, but I would not feed raw chicken, because I have a Chihuahua not hunting or herding dogs, were not designed to eat raw chicken. I am not willing to let my puppy to take the risk. After balancing risk versus benefit everybody got their own choice.
If you feed a dog with raw chicken, you should stick to the following tips.
1. If the dog is sick or weak, stop to feed raw chicken temporarily. Healthy dogs can easily handle the bacteria in raw chicken. But when dogs are sick or weak, their immune and digestive system is weakened, and dogs lose the ability to fight bacteria. At this time, bacteria in raw chicken can cause bacterial infections and even make your dog sick.
2. Freeze the raw chicken more than 48 hours.
The low temperature can eliminate the parasites and limit the development of bacterial.
3. Wash chopping board, knife and doggie dish everyday. The main risk of raw chicken is salmonella which can contaminate surfaces of kitchen things. To keep them clean to avoid to contaminate other foods.
Dogs can eat raw chicken but be careful.