[shelties mom]

My dog broke his premolar tooth when chewing on a lamb leg bone without meat. I let him chew on it for over an hour and then heard a pop, I thought chewing on a bone would help clean his teeth, but I missed the part that says “MEATY”, not raw bone, but RAW MEATY BONE. I learned it the hard way, now he only gets chicken and duck necks.

[weimlove]

Hdm- ok thanks, how do you feel about lamb bones, ribs, and chicken wings?

[Hound Dog Mom]

weimlove –

Raw meaty bones are safe – RMBs are those that can be completely consumed (chicken backs, turkey necks, chicken feet, chicken leg quarters, etc.). What you want to avoid are the weight-bearing bones of large ruminants (cows, buffalo, sheep, etc.) – these are called “recreational bones” and would include marrow bones, knuckle bones, etc. I personally don’t feed my dogs any recreational bones because of concern over breaking teeth and even if they don’t break a tooth, chewing bones like these over time can wear down the teeth.

[weimlove]

Ok, I know that im probably worrying for no reason, but I’m worried about my Weimaraner breaking teeth when he eats raw bones. Should I be worried? If so, what bones should I not feed?

[InkedMarie]

I was doing some figuring yesterday, at the Hare Today site. I think it would be $12 more to get their mixes/grinds than Darwins so I guess I’ll stick with Darwins. No sense having to repackage to save $12. I was kind of disappointed.

[Alexandra]

Hi Weimlove,

I am two hours from Hare today’s farm, so shipping is cheap. I may even start going there and picking up.

As for tripe, your butcher should be able to save you some stomachs, cut, grind (if you wish) bag and freeze. 🙂

My friend and I make tripe every three months. We get ten stomachs, hearts lungs and spleens and grind the mixture together, we get about 100 pounds each, and the price is about 1.00 a pound, can’t be beat!

[weimlove]

I plan on going to the butcher tomorrow to buy ingredients for a couple of weeks of food for shadows meals. I was wondering if y’all could give me examples of muscle meat, organs, and bones that I can buy for the 80 10 10 ratio, so I can have some sort of shopping list. Thanks so much!

[Hound Dog Mom]

Hi Jens –

Check out the “Transitioning to Raw” thread and the “Suggested Raw Dog Food Menus?” thread – there are a lot of tips on getting started and some recipes there. Dogaware.com is a great resource for beginners and I would also recommend purchasing a copy of “Unlocking the Canine Ancestral Diet” by Steve Brown – it’s a very comprehensible and quick read, a great book for raw newbies. As for a grinder, I personally don’t use a grinder for my RMBs – your dogs miss out on the dental benefits if you grind the bones. I know a few people here do use grinders though, maybe one of them will pop in with what kind they have.

[Saireah]

Hello! This is EXACTLY the thread that I was looking for. We have a 1.5 year old vizsla/lab mix who has hip dysplasia. While I feel as if I didn’t feed her the best food during her first year (Nature’s Recipe – Large Breed Puppy), I have been feeding her better food since. I’m definitely more educated. She’s currently transitioning to Fromm’s Four Star Grain-Free Game Bird recipe from Acana Ranchlands due to itchiness from Acana.
We are fostering a lab/mastiff mix whose parents were a 60lb lab (mom) and a 150lb purebred mastiff (dad). I have been trying to find the “best” food to feed him — and I am thrilled that I might be able to feed the same food to both of my dogs!
I do have a question, though. You state that Dr. Tim’s Kinesis (grain-free) has 1.3% calcium — where did you get this number? His site (http://drtims.com/grain-free/) states 1.51%, unless I’m reading it incorrectly.
I’m trying to choose between Fromm’s Four Star line (I love that you can swap flavors to give variety and I also love that you can feed less because they have a bit higher protein/fat content than the grain inclusive Four Star!) or transitioning both of my dogs to Dr. Tim’s Kinesis (GF).
I want to make sure that I am feeding my dogs one of the best foods! I know that either of these choices would be okay for Quinn, but I am really worried about hip dysplasia in a second dog. Any advice or feedback would be really appreciated. 🙂

[weimlove]

Oh ok, that’s true. I just don’t know if my Weims tricky stomach could handle all types at once. But hey, if it works for you that’s great!

[pugmomsandy]

weimlove,

I’m actually one of those that feeds all types: raw, kibble, freeze dried, dehydrated and canned. Hubby would not know what to do so he would just feed kibble. It’s good for back up, traveling, boarding, camping…

[weimlove]

Sandy,
I found a couple of good sights for freeze dried tripe, one of them is http://www.bellaspainrelief.com/ and the other is http://www.aplaceforpaws.com/ On both of these sites have freeze dried tripe. You can get 5 oz for about $9.00, which isnt too bad. To ship to Fl it is about 13.00 which is ok as well. Until I can find some local tripe, I will probably order some of the freeze dried. I will probably just add a couple of pieces to maybe one meal a day. I’ve found a great butcher for meat, bones, and organs, but I will definintly look for a mexican or asain market. I think theres one in my town, I will just have to look up the address. Yeah, we have one more week left of his Acana kibble food, then we will be transitioning to raw. I cant wait, it will be cheaper plus so much better for my weimaraner. It’s a little confusing/overwhelming at first trying to figure out the ratios and which supplements and veggies to give, but im sure once I get started it will be easy!

[pugmomsandy]

weimlove,

Also if you go to the Asian or Mexican supermarket, they have a good selection of organ meats and chicken feet, hooves, heads, even uterus (which I have not tried) which would be muscle meat. I bought some whole wild caught sardines there recently and give those a couple times a week as one of their meals. My local BARF group purchases from texastripe which makes a delivery run once a month to the area and I get tripe and tripe blend from them for $2/lb. I hope you can find a group to join as mine has been a real great place for resources as well as DFA of course! I found mine at yahoo. Try searching for “yahoo barf group”. You may already know. I’m a little technically challenged and just now found the barf group although I’ve been feeding raw for at least 2 years!

[pugmomsandy]

weimlove,

I can get it for $13 each or $12.30 for a case of 20 but then shipping would need to be accounted for. Unfortunately I don’t go to the post office much to know about prices. I’m sure one could fit several freeze dried packages in one of those “if it fits, it ships” boxes. But someone would have to do the math and see if that’s cheaper than raw frozen with shipping. The freeze dried weight is actually .44 lb (which makes 1 lb rehydrated) but I just give them a couple pieces dry in their food bowl or just as treats.

[weimlove]

Sandy- thanks for the help! Joining a local group would probably be a good idea. I saw the k9 natural but it’s like 17.00 a pound which is a little crazy!

[pugmomsandy]

weimlove,

Try joining a group of local raw feeders. They can give you some local resources for raw foods and other topics of course. Look for a BARF group. I’m a member of a yahoo BARF group and they have been helpful on many topics – food, local raw foods, holistic vets, etc…even found a local tripe source for myself!! If you can’t local raw tripe, you might consider freeze dried tripe. K9 Naturals has it and I think Bravo, not sure. But the freeze dried, although more costly per pound, might be cheaper than shipping raw frozen and would be better than no tripe at all!

[weimlove]

Hdm- oh ok, we’ll that’s nice that you live do close. I live in Pensacola, fl so I guess I may have to do overnight.

[Hound Dog Mom]

Lucky! I would love to have something like that locally. I have to make everything from scratch or have it shipped – downside of living in the middle of nowhere. I wish I had something like Hare Today or MPC locally, I’d be in heaven – or well, the dogs would be in heaven. The only thing that prevents me from ordering Hare Today and MPC grinds for every meal is shipping costs.

[InkedMarie]

There is a semi local (in state but not around me) breeder of Dogues who also sells raw. Prey model raw people can buy their stuff but she also makes her own pre made. I think you have to just add supplements. I am going to seriously look into this because there is a good chance we will be adopting a sheltie very soon, going to meet two of them tomorrow at the foster home. I’d love to have all on raw but cannot afford to do so with Darwins.

[Hound Dog Mom]

Unfortunately when it comes to shipping frozen raw food, that’s about as cheap as it’s going to get (wish places that sold raw offered free ground shipping!). For where I’m located, it costs me about $28 to have 50 lbs. of food shipped from Hare Today – VERY reasonable in comparison to many other places I’ve checked out (I’ve priced some and had them quote me over $200 to ship 50 lbs.). They key is finding a place to order from that’s close enough where you don’t have to pay for overnight or 2 day shipping – I’m in New York and Hare Today is in Pennsylvania so I can just get ground shipping.

Also, something else I noticed I forgot to mention before that I figure I probably should mention if you’re going to be ordering green tripe (you may already know this, but just in case) – green tripe has a naturally balanced calcium to phosphorus ratio of 1:1 (unlike all other muscle meats and organ meats that are high in phosphorus but have no calcium) so when you feed green tripe you don’t need to add any supplemental calcium, it can be a meal on it’s own.

[weimlove]

Hdm- I checked out both of the sites. The cheapest shipping is 23.00 eeek! Lol but I haven’t been able to find a local distributor so that may be the best option.

[Hound Dog Mom]

Try hare-today.com or mypetcarnivore.com – I order mine from these two sites (the green tripe supermix from mpc is my crew’s all time favorite). Both have reasonable prices and reasonable shipping.

[weimlove]

Does anybody know anywhere that I can order green tripe from that the shipping isn’t outrageous?

[weimlove]

Oh ok thanks! Definintly don’t want any MSG!

[Hound Dog Mom]

I’d avoid anything with “broth” or “natural flavoring” – both can contain MSG. By law, if the MSG is created by process and not added separately, the company doesn’t have to disclose that the product contains MSG. I know my grocery store sells all natural chicken thighs with no antibiotics or additives for under $2/lb. and and a lot of the time if I can catch things on the sell by date, they’ll be 50% off.

[weimlove]

Sounds great, thanks for all your help! Im gonna start his cold turkey switch in about a week so I will let you know how everything goes! Oh yeah, I saw some chicken thighs for sale at Walmart last night. It said they contained chicken broth and natural flavoring. Is that ok to feed?

[Hound Dog Mom]

Yeah, you always want to use vitamin e. You can continue the same fish oil or switch it up, it’s not a huge deal if you don’t switch but I do like to rotate my dogs’ fats as well. I generally alternate between sardine oil, anchovy oil and salmon oil (I’m thinking about trying krill oil when I’m out of the fish oil I have now) and I also give cod liver oil every other day. I add a plant-based fatty acid daily too, three days a week I give coconut oil and the other three I give a flax, borage and evening primrose blend. Just mixing kelp and alfalfa would be fine – if you have to give any trace nutrient supplement I would say those two would be your best bet. You can order both in powder form from starwest botanicals. I make my own whole food supplement and while I do rotate out certain ingredients and rotate in new ingredients every month or so I always keep kelp and alfalfa in the supplement.

[weimlove]

Ok, great. For next time, would it be ok to still use vitamin e and fish oil, but instead of pet kelp just mix kelp and alfalfa?

[Hound Dog Mom]

Yeah, definitely. Vitamin e, fish oil, Pet Kelp and the Flea Free all contain different ingredients with different purposed and would be safe to use together. Then once you’re done the bag of Pet Kelp pick out a new supplement next time.

[weimlove]

Ok, that seems easy! So to start out, do you think as long as I add the vitamin e and fish oil that the pet kelp is ok to use? Also, if I ordered the flea free product, would it be ok to use all of those ingredients together?

[Hound Dog Mom]

Well in the morning I mix up a big batch of food, all my dogs eat the same amount (lucky me) so when I’m mixing up the food I poke a hole in the end of the capsules, squeeze it in and mix it (most vitamin e capsules are filled with liquid). If your dog will eat the whole capsule though, there’s no reason you can’t just stick the capsule in his food.

[weimlove]

HDM- that makes sense! I never knew that, thanks for sharing. I love the starwest botanical site, and I think I may just buy the kelp and alfalfa from the site and mix them myself to add in. When you give your dogs vitamin e, do you just put the pill in their food, or crush it?

[Hound Dog Mom]

Hi weimlove –

I’ve seen the Pet Kelp supplements and they look like good supplements, however you definitely still need to add vitamin e. If you look at the nutrient analysis of the Pet Kelp product there is only 1.65 i.u. vitamin e per tablespoon. The AAFCO minimum requirement for vitamin e is 50 i.u. per kilogram of food and ideally your dog should be getting between 100 and 300 i.u. per day. I split 800 i.u. between my 3 dogs daily, so they all get about 266 i.u. each per day. The other thing to keep in mind is that you will be supplementing with fish oil (high levels of omega 3’s) and vitamin e is used to metabolize omega 3’s, so if you don’t supplement with high levels of vitamin e while supplementing with omega 3 rich fish oil the body’s stores of vitamin e will eventually be depleted and the dog will develop a vitamin e deficiency. If you decide to go with the Pet Kelp supplement I would recommend picking out 1 or 2 other whole food supplements with ingredients other than kelp (some that I like are Nature’s Logic All Food Fortifier, Welly Tails Might Phytonutrients, Animal Essentials Organic Green Alternative, Aunt Jeni’s Enhance, etc.) and rotating to a new supplement every month or so, this way your dog can get some variety. I don’t believe flax is bad for healthy dogs, I occasionally give my dogs flax oil. There are positives and negatives to almost every food out there which is why rotating is key – if you rotate your dog is a lot less likely to suffer the negative consequences of any one ingredient because he won’t be exposed for long periods of time.

[theBCnut]

I can just throw in a pill and mine will eat it, but one of my whole food supplements also has alfalfa in it. I actually have horses too, so sometimes it’s a handful of alfalfa in the blender with other things as part of my homemade supplement. And at one point I was giving the dogs a horse joint supplement that is sprayed on alfalfa pellets.

[weimlove]

Sandy- thanks for posting that link, they have a lot of great supplements to add.

[weimlove]

Patty- I think I will most likely end up rotating too once I get started. Do you feed a alfalfa pill, or I’d yours ground up? I’ve had a hard time finding alfalfa other than in a pill form.

[weimlove]

Toxed- thanks for your concern, but my pup dosent have hormone imbalances. Do you think flax is bad for healthy dogs? If so, why?

[pugmomsandy]

This one is flax free. I’m not sure how long it will be available since they have introduced a combo/al-in-one product greens/prb\ob/enzyme supplement.

Natural Dog Supplements & Vitamins

[theBCnut]

I use a whole food vitamin supplement that has flax in it, but I rotate that too, so I’m not using it all the time. I use kelp sometimes, alfalfa others, and right now it’s spirulina, so I rotate that too. I think it’s safe to say I rotate everything, except my vinegar.

[Toxed2loss]

Hi Weimlove,
I avoid flax like the plague. It s an estrogen analog. If your pups having hormone imbalances, this is the last thing it should be eating.

[weimlove]

The other day, I found a product called PetKelp. It’s ingrdients are kelp, flax, and blueberries. It says it can be used for a supplement with food to ensure all needed vitamins and minerals. I know I will still need to add some source of fish oil, but do you think if I used the petkelp that I would need to still add vitamin E and alfalfa? Here is the website of the PetKelp wellness formula:
http://www.petkelp.com/antioxidant.html
If anyone could look at the ingredients and let me hear your opinions I would greatly appreciate it!

[weimlove]

HDM- I think that’s a great idea. Thanks for everything. I still have two weeks of kibble to use so until I run out I plan on buying some pre mix and also some vitamins and minerals as well. Can’t wait to transition I’ll definitely let y’all know how he does!

[Hound Dog Mom]

Hi Shawna –

This is one supplement I use with all 8 forms of vitamin e (I’m actually using this one at the moment):

http://www.vitacost.com/vitacost-vitamin-e-tocotrienol-complex-60-liquid-vegetarian-capsules/?NttSR=1

I’ve also used the NOW Gamme E Complex with mixed tocopherols and tocotrienols:

http://www.nowfoods.com/Supplements/Products-by-Category/Vitamins/Vitamin-E/M012530.htm

[Hound Dog Mom]

Hi weimlove –

If you check out my menus for my dogs on the “Suggested Raw Dog Food Menus” you’ll see how I utilize a pre-mix for breakfast three mornings per week. Just follow the directions the pre-mix package and use boneless meat. You could omit veggies and all supplements, but I would still add fish oil as most pre-mixes don’t have adequate omega 3’s in the mix. In the evening I just feed some RMB’s and a little muscle meat (like hearts or gizzards) and occasionally some livers.Remember the 80-10-10 ratio doesn’t have to be exact at every meal, just over the course of a week or so you want the dog’s overall diet to roughly equal 80-10-10. It’s called balance over time.

[weimlove]

If I wanted to use a pre-mix for part of one of the two meals per day, and have the other meal with just raw meat, bones, organs, etc, how would that work? Would I still need to add supplements? And would I just add ground meat to the pre-mix, and then use the 80:10:10 and veggies for the other meal? Sorry, just trying to see all of my options.

[weimlove]

HDM-
Thanks so much, I just went to a local vitamin store and found some kelp, alfalfa, and liquid vitamin E. Thanks for all of your help!

[Shawna]

Anna,

LOL!! From what I’ve been told by vets as well as my own doctor is that the allergy testing is hit and miss. So your observational skills are probably a better bet than you might think :)…. I can always tell when my grandkids gave my Audrey something she reacts too as well.. Her immune system has calmed down enough that she doesn’t itch but her skin will get a little hot across her back and lower tummy. She can also get a little clingy.

If you end up going with raw you can do a real elimination diet and get to the bottom of anything that might be problematic.. With Audrey it ended up being 4 different foods.

Let us know if there is anything we can help with if or when you need it!!!

PS — vets are told that food allergies are rare (which is actually true). What some have not yet discovered is that food intolerances are quite common and can manifest in the same symptoms.

[Shawna]

HDM ~~ what’s the one that you use that contains ALL 8 forms of vitamin E?.. Was that the NOW one? I’d use that one personally..

[Hound Dog Mom]

Weimlove –

As long as your dog doesn’t have any issues with gluten, it’s probably fine. Most contain some sort of soy, rice or wheat derivative – it’s given in such a small quantity though that it shouldn’t cause any issues. The two vitamin e supplements I use most often – Vitacost Vitamin E and Tocotrienol Complex and NOW Advanced Gamma E Complex – both contain soy derivatives. I’m not a fan of soy, but they get such a small amount I don’t worry.

[theBCnut]

You might want to try an organic essential oil shampoo instead of oatmeal. It soothes the skin too, and there is some concern that oatmeal shampoo may feed bad organisms on the skin.