[Naturella]

@Oleanderz, I will answer a couple of the questions you had to Dori, if both of you don’t mind – dogs can eat plain yoghurt, plain Greek yoghurt, and plain kefir. None of the fruity stuff – just too much sugar and other additives. Pumpkin doesn’t necessarily help with digestion per se, but it provides a lot of fiber, which helps calm the tummy, balance the stool and the bowel movements, and is overall a pretty good tummy additive when switching foods if problems occur. We tend to use canned plain pumpkin from the grocery store as it is already conveniently cooked and pureed in a can, but if you want to go through the trouble of peeling pumpkin, boiling/baking it, and pureeing/mushing it up, you also can. At the grocery store make sure you get plain (100%) pumpkin (and not pumpkin pie filling) cans.

Ok, now to my questions, lol:
When my roommate’s dog had her spaying surgery, he also lived in an apartment and his dog (Casey) was already pretty big, but for the day of the surgery he carried her up and down 3 floors for her to go potty. He didn’t want her stretching and pulling stitches and what not. I don’t know how feasible that will be with Lucille… Or if it’s even necessary, that’s just what he did. You may want to talk to the vet about that and see if she can stay overnight at least for the first day so that she doesn’t have to go up and down steps so much. We also carried Bruno on his surgery day, but he was small (still is), and by the next day he just ran out the door, perky and happy like he didn’t just lose his balls, lol. But talk to the vet about that, or maybe some of the pros will be able to answer. When she is healed, you can exercise her as normal, but not while healing.

Hm, I will look at chewy.com for small Dr. Tim’s – I have fed Kinesis GF, but I really wanted to try Momentum, Pursuit, and RPM… Haven’t seen them in small bags though.

Lucille is a German Shepherd, right? I would probably rotate her every large (not medium) bag for now, just to let her tummy get used to switching slowly, i.e. – you do the rotation, then she has a good amount of time to get used to the new food, then you rotate again, time of “rest” from the switch. If in a few bags all rotations go well, just rotate as you prefer – you can start rotating every medium bag, or just keep it at every large bag. It really is up to you how often you want to rotate, and how she’s taking it. I like to switch up every month or so, and luckily, a small bag lasts us just the right amount of time for that. I have, however, used larger bags even for Bruno (yes, that’s him in the picture, my cutie patootie) – 15 lb Dr. Tim’s Kinesis GF and 3 14-lb bags of Earthborn Holistic GF (Coastal Catch, Great Plains Feast, Primitive Natural), but after Coastal Catch, which lasted like 3 months, I decided to half them and put a different food in between them, as you can see from Bruno’s menu list, lol. Your rotation plan sounds good, I would also switch up the protein with every bag, for example:

EB CC – Dr. Tim’s Momentum – Nulo FS Lamb – Victor High Pro GF –
EB PN – Dr. Tim’s RPM GF – Nulo FS Turkey – Victor Yukon Salmon GF –
EB GPF – Dr. Tim’s Pursuit – Nulo FS Trim Cod – Victor Joint Health –
EB MF – Dr. Tim’s Kinesis GF – Nulo FS Salmon – Victor Ultra Pro – repeat!

*** EDIT *** – Don’t forget that Dr. Tim’s formulas Momentum and Pursuit are not GF! Everything else is. So you can switch between RPM and Kinesis GF to keep it all GF. Does Lucille have a grain allergy, or do you just like the idea of a food being GF? I used to think GF was better until I learned that dogs/wolves in the wild do consume a bit of the stomach content of the prey they kill, which is, often times, grains, fruits, vegetables, and greens, hence those foods contain those ingredients as well. But it is the meat content that matters most, so I still think that Dr. Tim’s grain-inclusive foods are a really good choice. The grain-inclusive Kinesis is the the only one rated 4 stars, all the rest are 5 stars. But you can use the GF Kinesis instead of the GI one. 🙂

This schedule provides diverse recipes and protein sources and if you choose to use bags that last Lucille about a month each, she will be set for about 16 months before a single recipe is repeated! Or 12 months, if you don’t use Victor. Feel free to use the above “meal plan” if you want, I hope it helps in giving you an idea of meal rotation and protein diversification. Or, you can switch the list up, or not use it at all, whatever works for your dog. 🙂

As for my lists, lol, thank you! Feel free to use them as templates anytime, lol, they are NOT proprietary information, lol! I made them for hubby’s ease in feeding Bru when/if I’m gone. And it did take me about an hour to look at all my foods, their expiration dates, and sort them out by dates and also by protein variety, which warranted the freezing of some foods and refrigeration of others… I did scrap some papers in the process, lol, but eventually made it work! So yeah. The toppers were easier to figure out as I only put a bit of each, and they are things I normally have around the house, except for the THK stuff – I mean, I do have it in the house, but it’s not like people-food. Eggs, yoghurt, coconut oil, sardines, and RMBs are though, so yeah.

• This reply was modified 10 years, 9 months ago by Naturella.