[weimlove]

Hi, I have been researching the raw diet and I have decided to switch my two year old Weim over to raw. I plan on feeding him a freeze dried pre mix from either the honest kitchen or grandma Lucy’s, and then adding my own meat. I know you gave to rotate proteins, but what amount of organ and bone do you need to include? I am brand new to this so any tips would be much appreciated!

[Toxed2loss]

Hi Kevin,
Nylabone and greenies have both caused serious health problems.. I can’t remember the details. But, you can look them up on a search engine, and I believe Dr. Becker (DVM) on mercola.healthypets.com has some articles about it. The healthiest thing to give your dog to clean their teeth is raw meaty bones and a species appropriate diet. No grains. Dogs have no dietary need for grain. In fact, their canine cousins in the wild consume only about 5-6% vegetable matter (not grains, but including small amounts of fruit). Feeding grains leads to weight gain, dental carries and plaque, as well as many other adverse health conditions. Crunching up RAW bones, scrapes them clean. Feeding a meat protein based, balanced diet is the best thing you can do to maintain their good health. If you check out the prescription diets, you’ll see they contain mostly plant based proteins. Which don’t contain complete, biologically appropriate proteins for carnivores.

A raw chicken or turkey neck, or chicken wing is a good, inexpensive “tooth brush” for your mid sized dog. You can get them cheap, by buying past date ones at the meat counter. Buy in bulk, repackage & freeze in individual portions.

For more info on raw feeding check out Dr. Becker’s articles on that too. Hope that helps. 🙂

[theBCnut]

First and foremost, what are you feeding her? My first thought is to try and get her on a high meat protein diet, with moderate fat and low carbs, no grain or white potato. Add digestive enzymes too, so her body has to do as little work as possible to get as much as possible out of her food. I’d like to suggest that you go to Brotherscomplete.com and read their Brothers Document and their FAQs. A lot of allergy and digestive issues in dogs are because we don’t feed them a species appropriate diet and Brothers was designed to address that issue. In my opinion, the only thing you can do better is to start feeding balanced raw.

[momofmutts]

one of my dogs has anal gland issues as well. She’s been on a raw food diet for 6 years. I haven’t found that it has made any difference, or helped express them. It isn’t difficult to do it yourself, if you are shown how. Angel is quite good about having it done. I just hold a paper towel over her bum when i drain them and it really isn’t very messy.

[Jackie B]

Some dog breeds just have trouble with anal glands. Raw food (including the commercial raw diet) results in some of the firmest poop. Firm poop naturally expresses the dog’s anal glands when the dog defecates. Raw is worth a try!

[Jackie B]

I met a family with their Boxer, a female which looked excessively itchy and miserable with raw, red skin in many places. I asked tactfully why she was like that, and they told me that the vet had been treating her for “mange.” For the last 12 MONTHS. They were taking her in every 3 weeks for an expensive skin treatment. I asked what food they were using– Pedigree. Apparently, their vet had not even mentioned the possibility of the skin problems being related to food allergies or that she might have poor health due to poor food. I of course gave them the DFA website and strongly suggested that they check out the review of Pedigree.

There are plenty of people who listen to vets exclusively and don’t go beyond and do their own investigation.

[Jackie B]

I switch through foods a lot because Prince gets bored of foods very fast. On his rotation are homemade recipes from Feed Your Best Friend Better, Stella & Chewy’s frozen raw, Sojo’s Grain-free (with raw beef), Artemix Fresh Mix Beef, Party Animal Venison, and some Merrick grain-free foods.

I do feed the Solid Gold Seameal. Recently I purchased some Missing Link supplement as well, so I might start doing both of those. They have different stuff in them.

[Shawna]

I had to do a food trial too.. I’m a raw feeder and feed a LOT of variety so a food trial was a must. I eliminated EVERYTHING she had been exposed to in the past and started feeding her raw ostrich as the protein and a novel starch and gave her freeze dried goat for treats.. She ate this and only this for 6 months. At the end of the 6 months her sysmptoms were a thing of the past. I then introduced a new food about every 4 days to make sure there wasn’t a delayed reaction. Turns out she is allergic to beef bone (which I have to watch in whole food supplements as well as her raw diet), goat dairy, cow tripe and barley. I believe the lectin proteins in the barley damaged her gut allowing the proteins from the other foods to get into her bloodstream causing the allergic reaction. Oddly, she has no issue with what we think to be “protein” — chicken, beef, lamb, duck, turkey etc.

With Audrey we were sure it was a food allergy because she had symptoms year round and because her eosinophil white blood cell count was high on her blood work (eosinophils can be high with food allergies and parasitic infections). From my understanding, eosinophils are not high in food intolerances however and food intolerances (like Audrey’s to barley) can have the same symptoms as true allergies.

[theBCnut]

Micah was showing signs of leaky gut as an 8-9 week old puppy with IBS and some other issues. I started switching his food immediately to improve his nutrition, but unfortunately, I didn’t really put 2 and 2 and 2 together until he started showing signs of systemic yeast. I got him switched over to Brothers Allergy Formula and raw(Darwin’s and homemade) about as fast as I thought I dared. And at just shy of 3 months on the new diet he is doing much better. He was having hot, red, itchy skin, seborrhea, inflamed intestines, mucousy diarrhea, red irritated eyes with discharge, as well as some other stuff. Really the only thing I wasn’t seeing was that he didn’t yet have the yeasty ears or skin sores. Fast forward 3 months, he has had brief periods of all those same symptoms, but they quickly resolve, he has had his ears wax up a couple times, and now he has a single skin sore.

I think it would be helpful to all of us that have a dog with this kind of issue, if we have a place to find out what is a normal detox versus it might be something else. So please share your detox story including what helps make it easier.

[fishdog]

I have an 11 year old Alaska Husky, former sled dog, that bwas diagnosed with diabetes last winter. After a lot of experimenting with diet and insulin we finally achieved a workable balance with raw food. All went well untill recently (3 weeks ago) when his blood sugar levels became consistently elevated. We have tried varieties of new foods and insulin amounts with nothing more than temporary results.
This dog has had a very active life as a working sled dog, skijorer, and running companion and was on a low fat die prior to the diabetes due to a severe bout with pancreatitus. Currently he is able to do little more that eat, drink, and sleep and appears to be in distress most of the time. Suggestions?

[Ramona72]

You know the heads of those huge companies only have six homes, four yachts, two jets, right? Poor things. They’ve got to get those homepathic pellets off the market so they can get more stuff!

[Hound Dog Mom]

They’ve got to go after anything that has the potential to steal market share from the big name pet food companies or the top pharmaceutical companies. Sigh…

[theBCnut]

Their high horse is getting really tall. They must feel really threatened that they need to bother going after all these little fish. How stupid that this is what they waste their time on!

[Shawna]

“A resolution discouraging homeopathy is on the agenda for the Jan. 5 regular winter session of the AVMA House of Delegates.” https://www.avma.org/News/JAVMANews/Pages/121215c.aspx

Dogs Naturally Magazine has more on the issue as well as a petition against the resolution. http://www.bing.com/search?q=dogs+naturally+magazine+AVMA+homeopathy+&qs=n&form=QBRE&pq=dogs+naturally+magazine+avma+homeopathy+&sc=1-16&sp=-1&sk=

[Shawna]

Hi Jackie B ~~ I have 8 dogs and I supplement all their diets with a concocution I make myself (5 of mine are eat raw with canned topper and 3 eat kibble with raw and canned topper). Sometimes I make my supplement completely from scratch but often I make it with a base of Solid Gold Seameal. None of mine have issues with muzzle staining from it.

Sardines, the spice turmeric and the enzyme bromelain are other foods that have valuable anti-inflammatory properties (bromelain is in the pineapple in Seameal). They make a arthritis supplement for humans that is nothing but turmeric and bromelain. Research has found both to be very effective anti-inflammatories.

My Pom Peanut has luxating petellas in both back legs. Out of a rating of 4 (being the worst) Peanut had one knee that was graded a 2 and the other was a 4 (always out). My holistic vet performed a procedure called prolotherapy on her both knees improved. The one graded 2 is no longer luxating at all and the one rated 4 has been downgraded to a 1/2. She know longer limps or acts at all as if it is bothering her. In prolotherapy they inject a saline based solution into the knee area. This causes inflammation which then causes the body to “heal” the area. Inflammation can be both good and bad. Along with the prolotherapy I was giving Peanut a raw diet and a whole food supplement designed to strengthen ligaments and tendons (allowing less give for the knee to pop) called Standard Process Ligaplex II.

I had her knees done a little over three years ago and, from memory, the cost was just under or just over $300 for both knees ($280 comes to mind).

Best of health to your little one!!! He’s sure a cutie!!!!!!
PS — prolotherapy is used in human knee injuries and also in race horse knee injuries.

[Jackie B]

My rescued poodle had chronic urinary tract infections for the first 9 months after we got him. These are not as common in male dogs, but he had been a stray, so who knows what bacteria he’d picked up. According to the vet, UTI’s are very painful. They also caused my poodle to have to pee very frequently and sometimes in the house. The vet will give you a round of antibiotics to treat the initial infection.

One way to keep UTI’s from coming back that worked for my poodle was increased moisture intake. I only feed him moist food (no kibble! I feed a rotation of commercial raw foods, pre-mixes with raw meat, canned food, and some homemade balanced recipes) and purchased a circulating pet water fountain for him (you can get them online). He hasn’t had another UTI in a whole year.

Things the vet recommended were adding salt to his food so he would drink more and buying some nasty prescription dog food. But you don’t need to do that stuff. Just increase moisture. Even if your dog doesn’t suffer from UTI’s, it can’t hurt to put them on a diet that is fresher and with more water. Domestic animals (cats especially but dogs too) tend to dehydrate when on a kibble-only diet.

[Jackie B]

My dog loves the Sojo’s pre-mix. I added raw ground beef roast from the grocery and froze it into portions. Pretty easy! I also have a homemade dog food recipe book, Feed Your Best Friend Better. It has a lot of easy recipes that are nutritionally balanced. I looked online before I bought the book, and there are a lot of AWFUL unhealthy recipes out there. But the ones in the book are pretty good.

[Hound Dog Mom]

Hi Devilbrad –

Check out the topic “Post Your Recipes” under the homemade dog food section or the “Menu” topic in the raw section. Dogaware.com is a great resource for homemade diets as well, there’s tons of information there.

[pugmomsandy]

The amount of fiber can affect the consistency of the stool and may or may not help with the feeling of fullness. (Pugs are never full!) As for freeze dried, you still should find a low carb food just like you would kibble and still watch their calories. My dogs seem to like any kind of freeze dried. Same with dehydrated – low carb. This takes more time as you have to add water and wait. Canned foods generally speaking have more meat than kibble and can be lower in carbs than kibble. My newest foster that’s on a diet is getting only canned food or raw food. He’s lost 5 lbs in 1 month.

[Hound Dog Mom]

clm86 –

Considering your dog’s issues I think Abady granular would be worth looking into. It would be a great food for putting weight on a dog – it’s high fat with around 800 calories per cup (about twice as many calories per cup as kibble). I’ve also heard dogs with sensitive stomachs do well on it.

Wet food is definitely a good addition to dry food, but it wouldn’t help much as far as adding calories. Due to its high moisture content wet food is generally much less calorie-dense than dry food.

I had issues getting my female bloodhound (now two years old) to gain weight and it wasn’t until I switched her to a high protein, high fat, low carbohydrate homemade raw diet that I got her to gain anything (she’s still skinny but looks a lot better than before she was on raw). She eats 2 lbs. of meat per day with extras – such as eggs, cottage cheese and kefir – plus supplements and veggies and I was able to get her to put on 5 (much needed!) pounds after three months on raw and now she’s maintaining nicely. I aim for her meals to be 40-50% protein and 30-40% fat. So if you’ve got the time and money a high fat homemade diet would probably be the best option. The other benefit of homemade is you can tailor it to the needs of your sensitive dog since you control all the ingredients that go into it.

[Hound Dog Mom]

Hi Blue Corgi –

No, the ingredients aren’t just made up. Knowing how to balance a homemade diet is VERY important. Feeding an unbalanced diet can result in some serious health issues if the unbalanced diet is fed long term. It’s wonderful that you’re interested in feeding your dogs a homemade diet – I STRONGLY feel that when done correctly a homemade diet is the healthiest thing for a dog.

Ingredients you use will differ slightly based on whether you’re planning on feeding raw or cooked. But with either diet the most important thing is getting the correct calcium to phosphorus ratio. The ratio of calcium to phosphorus needs to be between 1:1 and 2:1. To achieve this when feeding a raw diet with bone you will want to feed 80% boneless muscle meat, 10% organ meat and 10% bone and for cooked diets or raw diets without bone you want to feed 90% boneless muscle meat, 10% organ meat and add 800-1,000 mg. calcium per pound of meat and organ fed. Green tripe is a rare exception to this rule as green tripe naturally has a 1:1 calcium to phosphorus ratio. You should feed an even mixture of red meat and poultry – don’t feed predominately one or the other as they have different types of fats. I give my dogs red meat in the a.m. and poultry in the p.m. As far as being “exact every time” – you don’t have to be exact every time but you do need to be exact over time. This means, if you decide you want to feed a meal that’s 20% organ meat at breakfast you can just feed a meal without organ meat at dinner – this would still balance out to your dog getting 10% organ meat in its diet. Balance over time.

You should feed around 80% meat – the other 20% can be vegetables, fruits, extras and supplements. All veggies should be cooked and pureed as dogs don’t produce the enzyme cellulase to breakdown the cellulose in raw veggies – cooking and pureeing in a sense “pre-digests” the veggies so the dog can derive some nutrients from them. Extras are optional and would include things like eggs, cottage cheese, yogurt, kefir, etc.

For supplements I would recommend adding a form of animal-based omega 3’s (fish body oil or an oily fish such as sardines), vitamin e and super-foods (kelp, alfalfa, spirulina, etc.). I also give my dogs Carlson cod liver oil every other day for some extra vitamin d (cod liver oil should be limited though as it’s very high in vitamin a, I feed Carlson because it has the lowest vitamin a levels). You can add a multi-vitamin if you wish but if you’re feeding a wide variety of foods and adding the supplements I mentioned I don’t think it would be necessary. If you’re feeding a cooked diet you may want to consider supplementing with enzymes. If you don’t feed kefir, yogurt and/or green tripe on a regular basis you may also want to consider a probiotic supplement a few days of the week.

Lastly – keep this in mind because it’s critical when feeding a homemade diet – variety! Feed many different protein sources, many different types of organs, different fruits, veggies and extras and rotate different supplements into the mix every once in awhile. This will help to ensure that over time your dogs get all the nutrients they need.

Another option to make things easier – if you don’t feel comfortable making food from scratch yet – would be to use a premix. With a premix you generally just add meat and water – the mix contains all the fruits, veggies and supplements your dog needs. Some good premixes are The Honest Kitchen’s Preference, Sojo’s, Urban Wolf, Birkdale Petmix and Dr. Harvey’s.

I would recommend checking out dogaware.com – there’s a lot of good information on homemade diets there. I would also recommend reading Steve Brown’s book “Unlocking the Canine Ancestral Diet.” If you check out the “menu” topic on the raw thread I’ve posted my dogs’ menu so you can get an idea of what a balanced diet should look like.

I hope that helps. Feel free to post any questions! Quite a few of us here feed homemade food and can help you out. 🙂

[Shawna]

Raw is the best diet possible as long as it supplies all the nutrients necessary for optimal health.. Can be disasterous if deficient in even one nutrient. One can follow recipes, buy commercial or add premixes to ensure the diet is adequate if concerned.

Precautions can be taken to address bacterial contamination. However many of us don’t think some bacterial contamination is a threat to a healthy dog or a dog with a strong immune system (like my 6 1/2 year old dog born with kidney disease). For those concerned though 1. probiotics can be fed regularly 2. meats can be purchased whole (like a roast) and cubed instead of fed ground 3. Apple cider vinegar, lemon juice, garlic etc can be added to the diet to kill bad bacteria if any is on the meat.

HDM, I agree with Alexandra :)… I just want to scoop Mabel up and give her squishy hugs til she makes me stop…….

[InkedMarie]

The Whole Dog Journal did a series on home made diets for dogs, I think they had raw in there too but am not positive.

[sophia]

My dog had a very mild pancreatitis reaction about two months ago. She just had some gas and loose stool, but tests showed elevated pancreas enzymes. Since I have been so careful with her diet, she is on low fat food, she gets boiled chicken or carrots as little treats, and that’s about it. However, the other day someone gave her a rawhide. She loved it and chewed on it for hours, but after I researched how this might affect her I had to take it away (apparently raw hides are no good for any dog, much less one with her history). What I am wondering is if there are any bones safe for dogs with her history? She’s an older girl, so something a little softer (like the softness of a rawhide) would be great. Thanks!

[pugmomsandy]

Using one of the premixes might be a good place to start while doing further research and gathering recipes.

http://www.dogaware.com/diet/homemade.html

http://www.dogaware.com/diet/dogfoodmixes.html

http://healthypets.mercola.com/sites/healthypets/real-food-for-healthy-dogs-and-cats-cookbook.aspx this book has cooked and raw recipes. This is the one I use. Even if you don’t end up making homemade, the info in the book is great and covers food, supplements, and fats, and nutrition. I thought homemade was difficult until I did it. Alot of meat, some veggie/fruit, done. And some supplements.

[Hound Dog Mom]

Hi chynamae!

Are you interesting in homemade raw or homemade cooked?

I feed my three bloodhounds a homemade raw diet. It’s really pretty simple once you get the hang of it.

You want 80% muscle meat, 10% organ meat (5% liver, 5% other organs) and 10% bone – if you don’t want to include bone in the diet or are making a cooked diet you would use 90% muscle meat and 10% organ meat + 800-1,000 mg calcium per 1 lb. meat. You’ll want to keep the meat portion around 80% of the diet the other 20% will be vegetables (cooked and pureed) and supplements. Fruits and extras (i.e. cottage cheese, eggs, kefir, etc.) can be added if you want, but I’d keep it to under 10% of the meal.

For supplements you’ll need to add some trace nutrients. You can get a multi-vitamin/mineral supplement, but I think whole foods are preferable. I mix my own supplement for my dogs with equal parts, I rotate ingredients but the mix I’m currently using is: kelp, alfalfa, spirulina, chlorella, wheat grass, barley grass, bee pollen and garlic powder. You’ll need to add vitamin e as vitamin e is hard to supply in adequate quantities through food alone – for a small dog I’d recommend 50-100 i.u. every day or every other day, medium dogs 100-200 i.u. every day or every other day and 300-400 i.u. every day or every other day for large dogs. I’d also recommend adding a high quality animal-based omega 3 supplement – fish body oil or an oily fish such as sardines.

To keep it even simpler there are pre-mixes available in which all you need to add is meat – THK’s preference, Sojo’s, Birkdale, Urban Wolf, Dr. Harvey’s, etc. Or you can purchase meat/organ/bone grinds (primal, bravo, hare today, my pet carnivore) in which all you need to add are supplements.

Be sure to feed an even mixture of red meat and poultry and feed as much variety as possible. My dogs get a ground red meat meal in the a.m. to which I add their supplements and poultry rmb’s in the evening.

A sample daily menu for my three would be:

a.m. -1 lb. Red Meat Grind (80% muscle meat, 10% organ meat, 10% Bone)
-1/2 c. Cooked & Pureed Veggies
-1/4 C. Kefir
-400 i.u. Vitamin E
-1/2 tbs. Sardine/Anchovy oil blend
-1/2 tbs. supplement

p.m. -Chicken Back (approx. 8 oz.)
-Chicken Foot (approx. 2 oz.)
-2 oz. Chicken Gizzards
-2 oz. Chicken Hearts
-2 oz. Chicken Livers
-Whole Egg

*When feeding RMBs you want to add about 8-12 oz. boneless meat for each pound of RMB.

Hope that helps! 🙂

[Alexandra]

I think it is the best way to feed out pets. No filler and everything they need for a species appropriate diet.

[Mike Sagman]

In August 2012, the American Veterinary Medical Association passed a resolution recommending against the feeding of raw and uncooked food to cats and dogs. Some believe that “going raw” is the ideal way to feed a pet. Yet others worry the feeding method is medically unsafe for pets and their human families. How do YOU feel about raw diets for cats and dogs?