[charles h]

Hey,

Your definitely not adding enough bone to the diet. It’s very hard with a young dog to get the consistency right. Our puppy refused to eat any chicken bone and we had to literally starve her but it is all we could do to avoid runny stools.

She now eats a full raw diet with no complaints and looks healthier for it. The trick is to not give in and feed her ‘other’ food just to get them to eat.

Stick with raw and it wil work itself out.

[charles h]

Hi Glen,

How did the change of diet happen, for example was your dog on kibble then one morning changed to raw food?

Any change of diet even going from one type of kibble to another instantly without a weening period can result in an upset stomach.

Bacteria does not affect dogs as it normally affects the intestines not the stomach however dogs have a much shorter intestinal track than humans so bacteria can not grow to cause issues.

I would guess you changed diet too quickly, persistence will ease any stomach upsets your dog has however you can use some human anti-diarrhea tablets in the meantime to make sure your dog does not loose too much liquid.

Bones such as chicken bones can also be used a binding agent to solidify stools so you can feed less meat and more bone to harden up your dogs stool then introduce more meat carefully monitoring their stools.

Hope this helps

Charles

[charles h]

Hey,

Thanks again for the replies…

She did have her monthly worming tablets about a week and a half ago.

The injections she had was one for antibiotics, one for Anti-inflammatory (as she was passing blood due to swollen intestines) and one for anti-diarrhea. I mean they work to a point as in she is not passing blood, she didn’t have diarrhea anymore, etc.

She does seem to be gaining weight well and when she is not ill I do tend to feed her a slightly higher % of her adult body weight to help her gain. We had her weighed about 2 months ago and she was 22Kg, six weeks later she was 27Kg so 5Kg in six weeks seemed like good weight gain to me. She has had two bad weeks so she might have lost some weight again now…

However she was fed with about 300 grams of plain raw chicken last night with some bone. She has not been sick or had any diarrhea, so no stool sample taken however I’m prepared with my little pots to collect it if she has another bad turn.

Moving forward I’m going to purchase these two items from amazon:

As well as keeping her on a chicken only diet with some fish oil to keep up nutrient levels. After four weeks of this I will judge if I believe she is better and ready for another meat to be added to her diet.. I’m also removing the Chicken skin to try and reduce fat levels as I know they can be hard to digest and cause loose stools…

What does everyone think of my plan 🙂

Charles

[charles h]

Hi,

Thanks for your reply..

Yeah when she was first ill (at about 8 weeks) we took her to an animal hospital and she was tested for everything (except stool actually only blood). This is when we went through lots of different foods and digestive enzymes and all sorts to try and settle her stomach.

Since then we moved to raw food and she was great at first (like first month) but has slowly deteriorated (possibly since introducing more meat types on a monthly basis). She has been to the vets two or three times in the last couple of months each time given a set of injections and told to starve for 24 hours then start feeding again…

I will definitely read that link. We did feed boiled chicken and rice but now we find that just plain chicken with bone and no skin is actually better, she has much harder stool this way…

I’m thinking we simply take her diet right back to chicken only and almost restart the introduction to raw food again… Keeping in mind that when she first started this diet she was like a different dog…

However if it continues I guess we need to convince our vet to take diagnosis further as simple injections are not helping just masking over the problem..

My concern is that she is 9 months now and with this continuous issue and keep feeding her plain food to try and settle her stomach is she missing vital nutrients that she needs to grow and develop…

Charles

[charles h]

Thanks Cyndi,

From my understanding with Raw food can you not simply calculate the diet amount (percentage) on the dogs weight. I mean if she was a greedy dog who ate and ate then I would say I need to limit the food amount but shes quite self-regulated and has a very steady weight so surely the ‘rules’ of feeding are slightly not applicable?

I will think about what the best day is to go through some fasting.. Definitely something to think about moving forward…

I think I have found a website that does Green Tripe and other bits, it is actually a raw food diet site based off a farm in the UK.

What are your thoughts on freezing and defrosting foods for raw feeding is it a good idea?

Thanks,

Charles

[charles h]

Hi InkedMarie,

I do rotate proteins I normally go Chicken & Pork, then Chicken & Lamb, then Chicken & Beef… The problem I have is getting bone content as I have previously read that you cannot give Lamb or Beef bone as its too hard. I give Pork bone as in Ribs but it doesn’t seem to be enough to stop her stool being soft. Sometimes she gets Duck with the bones like a duck wing but its quite expensive when added together with the lamb and beef 🙂 so this is rare… I guess its too much chicken as its part of her whole cycle. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Hi Cyndi,

Yeah I guess she’s so spoilt I hate thinking about not feeding her haha! I haven’t tried to give raw green tripe as its quite difficult to get in the UK (not sure where you are all from)… I should be able to source some on the internet, I can only find dried tripe in the shops.

Hi Dori,

I hate seeing her little puppy eyes when she is hungry though 🙁 lol… I do feed her twice a day at the moment since about two months ago with a view to change this to once a day when she is a bit older (as I’ve read before not sure if you guys recommend this?)

Yeah I’ve read about the percentages she is just quite thin and it concerns me, also I’ve read puppies should have x% and adults x% but she is 8 months and I cannot find anything for junior feeding of how much the percentage should be so I’ve kind of gone in-between the puppy and adult percentage if that makes sense…

She may just be full and that has crossed my mind… Also another behaviour she has is to not eat when we are near her, even if we ignore her she will sit close to us rather than eat (I found this out last night); so I left her in the kitchen with her chicken legs which she ignored the whole time we had dinner (30mins or so) and she had finished it when I went back in after about 15 minutes. So maybe its just she prefers to be around us and she is too easily distracted to eat…

Thanks for all your help… Guess it’s all a bit of a learning curve, I just worry she is not getting the nutrients she needs to develop in to a healthy adult dog.

[charles h]

Hi all,

Thanks for all the replies it does seem like the route to go for sure!

I really like ZiwiPeak not sure why over the others, maybe I’m just a sucker for good marketing haha 🙂

Thanks,

Charles

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