My dog has been on a raw diet for years, and has never had a problem. Today, we fed him some nice meaty pork neckbones and about a half an hour later, his eyelids and lips started to swell. I did some research and gave him some Benadryl, hoping to stave off an ultra-expensive emergency vet visit. The swelling is going down (THANKFULLY), and I'll be keeping an eye on him and take him to the vet in the morning if need be. (He's walking around kinda stoned...poor puppy).

Has this ever happened to any of you? Your dog is eating something it's eaten for years and then all of a sudden has an allergic reaction? The pork didn't smell off to me, but I just moved and it's a new market that I got it from.

I feel so bad, like I poisoned my baby.

UPDATE 8:00 am CST: He's fine. His face is back to normal and other than a Benadryl hangover, he's all better. Thanks for your support.

I turned my dog into a picky eater. I bought these fancy ass locally produced not cheap premade raw horse meat (she usually loves horse!) dog food medallions for my convenience, and she won't eat them. I had to thaw one out, mush it up, mix and soak it with cheap wet dog food and raw egg and ladle it onto her usual fat-trimmed meats just to get her to eat some of it this morning. It was the exact opposite of convenient.

x-posted to firstworldprobs.

If I try the tough love approach, she will go days without eating what I offer her. Like four or five miserable days where she desperately digs for garbage and eats grass and soil on every walk. What a bitch.

I took Sparky to my SO's Grandparent's house for a BBQ last night. Anf they kept feeding him tidbits. Not just burgers and sausages but bread and couscous and doritoes and the like.

And now he has diarrhea.

I know the normal suggestion for a bland diet is boiled chicken and rice but what is it for a raw fed dog? Just chicken?

Ta.

ETA: Thanks guys!

I am so glad to have found this community! I think my friends are going to get annoyed with me writing about raw feeding.

I just started feeding our greyhound, Ozzy, raw about a week ago. We sent him up to "Camp Greyhound" for a weekend, and met the other greyhounds there, who are all raw fed. They are gorgeous and healthy and they look exactly the way we want Ozzy to look. He's not gained any weight since we adopted him in January (and is too skinny at 68lbs. Ideally, we want him at 75lbs), his hair is falling out, his eyes are always goopy, his skin is flaky, et cetera. These greyhounds had thick, shiny coats, gorgeous clear eyes, and lean but filled out bodies. I talked to the lady who runs camp greyhound, and she told me she raw feeds. That was where it all started. She helped me get started by planning menus for Ozzy, and has been there to answer my questions, and offer advise.

In one week Ozzy's eyes have cleared up, his teeth have gotten cleaner (he's only going to be 2 this month, so his teeth weren't too bad to start), his skin is no longer dry and flaky, and he eats every single meal. Plus he doesn't have bad breath or gas, and his poops are small, firm and not very stinky. It's amazing the changes we've seen in just 10 days.

Anyway, we're still only 10 days in. Ozzy's food (which I weigh and separate when I buy it, so it takes up less space and is easier to feed) is taking over the freezer. I'm looking for a chest freezer, but won't be able to get one for another month or two. So right now I'm trying to buy his meat in 2 week portions. It's pretty humorous to open our freezer at the moment. There is a very small portion of the freezer which has ice and some meat for the humans, and the rest is filled with freezer bags labeled "Ozzy: whole chicken plus liver & gizzards" or "Ozzy: 1lb chicken quarters, 1lb pork butt, 4oz pork liver". It's comical. That boy eats like a king.

Now that I've posted the world's longest introduction, I have a question.

In three weeks is Ozzy's birthday, and as lame as it may sound, I'd like to make him a special treat. Right now he doesn't really get treats (chicken gizzard chunks, but that's it. And only 3 times a day when he comes in from "going potty"... we've recently had some house training difficulties, and are re-training him). I've heard of people making liver treats, but I am clueless as to how it is done. Any suggestions would be much appreciated!

Just wanted to say that I'll email the pdf tomorrow; I was an idiot and left my USB stick at work.

ETA: I've tried looking up your email addresses under your userinfo; I'm not sure about some of you, but they aren't listed. Please leave your email in a comment, and I'll shoot you the paper ASAP.

BTW: the paper is about cats, not dogs...let me know if you're still interested.

does anyone else have the problem of their dogs poop bringing flies? i'm pretty sure it's the raw diet that's doing it because my parents dogs poop doesn't attract flies. but they love our dogs poop. even if we pick it up there will still be tiny bits of it out in the yard. is there anything that will keep them away? i'm thinking spraying down the grass just won't cut it.

I'm looking up some interesting research articles via Google Scholar, and I find a paper that purports to explain how a veterinarian should go about dealing with patients who feed raw. It's all very well and good, even addressing some valid nutrition concerns. Calcium:phosphate ratios; micro-nutrient deficiency (minerals like copper and zinc); pathogenic organisms; etc etc.

Until.

There's a chart with a list of concerns that they recommend a vet discuss with their clients: one of them is about vegan diets. It says, "In a vegan diet, high protein (soybean, pinto, or chickpea) beans provide the next best option, however, due to to low digestibility, the amino acid bioavailiability may be poor for dogs and cats."

*looks through the attic for a pitchfork and torch*

It's bad enough that misguided lay people do this. No wonder so many vets are so confused about animal nutrition.

On the bright side, I've also come across a very old paper that's remarkably complete. I'll email the PDF to anybody interested.

My puppy had adapted to raw well and I'm comfortable feeding her whatever the big dogs get. Shes only 30lbs but she can eat a 2 lbs chicken quarter with no problem. She's coming up on 14 weeks and I'm planning on getting her spayed at 16 weeks. Anyone fed post surgery before? What do you suggest? Ground food tends to give her the runs, so I was thinking some canned innovia and/or wet or dry evo. 

I am wondering about frequency in feeding.  I have not started my dog on raw food yet, but have transitioned from nasty science diet to Origen's Kibble.  My reason for this is that I am paranoid about the sanitation issues, since I do not have a dish washer and am already a very busy person.  I do not eat meat myself, so I'm not used to doing the proper dish routine, making sure everything is sanitary.  Once I get a house with a dish washer, I will not hesitate to start him on 100% raw + supplements.  Right now I do give him raw cattle bones for chewing, so he is getting some good oral hygiene. 

However, I have heard of people feeding their dogs only once daily when feeding on raw.  I am wondering how much this would help with digestion.  Even though I am still feeding him kibble, can this be done?  He poops twice a day, which to me is not excessive.  The other thing I am wondering is if I should be feeding him less now that he is getting the bone.  He get's a decent sized one, about 4 or 5 days a week (see picture below.)

This last question is less of a feeding question and more of a behavior one.  He does tend to get slightly protective over his bone when one of the cats walks by.  He never does anything more than a warning growl.  He sometimes can get too rough with them (he thinks they're dogs) but I break that up before he gets too rough.  He doesn't ever get his bone unless he is supervised, but I just wish I knew what to do.  Often, I make him wait before he gets it while letting each cat smell and lick the bone, even rub my fingers on their pheramones and rub them on the bone.  Still though, he tenses up and guards it, sometimes growls when they walk by. 

I will appreciate a lot of input, thank you.

So i got my boy to the vet and it turns out his rectum has all manner of bone shards in it, which can't be good. Ilm going to remove the bone from his diet for a week or so, but does anyone have any thoughts or experience with this sort of thing? advice will be appreciated here.

I'm not sure whether I should be nervous or not, but my dog has basically lost a lot of his interest in food lately.

Now, to give a recap of his week (for reference) he got into a fight with a big dog in our yard and had to be patched up a bit (mostly scratches and one small puncture). Then he spent a few days with my parents, probably eating cat food. So his schedule was all out of whack, but that ended Sunday (he got a big meal of chicken tenders to make up for it) and I figured he'd be better by now, but that was the last big meal he ate. He's been eating half portions lately.

He could just be full. I also fear that he put down a good few bites of bird suet from our yard (the squirrels figured out how to open the container it was in) so that can't have helped (I'm not sure how birdseed will affect him, but my guess is that he'll pass it).

Anyway, I'm sure you can see why I'm not sure if I should worry or not. I'm thinking about running him to the vet just to be sure, but other opinions are welcome.

Are mushrooms (not wild ones) and courgettes safe for dogs? I've got some here which go out of date in 2 days and although I'll be eating them there's too much for me to eat all of them on my own. I can't find much info about either vegetable online, only that you shouldn't let dogs eat wild mushrooms which I thought would have been obvious!

I don't usually feed vegetables to my dogs but I would rather someone or something eat these as opposed to having to throw them out!

So, I flash burned hamburgers tonight on the grill. They aren't charred, just smoke blackend to the point where we couldn't eat them. Total dinner fail. They are also half raw still. Would the blackening hurt the dogs if I fed them the burgers mixed in with their regular food? Like I said, they aren't really burned, just blackend. Maybe if I rinse them off?

I just hate have to wasted 6 hamburger patties. :(

So, Patience loves her RMBs now. For a while I fed raw boneless meat + calcium supplements, and when I first gave her a chicken quarter, she just gave me a "WTF?!" look. Now, we've made progress in that she'll happily eat them, and I don't have to sear it or sprinkle it with Parmesan or whatever else.

The problem is, I started out by holding the RMB for her while she ate. Now, she is totally dependent on that. She cannot seems to figure out how to eat it on her own. She tries, but 1) she won't hold it down with her paws and 2) she wants to rip off lots of dainty little pieces with her front teeth, which is hard to do without me holding it. When I put it down, she tries to bring me over to her mat (the way she brings me to the door when she has to potty) and if I don't pick it up, she seems to think I just don't understand what she's trying to tell me (LOL). I have tried cutting slits in the meat, cutting some of the meat off the bone, cracking the bones, etc, to no avail. I guess I could cut ALL the meat off the bone, but I read an article (a study from Institute of Odontology at the Karolinska institute) that said that bones cleaned of all meat can cause dental fractures (though they said meaty bones are great), so it's not something I really want to do.

What do you think? Insight appreciated!

what other bones (that are edible!) besides pork necks do you guys feed for cleaning teeth? our one dog tends to puke up a small amount of the bone quite awhile after she's eaten it. she gets pork neck maybe once every 2 weeks or so. i'm not sure if it's just the pork or what that doesn't agree with her. i did attempt to give her some sort of rib bone (not sure what kind it was actually!) that i figured she would just chew on/clean her teeth (but not to eat)t and she was completely tearing into it. she chewed up and ate some of it before i took it away, i wasn't quite sure if it was too hard and not meant to be eaten and i didn't want any brokenr teeth. she didn't puke up that bone. i want some bone that cleans well and is edible :)

You don't realize how much you take odor-free or almost-odor-free poops for granted until you have to put your cat on a prescription diet.

Amend that: you don't realize it until you've moved the litter box from the storage closet (where we keep the washer; the damn thing was always in the way and nothing was more frustrating than losing cleaned socks to the cat poo) to the office/guest bedroom, and one Tweeb decides to drop a turd while you're typing.

I'll have to spend some more time looking up addition and supplements to an Rx diet for cats, because ho-ly sh*t, if I can barely stand it, my boyfriend, with his hypersensitive nose, will probably choke to death on the fumes. I begin to understand the origins of "F-bomb" and all manners of scatalogical slang now.

My four-year-old female Yorkie has recently started to lick. Everything. All the time She even woke me up in the middle of the night once, licking the pillow in her crate. It's unbearable. I asked our vet about it, and he said first to deworm her (which we did) and otherwise, if it's not behavioral, it might mean something lacks in her nutrition.
Woah! We've been feeding her raw for almost four years now, and I'm starting to worry that something we were always doing wrong is showing. The problem is, here, I can't find one vet who's in the least educated about raw and who won't stab me with a glare when I tell him what I feed. I will still try to convince my parents to take her to the vet for a checkup--how do they check for nutritional deficiency? We feed her majoritarily (very much so) whole quails, and occasionally beef liver and raw egg and some fish oil. I have told my mom (who feeds her) to vary the meat more, but otherwise ... ? Is there anything else this could be?

 So I bought a pound of beef liver to see if my dog would eat it. He won't  eat any other organ meat so far that I have offered him {turkey and chicken..I want to give him pork but its hard to find.} He refused it and pulled it out of his bowl and made a big bloody mess on the floor... jerk... But I am wondering if there is treats or something I could make out of the liver so i'm not just wasting it. I thought about just dehydrating it but I am not sure how it would hold up. Has anyone tried it?

Hey guys. I have 2 Italian Greyhounds that eat raw, and I recently inherited a cat named Skeletor. He's older (has to be over 10), but is very sweet and excellent with the pups.

He was being fed crappy Friskies and Whiskas. He's always had intestinal issues, and is very skinny. I took him to the vet, and bloodwork /urine sample came back normal. I threw out the nasty food, and started feeding him Wellness. His diarrhea continued (though his vomiting stopped), and I tried to get him to eat small pieces of raw. I left out some raw liver, raw chicken meat, and even some raw bones. He sniffed, and refused to eat. He won't eat Innova, and while he will eat the Wellness, he's not eating enough to support his meager weight of 7 lbs.

Out of desperation to stop his diarrhea, my vet tech friend brought me some Hill's Feline I/D dry and canned. Skeletor LOVES it. Still too soon to see if his diarrhea will clear up, but he's at least eating it.

QUESTION to you guys...how do you transition a cat to a raw diet? My dogs were easy...they took to it immediately, and I've never had gastrointestinal issues with either of them. Can you teach an old cat to eat raw? Does anyone have any cat websites for the raw eater?

Basically...help? :)

We've started the Tweeb on Science Diet's kidney prescription diet. Note to self: will never complain about the price of exotic meats again. The sh*t (I'm not exaggerating, it really looks like sh*t) is expensive. I am adding fatty chicken bits to it, and today I'll boil a few eggs for the whites. All in all, the Tweeb is taking to her new diet pretty well, with at least the same enthusiasm (if not more) than she's shown for raw.

But I digress. We're keeping Shadow on the mostly-raw diet that I've had her on since forever. Shadow tends to be a little stinker, though, and doesn't always eat her food, and this goes double if I dare serve her canned food (though she may not eat her raw food as well).

Little did I know: Shadow loves the Tweeb's Science Diet. If I don't watch her, she'll chase the Tweeb away from her plate. The Tweeb, conversely, has shown a ne'er-before-seen interest in raw stuff.

I just...damn cats!

My dog can handle raw chicken or beef with no problem. Any pork....even super fresh, human grade pork.....causes her to get the most explosive diarrhea I have ever seen.

I've tried giving it to her twice, just to see if the first time was maybe due to another factor (freshness of the meat, upset tummy), and the second time was just as bad.

Can animals be intolerant to just one kind of meat? I've never heard of this, doesn't make too much sense when I try to think it through. My dog's body handles beef and chicken like a champ, just wants to expel pork the minute it's ingested.

Here's a video of Sparky polishing off hs turkey leg. Unfortunately my camera ran out of memory before he'd finished so I don't have the end of it.

I was slightly worried about whether or not he'd manage the bone (hence why I was sitting and watching him, the video was just a by-product) but he seemed to crunch it down alright!

Anyway, here you go!

Pardon if this has been asked before, but we are adopting a puppy in about a month and want to start her off right. What's the general opinion here of commercial raw dog food (Raw Advantage etc).
Will it be alright to transition her to Raw Advantage plus giving her some bones & cooked veggies etc now & again (we're vegetarians so we don't keep meat in the house for ourselves).
Thanks for helping me start this right!

The Tweeb's renal panel came back--no change from last time (BUN a little high, creatinine too). The vet is really really really pushing a kidney failure formula on us, and for once (although not without great reservations) I'm inclined to agree, even though the little grump is doing just fine. It's been the vet's experience that, at this stage (Stage I) her numbers can stay stable on the kidney formula, and maybe-just-maybe even improve.

The problem is apparently the protein profile of chicken (and most other meats). Complex amino acids such as tryptophan cannot be utilized as effectively as, say, alanine, and therefore generate a lot of waste. I'm a little fuzzy on the details of how tryptophan and the more complex amino acids are metabolized, but it's true that their usage is a lot more complicated than, say, alanine. How much of a role this has to play in her renal failure, OTOH, I'm not so sure of.

I'll give the Science Diet a shot, and by "a shot" I mean about 4 months, which is when we have to pack the little hellion into her carrier (she peed all over the couch last time) for another blood test. I don't intend on feeding straight SD: the kidney formulation is far too low in protein, far too little fat, and far too high carb to even think about feeding as a primary diet. We'll probably end up doing something like a 50:50-hodgepodge thing--half SD, with chicken mostly-fat and cooked egg whites.

Argh. I wonder how dieticians do this--and for humans....

Hi Everyone,
I'm new to this community. I will be getting a guide dog soon and trying to figure out what to feed. I live in a college dorm/apartment with little freezer space, but I was thinking of adding RMB's to the kibble? Any suggestions of other good kibble, dehydrated, or freeze-dried foods? I've fed raw instinct, inova, and wellness before. Is it bad to combine kibble with dehydrated or kibble with bones? Finally, does dehydrated or freeze-dried food travel well. I like to carry food with me in case we are gone allday and go away for weekends or vacation.

I've been hearing a lot about the "Gorge and Starve" style of feeding recently an was wondering if anyone here did that? I have a big turkey leg that I'd like to feed to Sparky but it's about twice the size of his normal daily food. So is it really as simple as I give it to him, let him gobble it up and then don't feed him the next day? It's not going to have any nasty side effects?

Thanks!

Abigail and Sparky

Just looking for some help; maybe you guys know what's going on.

I've been feeding Jack like normal -- Canidae in the morning, raw chicken in the evening - it's been this way for more than 3 weeks now. Previously to this week, however, I was giving Jack chicken thighs/drumsticks. I figured this was too much bone for him as he was constipated here and there, so I purchased whole chicken without the organs on Sunday. I quartered and froze them to feed each afternoon. Every Monday, like normal, he gets a fish-oil pill.

This Monday, however, he had runny poop. Not explode-in-the-house diarrhea, but any time we went out, his poop was very watery with only a few semi-solid pieces. I thought perhaps it was the fish oil pill - he didn't get any extra that I know of and my roommate swears she didn't give him anything extra. Tuesday and today his poop has been runny and I'm starting to get a bit worried - there was a miniscule amount of blood in.

For the moment, I'm not sure what to do. Should I continue with the chicken in the afternoon/Canidae in the morning? Or just give straight one or the other? I don't believe this is a problem with the Canidae/ingredient switch because this is kibble from the same 40lb bag he's had for the last 4 weeks...and it's fixing to run out. I purchased a bag of Instinct today because I want to switch to no-grain kibble.

Any help you guys can give me would be fantastic.


...Also, somewhat random but related, do any of you give your dog honey? I've heard mixed things from it's as beneficial for them as it is us and that it has the potential to 'relieve' watery poop.

When I first moved in with my boyfriend, I made it very clear that I would be feeding the cats raw. He looked at me the way he does when I mention doing anything out of the ordinary: OK, whatever makes you happy. But he's been compliant with my feeding directions--mostly because I get upset when he isn't. But there's a good reason for this: the Tweeb in in renal failure, and Shadow simply detests most other foods (oh, she'll eat her canned food if I dish it up, but only with the greatest disdain that makes it quite clear what she thinks of this sludge).

Anyhoo: today we were on our balcony, looking down at one of our neighbors' indoor/outdoor cat, a rotund calico. And Boy looked at it, and then looked at Shadow, in her sleek perfect beauty, and said, "That's it, we're feeding raw."

We've also been thinking of getting a third cat; Boy has decided that feeding raw is indeed the right way to go :-)

So I know a lot of people don't love Wal Mart (I didn't myself till I did some research on the subject) but I feel the need to point out that they have the best prices I have ever found of miscellaneous parts. I got a ton of cheek meat (beef) heart meat (also beef) and some pork roast and what not for a painfully cheap price. All told it was around a dollar a pound. Totally worth the looking.

Further, the heart came sliced, so no work for me to do. We did learn that my dog is not very fond of pork stomach Ahh well. I can't say I liked cutting it up anyway.

Just a heads up for anyone looking for cheap parts easy to find.

 I have looked around the memories a bit and looked at tags and I didn't really see much on small dog raw diets{although I did see the "vegan dog" post and it made me wonder what is wrong with people..} . I'm wondering what the small dog owners on here like to feed their dogs? My dog likes chicken wings {the cat I found seems to be taking well to the wing tips..} and went crazy for some lamb rib bones I got from work one time.  He likes any fish I give him. Rabbit seems to be his favorite though... I want to add more prey animal to his diet but I can't think of much other than feeder mice and chicks for that... what else would work for a smaller dog?
He's a 13lb sheltie shih tzu daschund mix with a head far larger than a dog his size should have and teeth twice the size of my Mom's 23lb Cavalier king charles spaniel.. Also anyone know anything that helps an over active anal gland? The switch to raw had helped a bit
but I'm wondering if there is anything I should add to his diet to help aid in the stink butt...
Also I don't think I have posted here before so Hi! here is some pictures of my disproportionate dog...

I finally got some photos of my dobie outside. She is now a year and a half old and she has been raw fed since she was three months old. So I figured it would be nice for people to see her grow. There are also a few shots of my GSD who is about to turn 9 and I don't think he looks like an older large breed dog at all.

( pictures pictures pictures )

My research into the raw diet has been going wonderfully so far. Today, I even managed to give Joonbug her first entirely raw meal. Because of what's available at the grocery store we buy our own meat at, this only consisted of ground meat that was left over from a meatloaf experiment (turkey and lamb), but at least it went over well. I'm still left with two questions though.

One is something that I've tried researching on my own with little success. After a recent vet visit, we were told that Joonbug was, at the very least, at high risk for pancreatitis. She was never diagnosed as actually having it that I remember, but we've been told to operate on the assumption that she might have a mild case and feed accordingly. When I did a search, lots of hits came up, but it seemed like they were either pro-raw pages that said your dog isn't really at risk for pancreatitis on a BARF diet or anti-raw pages. Neither of which help.

The question I have is - is there anything that I should remember to do or not to do when it comes to feeding a dog with this illness? I'm thinking that there wouldn't be anything specific, but this is one of the hurdles which I need to get past in order to convince my mom that feeding her dog raw would be best.

Question number two is something that relies more on your experience than anything. If anyone here lives in Monterey County, CA (specifically the area between Seaside and Pacific Grove), I need some advice. The Whole Foods Market in Monterey, while consistent on quality of meat (including organs), isn't so great when it comes to bones and prices. The bones I've been able to find are nothing but chunks of beef bone as big as Joonbug's head, meaning she won't touch it, and the prices aren't something I can work with on a constant basis at the moment. So any tips on where you get our meat and bones from would be greatly appreciated.

I've got another blog that I post science-y stuff to, and lately I've added two posts about cats with renal failure on raw diets.

You can read the two most recent posts here. Please let me know what you think!*

*Constructive criticism, please. "You suck" doesn't count, unless it's followed by a long explanation of why it sucks.

On Saturday, Patience and I start...AGILITY CLASSES!!!!!!!!!! Wooooo I am beyond excited :D She's an Australian Cattle Dog mix so I think she can really use the mental stimulation.

Err, sorry. My question is, the instructor said to bring some REALLY GOOD moist treats. She suggested hot dog or string cheese. I am not at all nuts about my dog having to have 100% raw, but I'm concerned about giving her such high-sodium treats, especially while she's getting a workout outside in the Florida summer heat. Normally she gets dehydrated chicken for training treats but I want to give her something really good. Does anyone have any suggestions in particular? If not I'll probably just bring some cooked chicken or raw tofu, maybe baked liver sprinkled with Parmesan.

Quick note of thanks to everyone that told me not to worry about my dog.

It's silly, because if it had been anyone but me posting, i'd have said the same, but it's always easier when it's not your own dog.

And now, to show gratitude ... pictures

[EDIT: behind a cut ... should have remembered that]

( Look! A dog! )

I'm brand new to the community, but we've been considering switching to raw for several months now. While I am finding lots of information, what would be most helpful to me is if a few of you could take the time to show me when your pup's weekly diet is like. By this, I mean type out what he/she eats on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, etc. I'm having a difficult time putting together a varied menu for our dog and would like to see the kinds of things you guys use every week.

In the event that it is relevant, Roni is a 9 year old 85 pound malamute/shepherd/possible wolf mix. He was part of an accidental litter to a couple of idiots who didn't want and couldn't care for their dogs. Most of them drowned in the creek by their house, two were adopted out, and Roni disappeared into the woods one afternoon. Many months later, we heard the hunters in the area complaining about a dog the size and shape of a wolf running all of the deer off. One of them eventually called the dog warden, complaining that the dog was killing 'their' deer and needed to be seized. We couldn't bear to see him put to sleep, so we caught him, had him licensed and he's been with us ever since. While he does have a tendency to go after anything that moves (especially deer and kitties), he's the most even tempered and loving pet we've had.

Anyway, he's not adverse to raw meat, and especially bones, in the slightest. In fact, when we started feeding him chicken quarters, he looked at me like I'd lost my mind and set it back down at my feet, afraid he was doing something wrong. When I gave it back to him, he tucked in and was happily crunching bones within seconds.

Thanks in advance for any help you can offer.

Here's a picture of the old boy.

is it a common thing for puppies to have greasy fur? i remember when our miniature poodle was a puppy his fur used to feel and look a bit greasy. it got better when he was older and now it's more dry.
our current puppy who is 6 months old gets greasy very easily. i usually give her a bath for it but i swear i would have to bathe her every week! (and i know you're not supposed to that often but ew). her head fur especially gets greasy as well as by her ears. it drives me nuts because it looks gross. i'm hoping it gets better when she's older.
i don't think it's anything in her diet that would do that. does anyone know if there is anything to make it better?

My dog brought up 2 patches of yellow bile (not frothy) this morning. Not sure what the deal is there.

I know that frothy usually means they need food, but does unfrothy mean the same thing? He ate well last night, but this morning he's not hungry. He's had a lot of bone lately (I'm going to cut back on it for a while) but nothing else has really changed.

Should I be concerned?

hi guys, i don't have a feeding question but more like i need some advice. i'm not sure if this is allowed, and if not, please delete it.

we rescue dogs/cats from kill shelters, we pulled 4 dogs and found 1 its furever home, 2 we are fostering, and the other was sent to a volunteer. so we took the dog back today because we are taking her to get spayed tomorrow. it was the easiest thing to do. but when i got her back, she didn't look like she had gotten any sort of bath from getting out of the shelter, her nails (which were long when i gave her to the volunteer, and i instructed her to cut them when she got home) were so long that they curled out to the sides, she had a tick on her that was SO full of blood that it just fell off (like the diameter of a dime!), several fleas, you catch my drift. it took me 3 baths to get all the fleas off of her, plus flea medication, we dewormed her and trimmed her nails. my question is this... would you return her to the foster home? they apparently have a few other dogs, and i am thinking that she just doesn't take very good care of her animals... i would NEVER let any of my babies run around like that, fostering them or not! so should i just keep her here until she finds a home? i know the lady had the best of intentions but i really don't think she needs to go back there!

What can I feed my cat that has a fair amount of calcium in it, but also works for dental health? I think I've read here that some people use turkey necks or oxtail. Right now, he gets about 1-2 oz of bone-in chicken (it's very rare that he doesn't eat the bone completely) along with kidney, heart/gizzard, and liver.

His teeth look fine to me, but I don't really see him gnawing on any bones (even though I'm sure he does, because there's no way he'd be able to swallow them without choking).

I want to switch my dog, Patience, to have one prey-model meal a day. Right now my other dog, Dharma, gets one boneless meal (in which I include veggie slop, powdered supplements, organs, etc), and gets one meal of RMBs. At the moment Patience gets two boneless meals + calcium supplements (I grind her meats) but I want to switch so that she has the same routine as Dharma. Patience is getting tartar on her back teeth, plus I hate deboning chicken. I was wondering if anyone had tips for making the switch. She will eat RMBs but not as voraciously as her "slop". Like, if I make her a bowl of her ground meats and supplements and stuff she'll run up to her bowl and lap everything up right away, but with bones she doesn't necessarily want to eat it up right away. Today I gave her a chicken leg quarter, she just sat near it for a good while, then finally when I picked it up and held it for her she (slowly) ate all of the bone out of it (but wouldn't touch the remaining boneless meat, wtf).

What do y'all think? Should I give her nothing but RMBs until she gets the hang of it? Should I take her RMB if she doesn't touch it after X amount of time, or should I let her take her time? Any other tips?

Also, unrelated to this, I had the following conversation with my husband:

Husband: Have you noticed that there's like...a LOT less poop in the yard?
Me: You mean, since we started feeding raw? Uh, yeah.
Husband: I mean a LOT less poop.
Me: Right, I know. It's because they can actually digest and USE a lot more components from real food.
Husband: Yeah, and like...what poop there IS just turns to powder and disappears!

Haha, guess he's sold!

i need shopping help.

i have a cat that i've been feeding raw for awhile now (he had crazy struvite crystals in his urine and the vet wanted me to put him on hill's c/d and i said no thanks and switched him to grain-free wet foods, raw with some canned when i forget to thaw food). he was on premade nature's variety for awhile, but a) it's spendy and b) i'd prefer more control. so i got him heart, some livers, and some pretty meaty chicken backs. he'll eat the rib parts, but that's the most bone he's willing to even attempt. i need other ideas of soft, light bones that i can get for him. at this point, i think he's eating too much muscle meat and not enough bone. i've thought about supplementing instead with bone meal, but i'd really like to get him chewing, and since he's willing with certain things, i figure that's half the battle.

thanks.

While I don't feed my dog a totally a raw diet I read a lot of GREAT things about giving RMBs for dental health.

I bought some pork ribs, which seem to have a decent bone to meat ratio, I'm wondering if these would be appropriate to feed once or twice a week to promote cleaner teeth.

Hello! Ive been feeding raw for a while, but as I've only transitioned adults, this is my first puppy! I recently adopted a skinny puppy and we're trying to switch her from puppy chow to raw. As she is already (just a tiny tad bit) underweight, we are trying to get a good bit of food into her. She, apparently, is going to be my only non food motivated dog, however. She  appears to be very picky. She'll eat only when she's really hungry, and gets sick of things quickly. She ate some chicken at first, then started refusing, then some pork, and refused, then beef and is now refusing. Trying to get some food into her we tried some EVO kibble which she picked at, and then just some puppy chow which she picked at. She's had a little bit of loose stool and vomited once last night but I assume thats because of all the diet changes as she seems healthy, is playing a lot, drinking fine, ect.

My questions are 1) is it okay to do the 'tough love' strategy with a thin puppy? 2) If no, any suggestions?

She went to the vet at 7 weeks and got her shots, and they ran a fecal that was negative for worms, though she is due to go back for a follow up in one more week.

 

 

Hey y'all - I'm new here but I've been reading through a lot of posts recently. It's all so interesting..!

I noticed that there's one user on here who has cats, and feeds them raw food. I have a 10 years old cat; I'm really worried about his health right now even though the vet gave him a check. Just to put it down here: I adopted him 9 years ago from the local shelter, he's been fighting off some infections for the first few years of his life, but he made it through. Recently, I noticed that he's slowly refusing to eat wet food (Fancy Feast, that's the only brand he'll really eat..!), and starting to not eat his kibble (Iams for adult cats). I gave him some raw chicken the other day and he just devoured it.
That got me thinking. I want him to live as long as possible, be healthy and happy. I want to slowly switch out his eating habits to fully raw food. He has some problems - if he eats something too quick, he'll throw it back up. I was thinking of smaller portions or a portion where he really can take his time to chew through it. I have plently of frozen meat in the freezer (what can I say, I buy in bulk..!), and chicken chilling in the fridge, ready to be cooked for tonight's supper.
I'm here to ask you all - what's the best way I could do this? I want to take this slow, see if he'll adapt to raw food. Small portions, large ones, times throughout the day, and which would be the best for him - frozen or thawed. 
If this makes a difference - he's also slowly losing weight. He used to be 15 pounds, but now he's at around 10-11 pounds. It's scary feeling his spine when I pet him and it's really easy to feel his ribs.

Thanks! :)

( Obligary pic spam. )

chicken and/or beef (including organs): safe to thaw and then re-freeze? i had to buy beef liver and chicken gizzards and wings frozen.

thanks!

I just joined this community a short while ago after being pointed here when I mentioned how much trouble I'm having with getting my mom's dog to eat properly. She'll eat, but not what you could consider to be 'proper' food. Cat kibble, more wet food than is probably healthy, etc. So far, what I've found in this community has been extremely helpful in my decision to switch little Joonbug to a raw diet.

However, I do have a question about something I saw at Whole Foods Market recently. I'm not sure about the brand, but on the same aisle as the rest of the pet products, there was a small-ish refrigerated case containing what looked like tubes of ground meat. I didn't take a close look at it myself, but my mom did and she says that it is a kind of commercially available 'raw diet' for dogs. Has anyone here seen this product before and, if so, have you had any experience with it?

I'm wondering if it might be good for at least part of Joonbug's diet.

I went to the local butcher shop after work to pick up some bones, and the butcher now knows who I am. I was like, "Heeey.....got any bones I can have?" :) He asked if goat was okay, and I said, "Yea...it's for my dogs, so any bones are great!" He's like, "Yea...I know it's for your dogs! Tell them George sent the bones, and to enjoy!" He has a super thick accent, and kept saying, "You have happy, happy dog!" hahahaha!! AND he cut up the legs and ribs for me, so I don't have huuuuuge pieces!

The 2 hooligans just finished devouring their 6" pieces of goat spine, and are contently napping.

I love getting free raw meaty bones from George! :D

Hello all,

I have a friend who has a 2 year old female schnauzer, and she wants to start feeding the dog a raw diet. I pointed her towards the links in the userinfo, but does anyone have any good book recommendations for a beginner?

Thank you!

I have heard a lot of advice against vaccinations. You know, people almost if not completely suggesting that raw is all you need. I have seen the benefits of raw first hand, but genetics and your pet's individual response to antigenic exposure is probably more sound.

We recently did vaccinations for boarding requirements, we did the bare minimum. I couldnt find a pet sitter that I could trust. Foxy is so young (he is 1 TODAY!), still has some moments of selective hearing and escape artist shenanigans.

So, back to these people...I'm not even talking about annual vaccinations or 3 year, I'm telling you that there are people out there who don't vaccinate their puppies and dogs ever. Makes me think I am in the wrong. A holistic pet store owner frowned at me when I told her my pets were vaccinated, then she tried to sell me some immune boost thing to remove heavy metals. Typical. I didn't want to vaccinate again so soon, I wanted to do more research, but I also didn't want to expose my pets to other animals without some kind of protection. I caved in. I feel bad, but who the hell has answers about this?