[neezerfan]

Are you talking about eye staining? My Havanese had eye staining as a youngster. I switched him to canned food and used Angels Eyes. It worked very well. Since then I’ve tried kibble on 2 separate occasions, good quality, Orijen and Farmina, and both times the eye staining came back. So, Angels Eyes to get rid of it and good quality canned or raw to keep it away.

[Lord F]

Vital Essentials is my favorite! They’re the company that I found that uses 100% raw meat and organs, which is something I love. Dogs are made to eat meat and the enzymes in their bodies are made to break down and absorb the nutrients from meat, not plants! I now do homemade raw but Vital is definitely my go-to brand if I need a quick meal for my pups. I always push their products at the pet store I work at and have heard good things from other people that tried it! They’re a very small company as well and that’s another thing I love about them. The only thing is, it’s definitely the most raw like of all the patties I’ve tried! Once thawed it looks exactly like what it is; ground organs and muscle meat, and blood! But my dogs absolutely love it. Good Luck!

[Bobby dog]

You are right, their food is cooked; the raw recipes are fairly new. Their Vital line has the cooked and raw recipes now.

[InkedMarie]

Oops, I didn’t know that Fresh Pet was raw. Sorry!

[InkedMarie]

I soak got however long it takes to get my raw fed dogs food ready & add supplements. If you are on FB, message Farmina there, you’ll get a faster response.

C4C, the calories/feeding amounts are on the bag, I can’t find them on the site but I feed less.

[Kristin C]

I think it depends on what else you feed. If you only feed kibble then it might be a good idea to add water for the hydration. If you feed dehydrated you are (usually) already adding water. And if you feed raw there’s naturally moisture in the meat. Freeze dried can be fed dry or with water I guess but I always add water. I feed mostly raw so when I’m at home I don’t add water to the few kibble meals per week. Right now we are on vacation so I added water to the kibble meals we fed at the hotels.

[Bobby dog]

Fresh Pet makes a raw, “Vital Raw,” which is grain free. Not sure if that is what Karen J is referring to or not.

http://freshpet.com/our-foods/our-brands/vital/raw/

[Celine W]

Hello, I am the owner of two Bernese Mountain dogs (3 years and 11 month). I RAW fed them exclusively. As money is tight right now I might have to switch to half RAW and half dry food. As much as I don’t like the idea, I try to figure out what might be the best choice of dry food out there for a large Breed dog (one is 95 lbs. and the puppy is 11 month old). I really want to buy a high quality dry food (4 to 5 stars). I am still confused that there are so many opinions about the low protein and big dogs. Can anybody give me some recommendations – I am overwhelmed. THANK YOU…

[InkedMarie]

THK is NOT raw so you’re good to feed it!

[InkedMarie]

Karen,
Fresh Pet is cooked then cooled food, I believe, not raw. Vital Essentials is raw.

[Dori]

No, not the same. Vital Essentials Raw is a different company. Commercial made raw foods that I keep in rotation are Primal Formulas (that is their complete and balanced line, they also make a freeze dried formula), Vital Essentials Raw (they also make a freeze dried formula), Answers Detailed Raw (not always easy to find), Nature’s Variety Instinct Raw Food only (not their kibble with raw boost), some people like Stella & Chewy’s Raw but I don’t like it at all anymore, I used to feed Darwin’s but they’ve added more fat to the formula and lowered the protein and raised the price so I stopped using them, I have recently added to our rotation O C Raw. My three dogs are doing well on it and seem to like it. You’ll find that initially raw will seem much more expensive to you than any kibble BUT it is well worth it. You feed less commercial raw than you would kibble and my dogs spend very little time at the vet which is a huge savings. Oh, there’s also Steve’s Raw Food. They only one of the foods that I’ve mentioned that you’ll find a the big supermarket type pet stores is the Nature’s Variety Instinct Raw. All others are typically sold at your smaller boutique type dog stores. Any of those stores that carry Answer’s Goat’s Milk can order Answers Detailed Raw food.

I have three toy dogs (Maltese, Maltipoo and a Yorkipoo) and have been feeding commercial raw for approx. three years.

[pugmomsandy]

Get some samples of both! There’s one patty/bar per sample. I’m using Primal right now since I buy it by the case. I just made 107 lbs of raw dog food yesterday too.

[Lori]

Melissa, I can’t believe you didn’t get snow. I thought NY got bombarded this past week! not a whole lot of snow yet, but very, very cold. My lab loves it, but my cocker not so much. 🙂 I’m feeding them Live Free Salmon now. This morning they got Honest Kitchen. They get all crazy when they get HK LOL. Chuck, my lab, and i just became certified pet therapy team through Pet Partners. They forbid raw feeding, raw bone, etc. I think HK falls under that (or not?), but I’m not sure so he gets it about once or twice a week.

[Melissaandcrew]

No snow yet in my part of NY but the cold is nasty for the dogs. They go out, run around a bit then want in..15mins tops. Just cut back on amounts. My crew just finished a bag of Orijen senior and the new bag in their bin is Acana. These days they get dry perhaps once a week, and the rest raw depending on the dog.

[theBCnut]

One big proponent of raw feeding, Steve Brown, even published a booklet to encourage people who can’t feed raw every day to feed it occasionally. Once a week, even, is better than none.

[InkedMarie]

There are various options for raw. You can buy pre made raw at the store; the ones I like are Primal & Vital Essentials. If you go to the review side, put raw food into the search and read up on them.

Darwins is pre made raw that is shipped to you. Google for the website, they offer a trial package at a good price.

You can do your own raw, BARF or prey model. Prey model has no fruits or veggies. That is what I feed but I feed it ground. I buy the bony ground from Hare Today and some from Reel Raw. I buy some boneless from Hare but most of it locally.

[Karen J]

Yes the vet said no infection or stones just crystals. I’d really rather not have her puddling because that means her bladder must be stopped up until the crystal dissolves and it’s too late to get outside. That’s got to be uncomfortable.

Maybe I should switch to raw. As soon as I found out about the Wellness I cut it down, whew, her little farts filled the room. I started mixing the lamb Wellness – she just loves it -so she doesn’t get too much of it but still eats the kibble with the Stella and Chewy mixed in. I haven’t seen her this excited since I brought her home from the rescue place (she was 4 months old now she is a year).

I think I’ll take her for a second opinion but what are some good raw foods to feed her?

[InkedMarie]

Hi Karen,
Is it the 95% lamb that you got? If yes, that is only a topper/mixer, not complete. Can you just pick a canned or dehydrated food & give her that, no kibble? A raw diet is best if you can or are willing to do it.
Has she been to the vets? Have you taken in a urine sample? Does she have an infection going

[aquariangt]

The biscuits aren’t raw. They also would not work for a pill, not soft at all

[Bobby dog]

Hi Lauren D:
I know you wrote you would be back, but I thought I would post a few links for you to look at. The first has info on homemade diets (cooked and raw), the second has a chart for vitamin pre-mixes (along with other info) towards the middle of the page. Good luck and I always love to read about adoptions!

http://dogaware.com/diet/homemaderesources.html

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

[Karen J]

Ok, someone recommended Wellness, no grain. I got her the Lamb. Just started trying it – she loves but the woman at Unleashed said you know this is not a complete food. I noticed when she pooped it’s turning to diarrhea. So now I put a spoonful in and mix it with the BB kibble and Stella & Chewy – we’ll see what happens.

So many are against BB I may try something new.

Cream cheese is magic for the pill delivery system for the d-monnase and vit C.

Went to a friends house the other night, there for 3 hours, should’ve probably taken her out, friend gave her some sausage and hard cheese and played with her but she puddled, fortunately in a dog friendly house.

Will this puddling go on forever?

The lady at unleashed seemed to think I should put her on a raw diet?

[dakcmumm]

Thank you all for your inputs. I am the mommy of 2 mini dachshunds. My Sophie is 12 years old and Louis (rescued in April of this year) is 8. I have been feeding Sophie Lotus grain free kibble turkey and fish and Louis Merrick canned food. Louis has no teeth left due to neglect prior to his adoption. Louis has very bad odor everytime I kiss him and he sheds like crazy. Also his eyes always have some kind of discharge. Even though Sophie’s health is OK, I still think that she is not at her best. Sophie licks her paws a lot and needs to loose a few pounds. Anyway, after I read Dr. Martin Goldstein’s and Dr. Pirtcain’s books I cried so much and decided to switch my babies to raw food. I have been looking for supplements and was tempted to order Dinovite. But I stopped after I read your reviews on this forum.
Thank you again for extending yourself and post your experiences with the product so that other people can learn from you. I am so desperate now to what supplement I should try. I know there is no perfect of anything. But I want to educate myself as much as possible and find a good enough supplement that I want to try on my babies. I will give them a fast starting tomorrow before switch them over to raw food diet.
I am a new member to this forum. I will talk to all of you again soon.

[Pluto.the.St.Bernard]

theBCnut,
Thanks alot, will take that into great consideration. One more thing is it ok to feed him raw and kibble foods ? Mainly asking because I dont think I will be preparing raw home recipes for everyday eating was kinda hoping to go back and forth(if that’s even a smart thing to do). I don’t want Pluto getting set in his ways eating only raw meals, and I only say that being, im also somewhat trying to buget while taking good care of his big eating habits. Thanks

[Dog_Obsessed]

Are these treats raw? I know the Simply ones are, but what about the biscuits?

[theBCnut]

HDM’s raw recipes are the only ones I would automatically trust for a large or giant breed puppy since that is specifically what hers were formulated for.

[Pluto.the.St.Bernard]

So any of these raw recipes that HDM and others have posted, would be good for a giant sized breed St. Benard puppy (20wks, never had raw food so far)? I just want to be extra cautious with this being a health issued breed .

[Bobby dog]

This is the Know Better Pet Food raw pre-mix:
https://www.knowbetterpetfood.com/cat_food_better_in_the_raw

BTW, very cute pics of Alec!

[Bobby dog]

Bri:
I have five indoor/outdoor cats that share several litter boxes. It would be hard to tell unless I confine the three that do eat the raw; they only have it about once a week. I can add that I really haven’t noticed too much of an odor for any of them at any time.

Glad your kitty is eating canned, hope he continues to heal. 🙂

[Bobby dog]

Hello All!
I have been busy and thank goodness no snow yet C4c! I’ve popped in here and there. I am behind on e-mail too. 🙁

C4c: Glad all is well with the felines. Hope the visit with Casper goes well!

Akari:
I have looked into pre-mixes for cats, there are quite a few of them. I think the one that I liked was the Know Better Pet Food mixes. I really haven’t researched it much and without doing that I won’t try a premix for them. They are older and I don’t want to try anything new without knowing exactly what I am doing. They haven’t had any interest in raw meats in the past, but I wouldn’t mind cooking for them. When I have time I will research it one of these days…
https://www.knowbetterpetfood.com/cat_food_u-stew
https://www.youngagainpetfood.com/10browse.asp?category=raws
http://www.knowwhatyoufeed.com/shop_online.html
http://felineinstincts.com/store/products-page/my-natural-cat-raw-meat-premix/
http://www.completenaturalnutrition.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=74
http://tcfeline.com/tcfeline-usa/

[Z B]

Thanks, Akari, I have gotten some good feedback!

I actually just ordered some SSLL mix for my dogs, and decided to research Raw pre-mixes for cats, and found this: http://www.thetotalcat.com
Didn’t order any, I’m going to poke around and see if can find any reviews or experiences here with it first.

[Michael H]

Tried some heart with the cat, warmed it in a 100d water bath (I have a sous vide controller I use with a crock pot), she ate about an ounce, so maybe there’s hope. From a feeding calculator it says she may need 6-8oz raw food a day, but I’m assuming the heart is very rich.

Still a little confused on all the portions of the ‘meaty meats’, rmb, and organs, especially if I feed the 1 meal of it. I see that the ratio is 80 meat/10 bone/10 organs (half liver), thought I’m unsure how ‘meaty’ the rmb needs to be, or if it’s more so just about the bone calcium to match phosphorous, and the potential teeth cleaning. From the calculators I’ve found, seems my dogs (both averaging 43lb, somehow) @ 2% would be nearly 100oz of raw food a week, if fed only raw. So, 80oz meat, 10oz bone, 5oz liver, 5 oz other organs, roughly, and half those amounts if I feed FD for dinner.

To get the correct oz of bone, am I supposed to guess how much of the rmb is bone vs meat? Or do I just weigh the rmb pieces and feed 10oz a week of them? For example, a chicken thigh seems to be more meat to bone than eating a chicken wing. (I’m probably looking way too hard into this :-).

So far for the freeze dried meals I’m liking either Big Dog Natural, K9 Natural (New Zealand stuff), or maybe Orijen, since Bernie has done better on their kibble…though gassy. I’m not all convinced the extra stuff in Orijen justifies the price-“chicory root, dandelion root, summer savory, peppermint leaf*, ginger root*”. Looks like a lot of marketing fluff. BDN looks good from the fermented veggies and tripe, though the cod liver oil is a concern…I’ve taken that myself and OD’d on Vitamin A, corner of my mouth cracked open, so painful. Not sure what other FD foods may be good. Suggestions?

Thanks for all the help!

PS Thanks for mentioning Hare Today and MPC. I’ll keep MPC in mind for next month-they have a stop pretty close to me, but I’m past the day to order until next month it seems, drat! HT’s shipping seems a little much, so I’ll need to crunch some numbers. That’s the worst part, pricing everything out to see what’s the best deal.

• This reply was modified 11 years, 1 month ago by Michael H.

[theBCnut]

Raw in the morning and freeze dried in the evening is good.

When I had one of my goats butchered, my dogs absolutely went ga-ga over the head pieces.

Heart and gizzard both count as muscle, but heart still has some good stuff than isn’t in any other muscle type in abundance, like taurine.

To start with for your gulper, you want to use pieces that are too big to eat quickly to force him to have to take his time and eat properly. Something like a whole leg quarter, and give it to him leg first, would be a good way to start. If he needs it you can even attach a pair of vice grips to it to slow him down more. Once he learns that he has to chew his food, you won’t have to do any of that anymore.

[Akari_32]

Good luck with your question, Bri! This something I’ve been wanting to try, but I simply don’t the money. My cat loves raw beef hearts, and any part of the chicken. I gave him a bit of thigh with a small bone the other night and he loved it! Wish there was something like See Spot Live Longer for cats. If there was, he’d be eating raw every day!

Any of you guys see the PetSmart Black Friday ad?? Friskies is going to be on sale for 39 cents a can!!!! I’ll be all over that, and I hope other foods are on sale, too. I hate to give him all Friskies, or even mostly Friskies, but it’s better than nothing with money as tight as it during the holidays, and I pick the best three of the recipes with the least carbs (Special Diet Beef and Chicken, Special Diet Turkey and Giblets, and Senior Diet Lamb and Rice). I actually don’t mind using the Special Diet because I am really paranoid about UTIs and all that bladder crap lol Gives me some peace of mind, though I have no idea if it actually works or not. So far this is the only store I’ll be hitting, unless I decide to go PetCo or Pet Supermarket. I don’t need any human things, other than the new Pokemon games coming on this friday, but someone can get me that for Christmas lol

[Michael H]

Visited the butcher today. I found I can get beef heart at 2.29/lb from the butcher, so I may end up going there weekly for some and maybe grind it in with another meat myself. I have a gimpy grinder that can do meat, not bone though. They do bone in grinding, but can’t offer it until deer season is over. Wish they had any pastured/grassfed meats, but at least its promised they don’t use sodium/broth injected items.

They also had frozen cows brain there! Not sure if they’d go for that, haha.

So from them I found I have access to:
Organs-beef heart/liver/brain, chicken liver/unsure of hearts/gizzards(is this meaty or organ?), possibly spleen I think if they can order it.

RMB-bone in chicken parts, turkey necks/wings, assorted ribs. Other necks, trachea, chicken feet, etc. are still hard to find. Bernie is a gulper so I’m not sure what size to even use-too small and no chewing action, too big and he may choke on it. Zuli is a gnawer and has great teeth already, 3yo and never needed a dental.

I forgot to mention that between us boarding guest dogs from our home, and another cat present from my sister in law who lives with us, I may just be able to raw feed for the first meal of the day, while everyone else is put away. Either that, or have RMB meals in the morning, since I’m assuming they’ll take a while to chow down and everyone else will go nuts if they sense what’s going on.

Do you think my ‘bases’ may be covered if I did raw in the AM and a good freeze dried in the PM?

[theBCnut]

I can’t answer all your questions, but I’ll try to answer some. First, there is no guarantee that your cat will eat raw. They can be kind of peculiar about switching types of food, so the first thing to try is to switch the cat to canned food. Pick up dry food and allow the cat to get hungry, not starving, just hungry, and then offer canned food. If kitty eats it, great!! If not, after an hour, offer the dry food for 20 minutes, then pick it up. Next meal time, offer canned food first again. You may have to offer quite a number of times before she will eat it, or you may be one of the lucky ones. Once you have your cat on all canned food, start the process over again switching to raw.

There are many people that do not give any supplements, but they are the ones that need to be really careful to feed whole prey raw. Your dog might not eat kale, but if they eat an herbivore, they will be getting predigested greens that the food animal ate. You can predigest your own choice of veggies but blanching and pureeing.

You can also feed turkey and fish, so beef, pork, chicken, turkey, and fish are plenty of different proteins, and maybe a few times a year you can find lamb.

I use premixes +-3 days a week and no premix the rest of the time. I want to be sure to cover my bases.

Soup bones are not RMBs. RMBs are bones that are soft and can be completely eaten at meal time. Ribs from lamb, pork, or calves are good RMBs. So are neck bones from those same animals. All parts of chicken and turkey have good bones in them too. You should be able to get heart and liver and maybe kidney for organs. Maybe you can occasionally get some whole prey, even whole prey grinds, from Hare Today or My Pet Carnivore, to make up for not feeding other organs.

You can feed grinds to your cat, if you make sure they have heart in them, or add a taurine supplement. It her meats are frozen, you need to make sure the water that separates out as it defrosts is mixed back in, because that is where a lot of taurine is lost. I get whole carcass grinds from Hare Today for my cats, both rabbit and quail.

[Michael H]

Hi everyone!

We have 2 dogs:

Bernie, 9y M allergic-to-life Basset Hound
Zuli, 3y F Lab Mix

and our cat:
Sophie, 8y F Mackeral Tabby, borderline diabetic

Due to both Bernie and Sophie’s above issues, it seems like my best option at this point would be to try raw feeding. The dogs both enjoy the occasional chicken wing or turkey neck, but I have not yet tried feeding it as a whole diet. The cat, who was originally an outdoor stray who did hunt for her sustenance, does accept things like turkey and pepperoni, but for most of her life has been on dry food…which is probably why she had the October diagnosis for diabetes. She is near impossible to catch (the yearly vet visit can take us anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour to capture her-we’ve blocked off hiding spaces as we find them over the years, though once she actually broke INTO the wall to hide) and has a lack of scruff, and at this point I’m really fearing the ability to be able to administer insulin consistently. So, it seems that a diet change may be my only help with this. For Bernie, I can control what goes into the food, and avoid his allergens altogether.

I work from home, so cooking and preparing isn’t a big deal. I handle raw meat for my own consumption so that doesn’t bother me, and I’m very versed in the realm of preventing cross contamination.

My access to pastured/organic items is limited to either very far drives or possible home delivery (have to order a LOT at a time to make the shipping be affordable). For the delivery [ReelRaw] they do have a lot of variety, which is nice, but seems the most expensive option that I’ve come across ($300/mo for all pets, around 50lb of items, still cheaper than whole foods). I do have a butcher shop somewhat nearby, but the only organs they carry or process is beef heart, and the variety of RMB’s I can get aren’t much, as well as they do not carry any pastured/organic meats.

Upon my research, I’m finding a lot of conflicting information. It seems that on one side everyone is pro supplements to add to the meals, which I’m hesitant to do so, as I’m of the perspective to not take any synthetic or multivitamins myself since I feel I’m literally peeing the money away, and rather get what I need from whole foods. I know dogs cant digest fruit/veg well, as anytime I’ve given a piece I find it the next day pretty much intact in their waste. We do own a masticating juicer, so that is an option. I’ve come across some freeze dried foods (Big Dog Natural) that say they ferment the veg to make them bioavailable, which is interesting, though I’m unsure if it’s still too high-carb for Bernie. It could all be a bunch of hogwash as well. I do agree with adding omega 3/sardines at meal time, as I feel that the fats are too delicate for any processing procedure.

Then there’s all the premixes available with vitamins, minerals, kale, sweet potatoes, etc. (Urban Wolf, THK, SSLL Dinner Mix). It’s hard to find a premix without one of Bernie’s proposed allergens in it, and to be honest I’d rather keep the carb count for him down as much as possible, as Bassets are already yeast factories, and Sophie needs as little carb as possible-I don’t think I’ve come across mixes for cats anyways. What dog eats kale in the wild anyways? I have a hard time getting it down myself…lol.

On the other side, I’ve come across a few companies that don’t use added vitamins/minerals (Answers, ReelRaw), stating it’s complete/balanced as is, or with Answers, their own products they (conveniently) suggest to add, which is goat’s milk yogurt, or buy their combination product with veg, clay, cultured things, etc. Bernie is borderline allergic to cow dairy, so I’m unsure if he can even have that anyways. I’ve tried kefir with him before, but the yeast didn’t get any better, and would occasionally have putrid gas as well.

Bernie is currently on Orijen, which he does seem more energetic and less itchy, however the gas has been atrocious, and even though he’s not been really red and itchy on it, still is having a yeast issue (underarms, ears, back of legs). This is a dog that sleeps 14 hours a day on those areas, so not much air is circulating. The gas has gotten better by feeding him less of it, but it can still clear a room. I think it’s due to the lentils/chickpeas-while he’s not allergic to them, doesn’t mean he can digest them well.

So to end my novella for how, I’ll boil it down to some questions:

-Do you feel that the supplements are needed if I use the cheaper conventional meat from the butcher? Or would possibly they be getting enough if I splurge for the pastured meats/organs/rmb? It’s doubtful I can afford both the pastured and supplements.

-Do you feel premixes are worth it, and would make the conventional meat balanced? (again, may not be able to do both pastured + mixes)

-How important do you feel variety in meats is? If I shop locally, I only really have access to beef, chicken, and pork, which I myself am even tired of, haha. Most any recreational or RMB’s I can find in the area are meant for soups and have very little meat left on them. With delivery I can get many more options, but I pay out the wazoo for it.

-Would maybe just doing the freeze dried route be the best idea? Between the issues above and our cat, I’m also leaning towards this route. I’ve also heard that cats don’t dig cool meat very much, and as its the winter now I don’t want Sophie to lose any weight form refusing food. The 2 dogs will eat anything so I’m not worried there. I know I have to avoid giving Sophie all ground meat due to taurine loss. My wife also would rather rip off her eyebrows than touch raw meat, so if it comes a time when I cannot feed them, I’d have to have an alternative on hand anyways.

Thanks for any input!

[Cindy S]

Thanks, I do order via petfooddirect.com and they are very good. Unfortunately, none of those websites ship raw frozen foods — from what I can see — only raw freeze-dried. I did find one located in Colorado (Only Natural Pet Store, LLC / http://www.onlynaturalpet.com), but there is a surcharge of $30 for shipment of frozen items. Also, they only ship frozen product out on Tuesdays, so you need to place the request no later than Sunday.

[Michael H]

Thanks for all the input everyone! Right now I’m mostly considering raw, but that in itself is a deep rabbit hole to go down. I’m going to make a post specifically about my questions on that in that forum.

[Dog_Obsessed]

I am thinking of adding THK to my rotation, I ordered some samples yesterday. I have thought about Sojos, I am a bit germ-o-phobic so I’m a little wary about raw. Do you know what food safety measures Sojos takes to prevent contamination? I couldn’t find much about this on their website.

[Jess L]

We feed raw, fresh food. We also feed dry in the evenings and wanted a reliable, high quality dry food. I have long researched and looked for a reliable dry food and now have found it. It is Orijens, grain-free and whole prey. They are family owned from Alberta, Canada, but sold select retailers in the US. You can go to their website and see where it is available, near you. Good luck.

[pugmomsandy]

Sojo’s is completely raw. The meats are freeze dried and the veg/fruit are raw and air-dried. That’s alot of raw sweet potato for a dog, isn’t it? My recipe books says to cook starchy veggies, then puree.

[aquariangt]

I’ll second/third/fifth what everyone said about keeping up with a rotation. Get one bag of what the breeder fed (hopefully they send you home with some) and once that’s close to gone, start mixing a new food in. With a puppy it’s pretty easy to get them on a rotational diet and be able to switch as often as you want. I switch after every bag, so approximately 3 weeks. Make sure you are switching up protein sources to keep a variety as well. I have a few brands that are always in rotation, and then I try to try something new every 5-6 bags as well

for toppers-since it’s a topper I give them a different one every day. I keep a variety of canned, dehydrated, and commercial raw to throw on top there. The fun thing about that is you can really get a big variety going-I keep a box of honest kitchen, a bag of sojos, and usually some frozen pucks of nature’s variety around. Then I just raid the store for whatever toppers seem fun at the time. I like Simply Nourish, Weruva, Tiki, Fromm, Earthborn-many others as well, but those are the brands most often in the house.

[InkedMarie]

THK is not raw.

[Dog_Obsessed]

Is THK actually raw? If so, how can it be human grade?

[Naturella]

BCnut, I have a question – I have seen in Bruno’s stool undigested carrot and apple pieces from Sojo’s/THK dehydrated foods. It is only those two that he seems to be unable to stomach. However, if I give him raw apple, I see no peel, nothing discernible in his stool (and I am a stool examiner, lol). I haven’t tried with raw carrot recently, but I think it would still come out as it enters. I have also given him raw coconut and it comes out as it entered him. Coconut oil gets absorbed though. Kale sticks (branches) with some leaf matter are not discernible but sometimes when he eats grass (he does it every now and again), it comes out in straight bunches, like it entered him.
So why would he not be able to eat some rehydrated veggies vs raw? I do let them sit for a while in the water, but they don’t ever completely return to an “original” form. This also happens while on THK Perfect Form.

My next question is, I have seen recipes for cooking with THK for treats and such. Should I cook it first till the veggies are mushy, or cook it lightly and puree it, or is it not a big concern?

[Z B]

Pugmom – I found one place not too far away where I can buy primal. Thx for the tip.

Bobbydog & Kristen – haven’t tried pumpkin but I will. But I have doubts my cat will go for that !

Crazy4cats- my cat doesn’t seem to have a preference. She’ll eat raw and canned food cold or room temp.

[Bobby dog]

Hey c4c:
I feed mine room temp. I put it out to thaw after I feed them in the morning for their dinner. Only three of my kitties eat the freeze dried or frozen commercial raw; they seem pretty enthusiastic eating it when I feed it to them. They lose their enthusiasm if I feed it for more than two straight feedings so it’s part of their rotation with canned foods.

[theBCnut]

My cats prefer it at room temp. When I get raw for my cats, I divide it up into single serving portions. I have saved little yogurt cups with lids that are exactly the right size. I take one out of the freezer and float it in hot water and go do morning chores. When I’m done with chores, the food is usually close enough to the right temp. Sometimes I have to add more warm water and let it float a bit longer, and sometimes I just add a little warm water to the food and mix it in. There is a certain amount of extra water that is OK, and a certain amount that is just too much. I don’t quite know where that line is yet.

[crazy4cats]

Hi Guys-
When you feed the frozen raw to your kitties, do you warm it up a bit or bring it to room temperature? I’ve been curious about raw. Thanks!

[Gloria K]

TheBCnut: I just got a shelter rescue dog about 10 days ago, (11 lb. terrier mix) and I have been making his food and supplementing it with a little kibble. I chop everything real fine and grate the carrots with a rasp but I cook all of this homemade food – nothing raw. Could that make a difference in being able to digest it better? I just can’t seem to bring myself to purée the stuff and give it to him like baby food …yuck. I give him ground beef or ground chicken, hard-boiled eggs, spinach, carrots, some ground egg shells, oatmeal and occasionally rice or barley.