[FunsIzE]

I recently adopted a dog (not my profile pic!) and he’s 4 yrs old and 50 ibs. He’s been fed grocery store kibble in the shelter and I switched him to a high quality dog food, in my opinion, blue buffalo. I think feeding him raw food would be best, not for health reasons, but maybe just because. 🙂 How do I switch him from kibble to raw?? I’d really like to know!!

[Cheryl Pepper Millie Sophie]

I would add 25% of the commercial raw to his diet for say 1-2 weeks, transitioning is a personal thing, some can do it rt away, some not.
But in my opinion with raw I would do it slowly, say after 1 week cut back on the blue buffalo by say another 25%,add more raw, see how his tummy takes to the new food. Also monitor his stool for any change, if you see a change cut back on raw & wait until his stomach settles down.
You might want to add a probiotic or digestive enzyme during the transition -the honest kitchen makes a so called transition enabler called “Perfect Form” which worked for me. TheHonestKitchen.com
I will check back later to see if you have more questions, 1 of my angels needs her walk ,so i must go.
Good luck

[Nancy C]

Here’s what I did. I was very nervous because my GSD had had terrible digestion problems and the vet was pouring down HILLS WD formula (which is sawdust) in him which made me cringe.

I ordered an air dehydrated dogfood called BIG DOG NATURAL. You can Google it. My homeopathic vet recommended it and Darwin’s to me and HE suggested that I start out with Big Dog because it has fermented vegetables in it and that is outstanding for the digestive track. One morning I started cold turkey on it. They LOVED IT. I have an 11 yr old Golden and a 2 yr old GSD. They licked the bowl for almost a minute! I was amazed. So that fast they were on RAW FOOD. I took it carefully for two or three weeks – they had NO PROBLEM with that food, and it is air dehydrated RAW! Then one day I just gave them chicken. Raw. I followed the guidelines and gave the golden 17 oz and the GSD I had to end up giving him 2 1/4 pounds per day. I got the butcher to quarter the chickens (Whole Foods $7.99 and I would pick through the chickens and get a 5 pound one). He would quarter it for me. NOW I do all that myself. I get chickens at Costco that are non chemical/ no hormones. $1.09 a POUND! You have to have a set of scales to weigh out the proportions. And I cut the nub off the chicken drum sticks. Put the piece(s) in a bowl and voila. You need to give 10% organs and 1/2 of that must be liver. I also give them Mercola’s probiotics, a fish oil cap and garlic caps. Happy Dogs.
Good Luck.

[lovemypuppy]

I switched my 11 week puppy about a week ago to a raw commercial diet. I wanted to avoid giving kibble and raw in the same meal since they digest at considerably different rates. Instead, I planned on making 1 out of 4 daily meals raw, and then slowly working up to 4 out of 4 meals being raw when the transition was complete. This didn’t end up working for us because as soon as she got her first taste of raw, she refused to eat even a single kibble. Despite a fast transition, or lack there of, she did very well with no GI upset. I did give canned pureed pumpkin for a few days to help prevent any potential GI upset.

[Author]

Posts