The Raw Diet! - Page 1

I am taking the great leap foward and will be giving my dog a raw diet. I live in Pakistan where the slughter houses are not very hygenic but they are still feeding than purina puppy chow. I cannot import Innova Evo every month as it costs close to $ 400 a month! So can you guys tell me what to feed, how to introduce the raw diet? Some people worry about ecoli and i find that starch, carbs,fat and sugars in commercial food are perfect for storing ecoli. Raw meat if im not wrong is digested in 2 hours right? So i guess ecoli does not get enough time to multiply and affect the dog right? Also some dogs who eat their own crap do not get ecoli. Whatever the condition of the raw meat, it is still better than poo right? If dogs dogs dont get sick by eating their on poo then would would they get sick by eating meat? Anyway what should i include in her diet? Big raw meaty bones?

OM- Organ Meat, RMB- Raw Meaty Bones, MM- Muscle Meat

The dogs do not need the veggies or the grains so don't worry about them. They no longer exist in your world for the dogs. They are human requirements, not canine. They do need the proteins and if you can get it, raw tripe.

The OM's are the minimum...5% of the diet. RMB's should be about 55% (chicken backs, wings, turkey backs, wings, pork neck bones...you get the idea. More bone than meat but some meat on them.) MM is any meat that doesn't contain bone. (We call them roasts, steaks, stewing meat, etc. - cheaper cuts. BEEF HEART is a muscle meat if you can get it.) Chicken leg quarters (leg and thigh) should be considered both the RMB and the MM for that meal.
 

A local butcher or wholesale supplier can get you the items you need in bulk. You'll probably need to thaw it (most come frozen) then cut it up and package for meals. That's the cheapest way unless you know a hunter that can get you the more exotic meats.

Variety is key. If you see chicken, turkey, beef, pork, lamb, etc. on sale and it is a reasonable price for the dogs ($1.00/day approximately per meal) get it. Cut it up. Freeze it.

And, re-freezing is not an issue. That goes to texture as regards us humans. The dogs don't care and it doesn't affect the quality.

Balance is balance over time and comes from variety. Don't forget canned or fresh mackerel. (Freeze fresh fish for two weeks minimum before feeding to kill the parasite that is transferable to a dog but I've never heard of a dog getting it yet).
 

Hope this helps you along..  Shannan :)                             Courtesy of justlurkin  :)

Thanks Shannan. So my dog's diet should comprise of leaver, beef heart 5%, raw meaty bones 55% and what about eggs?

Dogs do need some fibre as if they were to catch and kill their own food they would be getting fibre from the stomach of their prey.  I know someone who successfully uses carrots and dry sugar beet pellets in maintaining good health in her dogs.

Shannan.  You're funny.  

Just remember no weight-bearing bones (leg bones) of the larger animals as the RMB part of the diet. (Poultry/fowl is ok.) 

If they're cut large enough some of the leg bones and knuckle bones (soup bones) are fine for supervised recreational chewing.  Make sure they're not cut so small/narrow that the dog can get them over his lower canines and under the jaw after they get the marrow out.  That's not a pretty situation there.

As far as starting them on raw -- I started cold turkey.  Excuse the pun.  When the kibble ran out we started on chicken and introduced one new protein every 10 days to 2 weeks until they were getting full variety.  No OM the first few weeks.  It can give them the runs at first.

Canned 100% pure whole pumpkin can be given for dogs who are too constipated (stool too hard, white, crumbly) or too loose (diarhea).  (Not the pie filling with the spices but 100% pure pumpkin.)

Constipated = too much bone, not enough MM.  Diarhea = too much MM, not enough bone or too much O.M.

aristianM:  How much have you read about the raw diets, percentages, amounts, etc.?  How old is the dog?  What is the dog's activity level?  How much should your dog ideally weigh at maturity?  How many times a day do you feed?  All of that needs to be taken into consideration when determining how much to feed.

My pup loves eggs. Sometimes I give him just the  yolk and  sometimes  I  give him the whole egg.  There is  controversy about  the  egg,  so my compromise is  to  do  both.

When I give him a whole egg, I just smash it into his bowl. He will bite into it himself but he makes a mess and I have to make sure he doesn' get it all over the floor because it will roll off his placemat.

I buy whole chickens with the gizzards, liver, neck and heart. I cut the chicken into parts and then cut off most of the chicken breast meat for myself. The breast cage and cartilege are really good for him.

Michele and Pharaoh

AristianM:  Liver is an organ meat (OM) and should only be 5%.  Beef heart is the muscle meat (MM) and should be about 40-45%.  The RMB's are 50-55%.  An egg with a shell once in a while won't hurt.  Don't overdo it and don't make it a main part of the diet.

Beepy: Raw green tripe (canned if you can't get raw) is excellent .  Dogs love it.  Stinks to high heaven.  Feed and process outside.  Trust me on that.     It's not so much for the fiber but for the digestive enzymes.  The fiber doesn't hurt. :-)

A lot of your root veggies are just plain too high in sugar.  The dogs don't need them.  They'd have to be pureed for the dogs to even get anything out of them.

If you want to feed a fibre product do the canned pumpkin.  It's not necessary.  Some feel better doing it.  Yogurt (plain, unflavored) will also help with the good flora.

 www.rawmeatybones.com is Dr. Tom Lonsdale's website. It's a great site with 2 free books to download, and number of articles, faq's etc  imo worth reading.

susan

I have a couple questions/observations. I had a friend you fed raw to his GSDs. I've heard that the food doesn't stay in the digestive system long enough for the Ecoli or Salmonella. Also heard that raw bones won't splinter. Well.... he brought his female to the vet to be spayed. As per instructions, she had her last meal before 6 pm the night before (a raw meal). The next morning she had the surgery about 9:00 am. Afterwards when she was waking up in her kennel, she puked.... now around 11:00 am. What did she puke up? Her raw dinner - complete with splintered chicken bones. So why was that dinner still in her stomach almost 18 hours later?

I'm really not trying to bash feeding raw. My instinct tells me it's best. My lazyness doesn't want to be bothered with it. The inconvenience of living in an apartment in a large city makes it even more difficult, I think..... no local butcher shops or hunting type places like where I used to live in Michigan. But I always keep wondering about that dog with the meal still inside all those hours later and with splintered bones to boot.

Any idease? or was this just one fluke thing?

I would guess that your friend didn't feed a "raw" bone.  Raw bones (properly processed) still contain moisture.  Can they splinter?  Yes.  Does it happen?  Rarely.  It's generally the cooked bones that are dry and splinter, especially if the dog doesn't chew.  Could have been bad feeding practices by your friend.  Meals are supervised to make sure the dog is chewing.  My guess is that the bones weren't "splintered" but undigested. 

Two hours - I've heard that before.  My raw fed dogs have a bowel movement every 12-18 hours.  Usually about 12.  Sometimes longer depending on their meal.

It's not a matter of "moving through the digestive tract faster".  The dog does have a shorter digestive tract but that doesn't mean that the raw diet moves any "faster".  In fact kibble moves faster. It's a matter of being thoroughly digested with all the digestive enzymes that consume the bacterias, pathogens, what have you.  The dog expels the unusable waste. 

Look at the difference in stools between raw fed dogs and kibble fed dogs.  There's a lot of waste with kibble and there's only one place it can go.  

That's the short answer as close as I can guess.