Food and Health Q&As

Hi Cindy, I have 2 poodle mix dogs they are both 3 yrs old. I have been feeding them force for over a year now and they get along great with it. I put some high quality canned on top of it and some cooked meat. My question is about calories, I was considering switching to Verve, Is it less calories? Is it ok to switch back and forth between force and verve? They are fairly active but being small it is easy to put on weight. The canned food I use is Spot's Stew & Merrick. They also ...

Cindy, Hello. I have been talking with Connie back & forth on the leerburg forums in regards to raw feeding. We are going to be switching from kibble to THK & get started on the raw. What should we introduce with the THK to our dogs? What THK should we purchase? Any ideas you can provide is greatly appreciated. Do you need the weight & ages of my dogs? I have been wanting to go raw for a few years now but I have been very intimidated on getting the raw feeding right for our pups. W...

Hi, I am using Preference for my 5 yr. old Dogo and my 8 yr. old Golden. I will be getting a Lab puppy about 8 weeks old. Should I use Preference and does it have the right ratio of calcium and phosphorus? Dogs can develop a bone disease when the calcium/ phosphorus ratio is disrupted. I always add beef meat and pork and sometimes chicken. I do cook the meat. Should I be adding calcium to the diet? I do give them yogurt add vitamin E and eggs a few times a week. They also get Acai & Goji ...

Hi Cindy, I had a couple of questions in regards to The Honest Kitchen. I have two little maltipoos- 5 and 7 lbs. I recently started them on the Force diet and mix in a little kibble with it (they seem to like some crunch in there). I have noticed that they have far more frequent bowel movements since being on this food. 4-5 a day. Is this normal and what does this mean? Are they not absorbing the nutrients in the food? Will this go away? I was curious as to what you might recommen...

Hi Cindy, I have a 14 week old Black Russian Terrier. I have her currently on Innova Large Breed Puppy food and would like to transition her to Honest Kitchen. I have a couple of questions and concerns. As an owner of a Giant breed I am obsessed with worrying about calcium rates, and calories and I don't understand it all that well. With giant breeds and I am sure with your GSDs, these are concerns along with a multitude of other things like "no stairs, no over exercising and e...

Hi Cindy, My name is Chris & I would like to gradually switch our 8 & 1/2 year old dogs to this diet. Hobie is a male border collie/shepherd mix & Molly is an Australian Shepherd. Both dogs currently are eating Canidae chicken & rice ( canned) & Molly eats California Naturals lamb & rice kibble as well. About a year ago we added Hill's RX Diet "WD" to Hobie's meals, as he seemed to have recurrent problems with diarrhea ( unless I added loads of rice to his food & I was afrai...

Hi Cindy, Thank you for such an informative site. I have been feeding my GSD about a pound of natures variety raw diet for breakfast. I feed her 1 1/2 cups HK force for dinner along with some raw beef or chicken....sometimes about 3 hours after she eats her HK dinner she will start to whine and want outside where she quickly eats lots of grass. After about 20-30 minutes she is just fine and wants to play. She has been on this HK for about 6 months now (the natures variety for 3...

Hi Cindy... I have a new 11 week old golden doodle that came from sixth day ranch (they recommend you on their web site) I would like to use the honest kitchen food but need some help on what kind and how much and can I mix it with the grain free evo kibble he is eating now???? Any advice would be great... Thank-you, Robin

Cindy, I was wondering if you have heard of EVO from Innova it is grain free and how it compares to Honest Kitchen. From there web site they don't recommend feeding EVO to large breed dogs under 2 because it is low in carbs. Is this true with honest kitchen? I have a GSD that is 21 months old and I am looking for a grain free food. Have you ever had any problems with E coli from the raw diet, lately it seems that there has been a lot of e coli recalls? Thank you for your...

I have a GSD that has dry itchy skin and is scratching a lot. I used a special shampoo from the vet which others have asked you questions about and it did not help. Which kind of Honest Kitchen would you recommend? I was looking at Thrive and did not know if that would help with the dry skin and scratching I described below in the email I sent you yesterday or if I should use a different one of the Honest Kitchen types of foods. I was looking at the Red barn meat rolls product for usin...

I am strongly considering switching my 4 dogs to this food (Thrive). Right now I am feeding 3 different types from Science Diet( Growth, Light, and Senior). I had previously fed Flint River but switched due to the cost. I was looking at the options for my dogs and I think the Thrive would be the best bet. I have a 3 yr GSD, 13 yr Golden, 19 yr Golden and 16 mo Golden. I would love to have just one food to handle but want the correct food also for their needs. My older golden has a h...

Wish I had discovered this site long ago. I've got a 10 year lab. Allergies galore. We've tried all kinds of diets. Lamb is very bad. Yep, I said lamb. We were using Wellness with whitefish--which seemed to help a lot. But Trixie developed bladder stones from it. Now she is on a vegetarian diet which I supplement with ground beef and egg. I do cook the ground beef and egg though. Trixie seems happier. However, if I go away I'm not sure the kennel will be eager to do what I d...

Hello Cindy, I just ordered several items from Leerburg and now I've decided to get your raw diet foods. My 4 yr. old German Shepherd just had a scary attack of bloat symptoms which stopped after I gave her Mylanta Gas and she ate a lot of grass. She is on "Life's Abundance" dry kibble-all my five dogs and 3 cats - can you add the food to my order? If you could guide me to get started (I read the site but not sure which to go with) I would give them raw meat and vegetables, yogurt ...

Hi Cindy, Thanks so much for your great site... I was wondering if you know how much flax is in say one cup of force? Thanks, Jan

Greetings, I wrote to you a few days ago and I wanted to first say thanks for the quick reply. I have another question in regards to feeding a raw diet; I have been doing lots of research and discussing the information with my husband. He hates the idea of feeding the dog a raw diet, I have brought the subject up from the point of view as how the dog would eat that way if in the wild, be he keeps telling me that she is a dog and just feed her dry dog food. I also spoke with my vet ...

I have recently began feeding raw. The forum on leerburg helped me get past a lot of my worries and helped me get started. I still wonder if I'm giving enough variety and if I'm balanced over time enough. I wanted to to this myself without the aid of a store bought food, but feel it would be best right now to do just that until I know more. I don't want to fail at this by giving store bought food, but I also don't want to malnourish my dog. Would you still consider Honest Kitchen to be good e...

My 55 lb. (was 65 lbs. but shed 10 lbs in 2 months) Labrador Retriever on the Raw Meaty Bones diet since October and she loves it! I currently live in Southern California and will be relocating to Hutto, Texas in February 2007 to attend The Triple Crown Dog Academy. I will be driving there with my dog and staying for the 12-week program. I want to keep her on the raw diet but have no idea how I can bring 3 months worth of frozen raw meaty bones with me during the drive. I don't know if I ...

I wanted to know, on your website it says for up to 70lbs 2 3/4 dry cups while the bag of embark says up to 4 1/2 cups. We have an American bulldog that is 6 months old and weights 65 lbs. What do you suggest for the amount. If we adjust to 4 1/2 cups for his weight, is it fine or is that too much? We also have a 10-yr-old English Bulldog. He likes it much better with dry kibble mixed in it. Is it okay to just keep mixing his food this way?

I have a German Shepherd female 3 years old that some where around 2 years old developed food allergies. According to the lab work from Bio-Medical Labs she is allergic to: Chicken Beef Peanut Corn Carrots Oats Beets Rice Border line on Pork She is currently eating Royal Canine Duck & Potato dry food or can. I buy ground Turkey breast and barley cook it, also can salmon, and or course she is limited on most treats. Treats I give duck & potato, real meat venison, fish...

I was very interested in the fact that you are offering dehydrated Chicken based food for dogs. I have been feeding raw for about 8 years and the only time it presents a problem for me is when we are camping so the idea of being able to purchase chicken dehydrated for camping sounds great but I have a question about it. My understanding is that when dehydrating raw meats a large amount of bacteria is generated due to the low heat of the dehydrators and leaving the meat in the dehyd...