Dogs - Raw Diet Update

[OneSickPsycho]

Originally Posted by Kaneman

This is an update on the a conversation we had regarding putting your pooches on a "raw" diet.

We switched from commercial pet food (Pedigree dry, choice cuts and missing link) a few months ago to a raw meaty bone diet in an effort to ensure the health and stamina of my 90lb male Boxer and 65lb female Lab.

Initially I was using chicken necks and leg quarters as the main sources of meat but after a few raw vomiting episodes it became clear that they weren't chewing the neck bones enough and just gulping them down. I switched over to whole carcasses to force them to learn to chew and began feeding once a day instead of twice a day.

There are always good deals somewhere on whole chickens so there has not been a large cost increase compared to commercial dog food. The dogs main staple is 1/2 whole chicken, warmed to room temperature. I try to cut them in half so that the Boxer gets a bit more, but I don't weigh their food or anything to determine portion size....because they're dogs.

They get a ground beef/steak mix consisting of eggs, banana, some veggies and sardines/olive oil once or twice a week. They also get a whole raw fish (guts and all) once a week.

The results have been very positive, here are the bullet points of my experience thus far.

* Dogs thoroughly enjoy chewing and eating the food and seem very satisfied afterwards. They now have very well developed jaw and neck muscles.

* Dogs strength and stamina has improved on long runs and uphill pulls.

* Dogs have a very full and shiny coat that feels very healthy to the touch.

* Both dogs used to throw up once a week or so on the commercial diet. This is no longer a problem.

* The have completed ceased chewing on anything left out during the day and now have open access to the house while I'm gone...usually about 9 hours a day.

* They rarely fart and never have bad breath.

* And best of all, at our yearly vet exam a couple weeks ago the vet told me they were the healthiest dogs he had seen come into his office. Their muscle to fat ratio was perfect, their teeth and gums were exceedingly clean, and thorough testing revealed absolutely no bacteria or parasites in their digestive system. He was especially impressed with their muscle definition.

So far so good...we're definitely going to stick with it and keep watching them closely. My good friend came over while they were eating one day and asked a lot of quesitons. He switched his black lab over to raw and reported even better improvements than I got.

Originally Posted by Kaneman

Here is a quick update along with requested photos. We actually went to adopt a pitbull pup today from a local rescue and were denied because of the diet we feed. There was concern that salmonela poisoning was going to kill our dogs and their rescue. Our dogs obvious display of perfect health was not enough to counter their fears.

I try to find whole chickens for $.75 to $.85 a pound.

Cut it in half...I slice a little more on one side to give our larger boxer a bigger portion. This is an entire day's worth of food.

I put it in hot water to warm to near room temp. My understanding is that cold meat slows down the digestive process.

Then there is of course the mandatory sit and stare at your delicious chicken until I say differently because I'm bigger than you exercise....

Then there is only heaven.

Originally Posted by Kaneman

Well I picked up a grinder from Cabelas for $40 that clamps down and was pretty impressed. It took a while to grind down 10 lbs of chicken but it got the job done.

Here is my recipe for this weeks mix, already ground up, pre-mixed and packaged so feeding is a snap.

5lb ground beef
10lb dark chicken
3lb white chicken
2 large salmon filets
3/4 container of chicken liver
2 cups yogurt, plain
1 bell pepper pured
1/2 dozen jumbo eggs
some olive oil

They seem to be enjoying it, lol. In the couple of days that our new Pit puppy has been on this diet his coat has already started to show a glossy sheen and the spot of mange on his forehead is healed.

Originally Posted by Kaneman

They have the digestive system to take care of the things in raw chicken that would make you or me sick. You can't feed them chicken alone and I do feed raw red meats as well, depending on what is on sale that week. They also get eggs, cottage cheese, leftovers, pork and so on.

Red meat is $2+ lb vs. chicken at $.59 a lb. so chicken is the obvious choice to make up the bulk of their protein.

As the bones are part of their diet and cooked bones are dangerous to dogs feeding cooked is not an option. I do buy a big bag of quarters every week, boil that and strip the meat for a quick meal that isn't messy when I'm in a rush. Its more of a back up meal. A lot of fat is not a problem because they are not eating carbs, only fat and protein. Whole chickens have a good fat/protein ration.

In the time that I've been doing this I've seen my dogs digestive problems (throwing up, diarrhea, farts) virtually disappear. They have not been sick at all in the last 6 months.

Originally Posted by Kaneman

I fed beef heart and liver the other day, first time I've ever actually bought a cow's heart. I cut 'em up in thirds and gave them to the dogs.

Organ meat is a much richer than muscle and I guess their stomachs weren't ready for that. Nothing will clear a room faster than raw organ farts. Good sweet Jesus.

Originally Posted by HurricaneHeather

We got some beef livers because they are soft and juicy. Cats have never had to chew before and that is the problem with Triumph(the 'what the fuck is this shit?' cat). I cut tiny little pieces up for him and mixed it with wet cat food. He would pick up the liver pieces, realize he had to work to get it down and spit it back out.

Eva(the 'I love it, give me more!' cat) devoured all that we gave her then 20 minutes later we had bloody vomit to clean up on the carpet. It was disgusting.

Main point is, we have cats because they are low maintenance. We can put out a bowl of kibble and be gone for a couple of days and they'd be fine. We don't have the type of life that we can be home twice a day everyday, ya know?

Originally Posted by thirdgenlxi

Well... I've been doing alot of research on this lately as well, and decided to get Piggy off of the "poison" (as most referred to kibble as, lol), and get her headed in the right direction to a long healthy life. I always knew kibble foods weren't the greatest for dogs, but didn't know just how bad until I started digging a little deeper... YIKES!!

So today (sun), was Piggys first day on her new RAW meaty bones diet! As recommended by everything I've read, I started out very simple: plain chicken quarters. Everyone said don't add variety just yet, just pick one meat and stick with it for a couple weeks and let the dogs body get used to eating and digesting "real" food, then start adding variety, organs, etc.

I got her a 16" pizza pan too to eat off of, so there's room for her to pick stuff apart without getting it all over the kitchen floor.

Small doses to start off with until I know everything is going well. I fasted her yesterday to let everything else work it's way through first

At first she looked a little confused, like "ummm what do I do with this??" LOL. She kept looking up at me, then back down at the chicken, then up at me again, then she just started licking it, hahah

After a few minutes though, she was going to town on it. I watched her the whole time to make sure she didn't try and gulp it (she usually tends to eat pretty fast cuz of the other dogs always coming around her food bowl). But she did great... took her time and chewed everything, crunched all the bones, and all was good. Took her probably 15 mins to finish both pieces. She didn't leave so much as a crumb behind, hahah

She has hip dysplasia and very dry itchy skin in the winter time, and from what I've read, this should help out with both of those. She had a yeast infection in her right ear recently too, but that seemed to be just a one time thing and hasn't happened before that or since. A little maximum strength Vagisil took care of it no prob anyways, lol

So, we'll see how it goes! I'm cutting her feeding down to 1 meal per day and will watch her weight carefully. Hopefully it goes well! Never heard a single bad thing about a raw diet though

Originally Posted by shmike

Our dog gets mostly meat. They are naturally carnivores. A few of the meals she gets are "medleys" which have certain veggies or berries in them that aid digestion.

With a properly varied diet, supplements shouldn't be necessary except in extreme cases. The dogs get all the nutrients from the food just like their ancestors did in the wild.

We have switched from leaving dry food out for her to graze on to two feedings per day. She'll usually finish it within 10 seconds. On the rare occasion that it is not gone, we usually throw it away. We have left the raw meat out and left. It is gone by the time we get home.

It is definitely not cheaper than kibble. Our raw diet costs about 2X's what dry food would but we aren't bargain shoppers. Convenience > cost.



A raw food diet is the better, easier way. It's not cheaper though.

If you don't want to deal with the preparations that some of these guys go through, do what we do:
We have a local "Pet Deli" that prepackages all meals into individual packages. They are kept in the freezer. When the dog gets her dinner, we pull tomorrow's meals into the fridge to defrost. The next day, open the package and serve. Can't get much easier than that.

Originally Posted by defector

I can give you my answers on these, but I may not be doing it like everyone else.
1. My dogs get meat [on the bone], eggs, and vegetables daily. Yogurt every other day, and a whole fish once a week (in place of meat).
2. I don't give them supplements normally
3. I have no problem with them not eating it all in 1 sitting. Hasn't happened yet.
4. I don't leave raw meat laying around.
5. It isn't cheaper (or more convenient), from what I can tell. Although my beasts used to go through quite a bit of bag food anyway, and that wasn't exactly cheap either.

Basically, every Sunday I do all the major prepping for the entire week. I usually just buy whole chickens and portion them myself. In a pinch I will use leg quarters.

Originally Posted by shmike

For the treats, yes. She still gets them and is as excited now as when she was on a super-bland kibble diet.

The rule of thumb with raw foods is about 2% of body weight per day. That means Brinks would need about 3lbs of food, give or take.

Hopefully Kaneman will chime in on the best way to make that happen. It takes our dog almost 2 weeks to eat that much food!

Originally Posted by Kaneman

The weight percentage shmike mentioned is a good rule of thumb, and then you just vary it based on your dog's metabolism. My big guy weighs 90lbs and eats about a half a chicken a day, plus "fixins." He has a very high metabolism, I don't think a 150lb dog would eat a whole lot more. A whole chicken a day seems like a lot, but if you're talking a small chicken, like 2.5lbs...then that might be good.

I would find a Mastiff forum, most dog forums these days have a Raw Diet sub forum so you can see what other breed owners are doing for their dogs.

I don't give my dogs anything to chew on, no raw hide or anything. Its too hard to keep an eye on them with stuff like that laying around for me, but they don't chew up any of my stuff so its all good. The raw diet is supposed to satisfy that urge they have to chew stuff, seems to work.

I feed once or twice a day, depends on what food they're getting. Raw meaty meals are fed once, ground meals twice.

Originally Posted by VatorMan

We actually make a "glop" which is a bunch of raw veggies,eggs, yogurt, and a bit of molasses and freeze it. We have it sectioned out so its easy to just transfer a container of glop to the fridge to thaw before feeding.

I have beef and chicken sections separated into organs vs. Muscle so it's very easy to put a meal together for the dogs. We shop at the local Amish market so we get all fresh meat. We can get fresh duck and rabbit as well. It's fun to shop for the dogs as much as for us.

Lesson learned. Serve beef bones with marrow outside unless you want to mop the floor following feeding.