Raw Food Diet

[jakesmom]

AND if SCOUT ate a lamb rib all in one go I'm pretty sure you'd see it sticking out either side of her like in cartoons / snakes!

Jakesmom, I would not be happy about bones going down in one swallow but I would not be horrified either. With your much bigger dog, you can give a whole slab of breast of lamb - I was factoring quantity for a smaller dog there. This is why the size of the head is a good measure. The dog then HAS to chomp on the bone.

Some dogs are greedy and still rush their food, and in that event I would feed a meat-and-veg meal first and give the bone afterwards, so the dog was not as hungry. If that dog still persisted in swallowing or trying to swallow bones whole, the choice is to feed in much smaller lumps so a swallow is not a big deal, or ground down into meal, or to abandon the bone idea and feed a good bonemeal supplement instead.

I'll second Minkee - Nettle you're a treasure - thank you.

Our fault, we should have realised, that the dogs wouldn't know there was a bone running through. Lesson learned.

[minkee]

Well! We're almost ready to go. Scout's had an egg for breakfast, I've got a pile of veg to prepare and I've sent the OH packing to the butchers, prepped with questions and a list.

If I could point you in this direction: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=11579&p=80097#p80097 I've put up some "Before" pictures of Scout. I'm completely inexperienced with watching her weight, or striving for an optimum, so your opinions on what I should be looking for in her would be great.

[Nettle]

She's looking good!

[rawnora]

If optimum is what you're after, I would look to decrease her middle some. It can be hard to tell just from photos but in the one where she's coming out of the water, there seems to be no 'hourglass' through the waistline. Some dogs can carry a little extra weight without problems for years but I have found it's safer to be conservative and err on the light side. If you do ever have a symptom, overfeeding would be the first thing I'd look at if she's still carrying that much weight.

Agility trainers have a rule that the last two ribs should be visible, as this cuts down on injuries suffered from quick turns, jumping and landing on joints. It is often assumed that the activity itself causes those problems, but usually that's not the case. Dogs are natural athletes and their bodies are designed for vigorous movement. Most often it's extra weight that puts added stress on joints. People don't realize their dogs are carrying too much weight because they look "normal". Active dogs should be extremely lithe and light on their feet.

It sounds like you might be new to raw feeding so just the switch may cause some weight loss, as commercial pet foods are notorious for packing the weight on.

Best wishes,
Nora
http://www.NoMoreVetBills.com

[Dogwoodblossom]

Hi, so I just read through all 14 pages of this thread and I am inspired. I've actually had my dog/s on a raw diet for a couple of months, but it's one of those preprepared ones. You can get it preportioned but I've been buying it in brick form (so excited that we finally have a high quality pet food store in this town. Up till' recently the best place we had was Petco). Anyway, the bricks are ground meat, bone, offal, and a few vegetables and you can get chicken, turkey, beef and lamb and possibly rabbit but I may be misremembering.

But it occurred to me as I was going through this thread that by serving it as a slurry like that you miss out on some of the benefits. My older dog loves puzzle toys, and before I switched to the raw diet she always had to work for her kibble. Now she just inhales this stuff. Also she completely loses out on the teeth cleaning from bone and connective tissue. Another note that has me a bit concerned (though not too concerned because I've read the notes about throwing up in the rest of this thread), my dogs have had the beef and lamb mixes and loved them and yesterday we tried out the turkey for the first time. I noticed that the turkey seems to have a lot more small bones and bone shards than the other two did. Amelie (9 year old mini poo) was fine with it, but Bertie (11 week old mini poo) has been throwing up and I wonder if it's those bone shards irritating his stomach. He has also been really hesitant to eat this mix which is just weird.

Today after work I went to scope out the local butcher but they've actually closed (although a new one is opening so that's OK) so I went by the grocery store instead. I was looking for chicken wings but I couldn't find any. Instead I got chicken breast with ribs still on and some beef short ribs. I'll just cut off most of the meat and freeze it.

My big exciting find though was chicken feet! The package was 1lb for 50 cents. I have a question about those though. I feel like they have slightly less meat than a wing but that it's comprable. Except does it really count as meat? I've eaten chicken feet before and it was mostly fat and connective tissue. So are these suitable for daily meals or should they be reserved for occasional feeding?

I'm not sure I have the time to switch over to a completely homemade diet. What I'd like to do for now at least is keep feeding the premixed stuff as maybe a quick breakfast (although maybe not the turkey for the puppy) and do whole bones at dinner. Is that going to throw off the veggie/offal ratio too much? And I read somewhere in this thread to keep eggs to twice a week at the most? Because I have chickens who lay more eggs than I can eat but I don't want to overdo it for the dogs. I gave them sardines (in water) today and while Amelie was unsure about her's, Bertie at his spinal column and all. And I spilled fish water all over my pants. So that was fun for all of us.

I have another question that may or may not be appropriate for this thread, if not I'll move it. But elsewhere in this thread people mentioned "Complete Food Fanatics." When I first heard about raw feeding it seemed a little odd but in an "over the top pet owner" kind of way, like the people who do that are the same people who build special dog rooms into their houses. But it made sense to me that this kind of diet would be better for the dog. Also how long has "dog food" even existed? Exactly these kinds of kitchen scraps were what dogs were fed until fairly recently. I assume that the rise of commercial dog food coincided with the increase in preprepared foods. When you buy a block of frozen chicken breasts there's no carcass to throw to the dogs. So I was a little shocked to read that there are people (presumably not just plants from dog food companies) who argue against a raw diet, and now I'm curious. What are the arguments in favor of "complete foods?" Do any of them hold any water?

[Nettle]

Some lovely questions there

To save me writing a book, so far as arguments go, there are plenty on either side and really the best is to read them all (until you get fed up) and apply your own common sense. The first question to ask oneself is always "is there a profit motive here?" which filters out a lot of mischief but not all of it. No diet is perfect, and no one diet suits every dog. I feed raw because:

My dogs look and function better than ever they did on commercial food (they are working dogs)
They heal faster from injuries
They stay healthy into old age
Their teeth are awesomely clean
They love the food (they are not foody dogs, apart from the terrier)
Puppies wean earlier and are very forward developmentally
Dogs are calm and receptive to training


Once we get into the swing of raw feeding (an extra freezer, some forward planning) it isn't time-consuming though obviously takes a little longer than swinging a cup in and out of a sack.

If one of your dogs throws up or won't eat a certain food - that is the dog telling you the food doesn't suit. None of my dogs will eat turkey, which I suspect tells me more about turkey farming than I should ever want to know. If your prepared turkey mix has bone shards, I'd not buy that again.

Chicken feet will make great feeding and remember dogs get a lot more nutrition out of gristle and connective tissue than we do (also worth remembering that THIS the type of chicken in the cheaper dog foods).

You can overdo the eggs, so limit them as suggested.

Commercial dog food started with Charles Spratt just over 100 years ago, and was (as has never changed) leftovers from the human food industry, in this case ship's biscuit and beef broth (the 'beef' was more likely horse). Dogs eat better now than they ever did, because only recently have we been able to afford to give dogs meat. Before then, the only meat most dogs got was when they hunted and killed it themselves, and managed to gulp it down before another dog or person found out. This is one reason dogs are so much healthier nowadays - which commercial dog food makers puff is all about their food being better for dogs than table scraps (in the days when not much food got left over). But going back to real food is a move a lot of us are making, for ourselves and our dependents. How many people do we know who feed their babies glop out of a jar? and if they read the ingredients in that glop.....


I feel your pain over the fish water. I do things like that quite often. *sigh*

[Dogwoodblossom]

Thanks for answering my questions Nettle. I was kind of guessing that dog food couldn't have existed for more than 100ish years. The notion of buying "special" food for you dog would have been ridiculous. And of course that same knee jerk reaction is what makes feeding raw seem bizarre today. Now you've got me nervous about turkey. I love turkey. But we do have a good butcher in town that sources from local farms with sustainable farming practices and I've been meaning to start shopping there for meat anyway. I haven't bought battery chicken for a long time.

I had another question about vegetables. People have suggested lots of different fruits/veggies popular with their dogs but nobody seems to have mentioned any kind of squash. My dog loves raw pumpkin (I feed her chunks every year when I carve Jack O Lanterns for Halloween) and at the kennel I work at we give mashed pumpkin to dogs who have diarrhea to firm things up. Also I just like squash and I tend to buy more than I can actually use. So is there a reason it hasn't shown up on raw menus? Should it be reserved for medicinal purposes?

[Sarah83]

Well guys, looks like I'll be joining you in feeding raw. Dog food in Germany is HORRENDOUSLY expensive! At least wheat and corn free dog food is, 75 euros for a 10kg bag! And if I want any of the really top quality foods I'll be paying more than that AND a delivery charge! I feel awful that money has to come into it but a 10kg bag would only last us around 2 and a half weeks with how much Rupert needs a day and although we'd pay it if we had to we can't really afford it. Wanted to try raw for years anyway, this has pretty much just forced me to jump in. I'm sure it's not going to cost me over 100 euros a month to feed one dog.

Not really sure how much to start off on though. Rupe's ideal weight is around 35kgs but to maintain that on a decent quality kibble he's needed between 600g and 1.2kgs of food a day (600g on Wainwrights, 800g JWB, 1.2kgs Burns) and has always had scraps on top of that. Would you just start him off with the amount a dog his size would usually need and go from there or would you give him a bit extra?

I already know he'll eat raw, he's had turkey, chicken, oxtail, heart, ribs and all sorts raw before and loves it but have to admit I'm a bit nervous about putting him on it full time. Doesn't help I'm facing a language barrier if I go to the butcher, me and Calvin have been eating "mystery meat" for weeks coz we've no idea what any of the packaging at the supermarket says

[Dogwoodblossom]

So a week into this thing and I have some more questions.

Chicken gizzards: offal or meat? Same question for beef tripe. Sidebar: I love the downtown grocery store. The two stores I usually shop at were pretty disappointing but this one has a lovely selection of the cast off parts of various animals. Too bad my dogs are so small or I would have got them pig's trotters too. As it is I probably went a little crazy but on the up side there will be no need to buy dog food for months.

Since together my dogs weigh about 13 lbs, I cut the huge package of chicken wings into thirds. I think either the drummette (?) or the forearm section is a good sized meal for them, and probably two wing tips would equal one meal. Plus the wing tips can be spread out with other things, say on Monday (egg day) we can do a raw egg and a wing tip.

I have a question about liver. Elsewhere in the thread people have been complaining about how gross it is to blend liver into a horrible slurry. The liver I got from the butcher came in chunks that are about the perfect size for my dogs and they were both delighted to scarf them. So why blend it at all? Because yeah, that does seem like it'd end up pretty gross.

And now a question about fish. We started with sardines which Amelie (the older poodle) ate but was not super excited about. Today we tried swai which is apparently a kind of Southeast Asian catfish (it was cheapest at the store). Both of the dogs looked at it like they weren't sure what to do with it but after I sprinkled on a little fresh rosemary (I have it potted on my porch) Bertie (the puppy) was willing to give it a try and ended up eating his and most of Amelie's. I also threw out some unpeeled shrimps which I thought would be popular. Bertie was interested but moreso in the swai. I think if I gave him a shrimp on its own he'd eat it. Amelie was having absolutely none of it. I eventually relented and gave her a chicken gizzard because she didn't eat much yesterday either. I've decided to make Wednesday and Friday fish days because Nettle recommended fish twice a week. I have sardines in tomato sauce for Friday but I'd like suggestions for how to make fish more appealing to Amelie.

My first thought was to marinate it. Their food is all frozen and when I feed them I take the next day's meal of the the freezer and let it thaw in the fridge for 24 hours (in dog specific tupperware). With the fish it'd be easy to throw in some broth or milk (I use soy milk in general at home, I know soy products aren't generally good for dogs but just as a flavor enhancer would it be OK?) and some rosemary and thyme, maybe a little garlic. If it smelled like people food I know Amelie would eat it. She's eaten salmon before and she likes that.

And the salmon brings up my other fish related question. I live in a fairly land locked area. I did not grow up eating much fish ever. My mother likes salmon so if we ever had fish as a kid it was always salmon. For years I thought I didn't like fish at all when it turns out I'm just not crazy about salmon. But that's fine because the salmon we get is usually wild caught from Alaska mostly and as far as I know is in danger of being fished to extinction. I also worry about mercury levels (and other toxins) in ocean fish. It's just not something I know a whole lot about and I've never worried about it before because I almost never eat fish. With my beef and chicken I like to make sure it is sourced from somewhere local, hormone and grain free, humanely raised, blah blah. People always talk about farm raised fish like it's evil somehow but I don't know why it wouldn't be preferable to further depleting ocean populations that are already struggling with poison.

Uh so yeah, what kind of fish do your dogs like and what is the best source?

As for vegetables, I don't think I want to do the blended ice cube block thing with these guys, mostly because an ice cube sized block would be all their food for a whole day. I'm thinking that for vegetables instead of blending them, I'll just make a little extra when I cook for myself. I mostly only ever steam vegetables with a little salt anyway. Or microwave frozen peas with a little butter and sugar. Or bake them in the oven drizzled with olive oil. So instead of blending to break down the cellulose I'll just cook them to break down the cellulose and the dogs will love them because again, anything that smells like people food. But I'm not really going to spend a lot of time worrying about their vegetable intake because the consensus seems to be that dogs like them and they're good for them but supplemental, not essential.

Final question, what do I do if/when somebody refuses to eat? There've been a couple of days (like today) where Amelie has straight up refused to eat. Occasionally the puppy will spend more time playing with his food than actually eating it. Amelie is on a diet and most of the time when she's refused a meal I've chalked it up to her eating something big the day before. One day she had a beef rib that was definitely two meals (it was a first try) and another time she got into some treats that I thought I'd put in an inaccessible place. But yesterday she had a pretty small dinner. I figured she'd be hungry tonight. But she was not willing to do more than sniff that swai. When I gave her the gizzard she bolted the thing (also, chicken gizzards are really gross). Bertie (the tiny puppy) I worry a little more about. When I first got him and they were on a combination of kibble and the pre-ground raw stuff (not at the same time though!) he was eating about three times as much as Amelie (who is 9 years old). He's nearly 3 months and I think he should still be at that same level. But yesterday he was not interested in doing more than playing with his chicken foot even though I had sliced it open and busted it with a hammer first (he's finished on happily before). So should I worry about them skipping meals at all? Just the puppy? Should I offer alternatives or let them go to bed hungry? I'm also still working on gaging portions. Is it just normal for them to skip if I've accidentally overfed them the day before?

Sorry this is so ridiculously long.

[Nettle]

Don't worry of they skip one or more meals. It doesn't hurt a dog to miss some meals: it's in their design because they could only eat what they caught or found and they don't suffer with hunger they way we do.

Like us, dogs have varying opinions on what they like to eat. If there is something one of your dogs is determined not to eat (as opposed to hasn't recognised it as a food source ) then it's okay not to give it to him/her.

Fish isn't essential and if it doesn't fit your plans, no need to feed it.

Soya is bad for dogs (not very good for us either) and if you are into sustainable/justifiable farming, it is dreadful. Two reasons not to give it to your dogs.

Dogs need surprisingly little food when that food is good quality - try cutting down quantities if they are not finishing their food.

It is okay for puppies to play with their food!

[runlikethewind]

Something I found with fish (although I know you should not give frozen food as it can cause tummy ache) is mine prefer frozen fish - sprats and flakes of fish or whole frozen mackeral

[Rooney2214]

Questions are good, yes its a minefield.

All those supplements, unless your dog is either, getting a very limited variety of foods or has a health problem that those supplements would specifically help (say a skin problem or joint problem) - not neccesary in my opinion.

What you can do and what I do with no ill effects, is to supplement a couple of times a month, but if you are feeding a good variety of fruit and veg, offal, meaty bones, the odd egg, the odd sardine you will find all those things are in there anyway (except maybe vit E?).

Bones and the calc/phos ratio - the raw chicken wing is about spot on here, so use that as a guide. Half a small rabbit (or similar small furry mammal if you cant get rabbit) is going to be similar and I would say for your small dogs half a bunny or two chicken wings would make a very good meal. Similarly chicken carcasses as long as they arent compleeeeeetely stripped of meat are good. Lamb ribs and necks are also good.

If you speak to a butcher you may find they will give you some things for nothing, it certainly works in the UK - other options are to look for reduced price meats in supermarkets where you can take off some of the meat too cook for yourselves and then the dogs can have teh rest. I do this with legs of lamb - wait for it to be reduced as its near its sell by date. Take off the meat and cut into chunks for curry or stew (for my friend as actually I hate lamb), leaving me with two BIG bones for dogs, which I leave a generous amount of meat and whatever else connective tissues, fat etc on. Then the dogs get these as a sort of meal/recreational bone (its not quite a meal but its a bit more than just a chewy snack so I would give this as a breakfast on a day i was there to supervise, or feed a slightly bigger breakfast that day and give the bone as dinner).

If you are nifty at butchering things yourself then you can take the 'best' bits off a chicken for yourselves (thighs, breasts) and leave the carcass, wings and other meat for the dogs.

Eggs - depends on your dog. Some of mine i can hand them an egg and they will go outside (or I will chase them out!) and eat it - some of them I have to crack it into a bowl or they cannot POSSIBLY figure out how to open it.... tsk. Silly dogs.

Herbs - pretty much all the herbs humans regularly add to their foods dogs can have too - if you can GROW some a lot of dogs will choose the ones they want/need themselves and thats pretty cool for them to do. Otherwise I find mine are pretty keen on rosemary and basil and thyme, not so keen on peppermint, take it or leave it over parsley, not tried them on fennel...

Garlic - its good stuff in moderation, if you were making up a fortnights worth of blended veggies to freeze and were feeding an icecube size or two icecube sized bits a day - I would stick in two or three cloves of garlic or about a two inch 'line' of garlic puree (if you get the stuff that comes in a tube) - along with two apples, a supermarket bag of spinach, 5 to 10 sticks of celery (depending on size), some red bell peppers, some broccoli, some pears or berries or wahtever else you have, ooh carrots. Things like sweet potato, potato, parsnip etc I find are better off chopped and boiled just a little (not as much as if you were going to eat them). Finish that off with a drizzle of oil (good for them improves the texture so they are less likely to look at you like you are INSANE and stalk off in a huff) - we use olive oil but you could use flax seed oil or whatever veg oil you have around at the time really.

I wouldnt add rice, they just dont need it. If you do want to provide it I would have that alone or with cooked meat rather tha mixing raw and cooked (same goes for complete food and raw... dont mix it, seperate meals is better). Some people do still feed a quality complete a few times a week, or use it in Kong toys or as training treats so it can be done its just that the two foods digest at different rates so its not good to mix them together.

Great post! I started last week to introduce raw to our 10 weeks GSD (Rooney)I started with 1 or 2 chicken necks once a day (Dogs trainer recommendation). We use Innova for large breed puppy for other 2 meals a day, this week we add ground turkey with carrots and olive oil, Not to sure about the chicken neck he cried in two opportunities when he tried to poop it happens after he started eating the necks. I think gradually Rooney will be on just raw diet and we will use the Innova for treats.

[JudyN]

I avoided feeding Jasper raw food until he was about 16 months old as reading about it was so confusing and I was sure it would be complicated (I'm the sort of person who would feed the family kibble if I could ). I did try the odd chicken wing occasionally, but it gave him the squits

Yet whatever kibble I gave him, eliminating one ingredient after another, he'd do big sloppy poos and his wind was so bad we had to light joss sticks every evening. He sleeps in our room and I didn't realise before that you can be woken by a smell I also tried Naturediet, but still no change.

Then I found a local shop that specialises in raw feeding (http://www.nurturingbynature.co.uk/ sorry, the website's a bit rubbish at the moment!). They told me exactly how much of what to feed him, gradually introducing new meats over a few weeks, and we haven't looked back. For breakfast he has two chicken carcases, and for tea he has 400g mince (they sell an assortment: mainly chicken (bones & cartilage included) combined with fish, lamb, rabbit, offal, venison, tripe, and so on) and 400g pulverised veg. It's all packaged in takeaway-style containers which they take back & reuse, so it's no more effort than opening a pack of Naturediet.

His poos are now so firm they bounce when they hit the ground (sorry, TMI!), and although he still regularly performs the trumpet voluntary, his wind isn't smelly in the slightest. His coat is longer and softer, too.

I'm a complete convert, and am in danger of getting a bit evangelical about raw feeding

[Fundog]

Can we get this thread stuck permanently somewhere-- I would like to refer back to it again later on-- very useful stuff here.

Okay, I believe it's time to get this permanently "stuck." It took me a fair bit of time to re-find this thread today, so I could study up on it in depth. I have no idea *when* or *if* I will ever get to feed my dogs raw, but I have not given up on the dream.

[Erica]

Can we get this thread stuck permanently somewhere-- I would like to refer back to it again later on-- very useful stuff here.

Okay, I believe it's time to get this permanently "stuck." It took me a fair bit of time to re-find this thread today, so I could study up on it in depth. I have no idea *when* or *if* I will ever get to feed my dogs raw, but I have not given up on the dream.

Exactly the same here! My brain is thrumming with all the information I just absorbed (I'll dream of raw chicken tonight...eww...), and if it's less expensive, I may be able to convince the 'rents to let me feed our dogs raw...there are two nearby (< 10 min drive) butchers, but one, I think, just serves as a grocery store more...dunno if they get whole carcasses to chop up or just parts. I'd have to do all the prep, and maybe get a junky blender to do the yucky stuff in, but tbh, it sounds very nice.