[LINDA F]

Thanks for your post. As a newbie, every bit of real experience helps!
Linda

[LINDA F]

Bill, just ignore ignorance. People like anon101 is the main reason that people of all faiths, colors, creeds and back grounds have a difficult time getting along peacefully with others. I find that visiting other cultures and trying to make friends with ALL people promotes tolerance and understanding. I think the people who LOOK for something offensive will make almost anything appear offensive just so they can irritate someone into responding. I believe they want a response because they are dull, little people and so uninteresting on their own that any attention they get is rewarding to them. They are like young children who crave attention but they are not mature enough to care whether it is attention for good behavior or bad behavior. They just want the attention. Now having said that, I have probably given him a new target, me! LOL!! But this is my one and only time in playing his game! So I suggest that everyone ignore him and eventually, without any more attention given to him, he will go away. I am so grateful for your help. You have made this so much easier for me and for that I will be eternally grateful.
Linda

[LINDA F]

Here I am again! I stand corrected on my initial opinion of whether or not feeding a puppy a raw diet is good. I have gotten so much valuable info from Spy Car! He easily broke it down so that even this old lady can manage the raw diet. I trust this man completely. I think the only thing I could add to this is, if you are going to go to a raw diet for a puppy, you would need to be vigilant in a weighing your pup every week! Since puppies can and will have growth spurts, it would be absolutely necessary to keep adjusting the amount of food in order to ensure that the pup would be getting all the required meat, bone and organ meat so that his body has the necessary building blocks to nourish a healthy growing body. I am still searching for a market that sells beef hearts or kidneys! The existence of Spleens or the other secreting organs seem to myths so far! LOL!! I do not want to go to a packing house because I do not trust that those organs are handled properly and that they might be tainted. I checked out the Monster Mash from Raw Feeding Miami. This seems to be a perfect solution for me. They say that the mix is complete as far as the 10% organ requirement. They also advised that the mix arrives cold and can be divided into smaller portions and refrozen safely. As Spy Car advised, I am adding the meat, bone and organ requirements for one meal in a zip lock baggy and freezing them. Then all I have to do is place tomorrow’s meal in the refrigerate to defrost over night! I will pick out one day a month to prepare meals for the entire month! At that point, raw feeding will be almost as easy as opening a can or pouring a bowl of kibble! I am not experienced enough yet to know exactly how much of the Monster Mash I will need for a month but since they have a 15 lb minimum shipping charge, I will just order 15 lbs to see how many zip locks it makes! I know if my math skills were better and my mind were as sharp as it once was, I could figure this out but, alas, it is what it is! Again, kudos to Spy Car, who has been beyond helpful in untangling this sometimes very confusing raw diet that my old girl just loves!
Linda

[LINDA F]

Sorry, that sentence should have read “However, I was told that I was feeding her way too much bone and NOT enough meat or organ meats.” I am horrible at proofing reading my own letters! I have the tendency to read what I THINK I wrote.
Linda

[LINDA F]

To Patty,
I am a novice at this. From what I understand, a lot of people are feeding their puppies on a raw diet, However a puppy’s dietary needs are different from adult dogs and the ratio of meat to bone to organ meats is different. I have an old pit bull and she had almost stopped eating her kibble and any wet food that I used to entice her to eat. I tried some raw chicken drumsticks with bones, raw chicken wings with bones, raw chicken thighs with bones and an occasional raw chicken liver and she perked up immediately. However, I was told that I was feeding her way too much bone and enough meat or organ meats. I was not feeding the proper ratio but Spy Car’s post really helped me understand how to do it correctly. By the time I memorize all the ratios and I get the hang of feeding the proper ratio to my old girl, my Morkie puppy will have reached her first birthday. If my old girl is still thriving on the raw diet, I may introduce the Morkie to the raw diet and see if she does as well. However, and this is strictly my own opinion and I am in no way qualified to give you professional advice, but I am going to wait for my Morkie reach one year before I begin introducing her to the raw diet. Just be aware that feeding a raw diet is more trouble than just pouring some kibble in a bowl or opening a can of dog food. Good luck!
Linda

[LINDA F]

To Spy Car,
Oh, thank you so much! I am printing this mail for reference until I develop an eye for what I’m doing. The way you explained it makes it so much easier and I’m pretty sure I can do this now! I was just overwhelmed and confused by all the conflicting info I found when trying to research a raw diet! My old pit bull just loves the raw chicken and she is doing so much better. Now I will be more confident that I am not killing her with it.
Again thank you for taking your time to help a stranger.
Linda

[LINDA F]

Hi Susan!
Thank you so much for your response. No, she was not on Zignature then. Funny you should suggest Canidea! I had been feeding feeding all my dogs Canidea All Life Stages Multi-Protein kibble for many years and was well pleased with the Canadea. However, when my old dog, Kayli, stopped eating almost anything and I found out her liver values were so high, I thought perhaps she might be more tempted by some other brand. I only changed all the dogs over to Zignature about 6 months ago. She still would not eat much and was still losing weight and muscle mass and I also tried Fromm’s Gold but the results were no better so I put them all back on Zignature and was desperate so I decided to try the once a day raw feeding. It is the ONLY thing that seems to have worked for her to tempt her appetite and increase her energy levels. She’s a much happier dog now and in fact, when it starts getting close to noon and I walk into the kitchen, Kayli thinks I am about to give her the raw chicken and will come trotting into the kitchen. When she sees I am doing something else and not getting the raw chicken parts from the frig, she will get an almost disappointed look on her now gray face, and go back to the living room! My son worked at GNC for years and he checks out all the food before we try it out on the dogs. He said Zignature seemed to be a healthy alternative to the Canidea. However, again, thank you so much for taking your time to try to help.
Sincerely,
Linda

[LINDA F]

Hi Bill!
Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!!! I was afraid the bones might be a problem but every time I tried to get a straight answer, they would start talking about calcium and phosphorus and what % to what % of meat and then adjust that to the dog’s weight plus adding a certain % of green veggies and fruits, and my eyes would roll back in my head! Just teasing but as you read in my posts, I am an old lady and unfortunately I also have macular degeneration so trying to get a scale with numbers large enough for me to read but still capable of weighing things less than 10 lbs is near impossible. Also one of the posts I read on this site stated her dog was doing fine on a raw diet until she gave it a beef heart and now the dog is critically ill! I’m already as skittish as a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs about feeding her the raw diet so I certainly do not want to add something that could be dangerous to her! Could I just substitute deboned chicken thighs instead of the legs and thighs with bones? Would just one chicken wing with bones and two deboned chicken thigh with a couple of gizzards/hearts and a quarter cup of beef or chicken liver every day be okay for the once a day raw feeding while she is still eating 14 oz of wet food and approximately 1-2 cups of kibble where she will still get some of the minerals etc she needs to flourish? Was the guy who said feeding liver everyday incorrect and not dangerous after all as long as I do not feed her too much liver every day? I am simply incapable of weighing her raw food every day and adding more measured items at the right % of each. I have always been very independent so I hate to keep harping on my age and the limits on my abilities but I order my groceries from Walmart and once a week my son will come over and drive me to the pick up dept to pick up my ordered groceries before he has to be at his work. He often works 6 days a week. There are not many butcher shops in the small town where I live. He does not have time to drive me around to meat markets to buy the things that Walmart does not stock. They do not carry beef hearts but they do carry beef liver! I have shied away from buying roasts or large cuts of meat due to having to cut them up and weigh them to get the right proportions. I could easily cut up the beef liver and feed her a quarter cup or half cup, whatever would not be dangerous for her. Using a measuring cup is no problem since I have individual measuring cups and can tell which is which. Measuring by weight is another matter altogether. I really do appreciate your post and it has confirmed my gut feeling that perhaps I was including too much bone. But, lordy me, does that dog love to crunch up those bones! She is okay with the thighs and drumsticks but does not relish them as much as she does those chicken wings! Surely one wing with bones is not too much bone in her every day diet? She weighs about 65-70 lbs. If I cut out the kibble and wet dog food, she would not get enough food to satisfy her hunger and I simply cannot measure all those items in the proper percents to put her on a completely raw diet. She was pretty close to giving up until I added the (to me) small amount of raw food to her regular diet. Before adding the raw diet, she sometimes would not really eat much for several days at a time. Now she is eating almost all the wet food and almost all the kibble and every bite of the raw chicken every day! I truly apologize for being such a pain but I honestly appreciate what you have suggested. I forgot to mention that she is also on thyroid medication which she gets twice a day. Sincerely, Linda

[LINDA F]

Hi! Okay, here is my story and do not take this as informed or a professional opinion. I have kept 3 dogs in my home for most of my adult life and I am now 75! All dogs are seen by my vet several times a year including a full “WELLNESS” check up once a year. I currently have a 12 year old rescued pit bill that is so sweet and a joy to have around. On her last check up, her liver values were very high. So my trusted vet of 20 yrs told me it could be a mass in her belly, Cushings Disease or liver disease. I asked what can I do. His first recommendation was to do a liver ultra scan which did not show anything out of the normal except it looked that it might have “sludge”. His next step was to advise a liver biopsy which due to her age and need for anesthesia, could be fatal, plus it is costly. Or we could do a stomach exploration but the same warnings were in effect and again very costly. So I asked a simple question, what treatment would be employed should it be a stomach mass or Cushings? He said he would not really change what he was already we were already doing. I then told him that since the tests were so expensive, I did not need to know the name of the exact malady that was killing her if it would not treated differently. I then asked him would he do if it were his dog? His reply was due to her advanced age and the very large risk anesthetic posed to her, that if it were his dog, he would not chance it. Twelve years is a respectful old age for a dog and he would just try to make her comfortable and happy for her remaining time with us. Now she did not appear to be in any discomfort but of course with a dog, you cannot always tell that. It’s not like they can tell you “My tummy hurts”. However I did notice that her energy levels and appetite were dropping and she began to lose weight and muscle mass. I have a friend who is a certified dog trainer. I was whining to him about feeling useless to help my dear old companion and he suggested that I try a raw diet. I told him at 75, I am really not up to weighing meat to combine with a list of dog supplements that have to be purchased and are sometimes hard to find, then measure all those to mix with steamed vegetables to go along with the raw chicken parts. So I just made this diet up. I feed her one can of a premium wet food for breakfast around 6am. She sometimes eats all of it and sometimes just nibbles at it. Around noon, I feed her one raw drumstick, one raw thigh, and one raw chicken wing, all with bones. I buy the same chicken as I feed my family so I am hoping they are safe for her! I also buy a package of hearts and gizzards and a package of raw chicken livers. I add to the raw chicken a couple of gizzards and hearts. I read from a raw diet blog that you should not feed raw livers every day but 2-3 times a week. I can manage that! She eats every scrap left in the bowl and then licks it to make sure she got every morsel! Then at night I give her a cup or two of Zignature kibble. Again sometimes her bowl is licked clean in the morning, sometimes it is just nibbled on but over all, she mostly eats everything I put in her bowl! Wonders of wonders! She has put back the weight she had lost and is building muscle mass! No, she is no where near gaining enough weight to make her fat but her energy levels are up, her coat is shiny and she once again seems to be really enjoying her life. I figured if all these premium diets touted that they have all the proper amount of supplements a dog needs and she usually eats almost everythingl, that perhaps I don’t have to kill my own old silly self trying to keep her alive and happy! Just to make sure you do not misunderstand me, if she were my one and only dog, I would probably be able to do all the searching for supplements and weighing etc but I also have a year old Morkie and an 8 month old Rottweiler that I feed twice a day. I do not feed the other two dogs a raw diet. As a treat once or twice a week, I will feed the Morkie a chicken liver or a heart or a gizzard but since the Rotty is a large breed dog and still growing, she does not get any raw chicken parts. The other two dogs have no problems eating wet dog/kibble each day and are thriving so no reason to rock the boat for them by changing their diet! I don’t know if I am doing the right thing with my old pit bull. All I know is that for the last two months, since I began the diet above, my old pit bull seems eager to eat. She looks forward to her early morning walks once more, is alert and even goes out to play with the two young pups. Now, she does not chase them as she would have when she was younger, but she seems to enjoy trotting a few yards as they streak by her while she is wagging her tail and barking! I may be doing all the wrong things and hastening her death but my conscious is clear since she appears to be enjoying her life now and before she just looked and acted old and feeble. Again, this is just my own solution and it has NOT been approved by any professional. Please no hate mail but I would welcome any comments or suggestions that do not require a large amount of my own decreasing energy levels. Oh yeah, at first I tried adding the freeze dried raw food by Stella (?) to their Zignature kibble but none of my dogs really cared for it.
Thanks for reading this long email but I think it’s an old age thing! LOL!!!
Sincerely,
Linda

[Author]

Posts