Okay, so I'm dabbling ... Our pup now gets Yogurt almost daily, he loves apples & craisins. The other day I took a couple of mini lamb chops out of the freezer and gave them to him frozen. I think that he was in doggie heaven. :-)

My "local" providers of THK haven't been responsive, but the other day I was down in our Big City of Portland, and Planet Dog sells THK and Nature's Variety ... well they gave me some samples of the EMBARK.

So this morning I was heating up some water for the sample, and the minute I cut the packet open, our pup just went nuts. He was sniffing and hoping around like there was some good stuff here. Needless to say when I finally served him breakfast he loved it. I just wish the stuff wasn't so pricey. I know you get what you pay for, but if it is cheaper to go RAW than THK, then I think that is definately where we are headed.

Cheers!

Not sure how much THK costs, or how much of it you have to feed, but you could get pretty good deals in your supermarket or butcher. To be honest, I have a small dog, and reckon that had I a GSD or any large breed dog, things would be different.

I also think (without first hand experience so far) that one of the main benefits of feeding a raw diet is that dogs will have clean teeth, and you can't have that with THK.

Louanne,

I feed raw and I supplement with THK when 1)I am out of veggie glop 2)when I am traveling and 3)when I forget to take stuff out of the freezer or am low on groceries.

It seems pricey at first, but when you see the benefits happening in your dog and their overall health, visit the vet less often, realize that there is no stinky breath, and also less of and hardly smelly yard deposits, it is worth it.

I spend less on THK and groceries for raw each month than I did buying kibble food and I have quite a few dogs at times.

Okay, I've been reading the posts on here ... and I guess if you can get 20 something days of dog food for about a $1/day ... I guess RAW isn't that expensive.

So then the next question on my mind is how do you make sure that the dog gets a well rounded diet? I know I saw what looked like a banana in the THK ... and you mentioned Veggie Glop ... and I know that Vegetables are supposed to be minced, mashed or cooked if being fed to a dog.

Now it was a while ago that I read Ed's article about feeding RAW, but I don't recall details. So I'm being a schmuck and taking the easy way out, if you guys are all feeding RAW, I'd love to hear your about your methodology, portion control, et cetera. I know pups need more while their growing ... seems to be just a little more than double than for maintenance. So I'm all EARS and EYES.

Please do tell!

Cheers!

Here is a good book to start with:

http://www.leerburg.com/970.htm

Today I spent 30 minutes making glop for a month:
I get out my food processor and start by putting in 6 eggs (shell and all), some canned mackerel and/or salmon, 1 cup of plain yogurt, 2Tbs molasses, then I added spinach, frozen mixed veggies, celery, asparagus, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, radish, cucumber and some beet and zucchini. This is what I had in the fridge that needed to be used.
Then I added vitamin E, kelp and alfalfa and a bit of C.
It gets packaged in the reusable GLAD containers and frozen.

Then I spent about an hour and a half packaging chicken wings, backs and legs, buffalo liver, beef tongue and kidney and some deer meat and rotating the freezer.
I also went to the meat locker yesterday and got knuckle bones, ribs and hips for recreational so I wrapped them and froze most of those.

My dogs LOVE fruit so this gets added after I cut it up once in awhile as an added bonus. I keep it minimal because of the sugar.
I feed 2 to 3% of each dogs bodyweight. SO 2% for the Bloodhound is 1.8 to 2.3 pounds per day and 60% of this is meat 40% is veggie. (He weighs 90 pounds and this % maintains his weight)

If I work the dogs really hard, I do give a little more at feeding time.

Here is a page that may help (click on How much do I feed daily)
http://www.njboxers.com/faqs.htm#daily

I feed meat in the am and veggie in the pm. If I forget to take out glop, they get THK.
Everyone is different and there is no reason to fret over making each meal balance, because it seems to balance itself.

Cost for me is about $1.20 a day per dog since I get meat and carcass from neighbors and friends and the meat locker just lets me go through their scraps and bones. (They actually cut bones for me, and the grocery store saves the "on the verge stuff for me to take also)

Louanne,

The Leerburg kennel diet that you read about in Ed's article is roughly based on the book "Natural Nutrition for Dogs and Cats." The book is sold on the Leerburg website - I believe it is less than $10. It was the first book I bought about raw diet and the one to start with, IMO.

For amount, it's simple to start with a reasonable amount of food and adjust it every 2 weeks or so according to the dog's weight gain.

• I have a (roughly) 30 lb dog. In summer we do intense physical conditioning for high jump, flyball, and weight pulling. In summer she eats 3/4 to 1 lb every other day to maintain her weight at 28 - 29 lbs. In winter, she we don't do any conditioning, but she needs 1 pound every day to keep her skinny little hairless belly from freezing and maintain her weight at 31 - 32 lbs.
  
  
• My puppy weighs about 25 lbs at 7 months old and is eating 2 or 2-1/2 pounds each day. She's looking a little thin so I'll have to increase it (again) this week.
  
  
• I also have a 55 - 60 lb lab mix that is overweight on 1 pound per day. He was switched to raw recently, so we're still adjusting his portion.
  

I add small amounts of stuff a few days a week. Organ meat, banana, canned vegetables, fresh apples, plain cooked pasta or oatmeal (for dogs that seem to do better with an amount of grain in their diet), yogurt, cottage cheese, raw egg with the shell, leftovers , canned mackerel. I also add some supplements, but it depends on each dog's needs.

It costs about $30 per month for meat to feed my 3 dogs. The supplements go a long way and I haven't calculated their monthly expense.

My dogs love THK, but it adds quite a bit if bulk to the diet (sesame seeds in Embark and oats in Verve, for example) and the dogs' stools look more like kibble-fed stools. (harder to scoop up) THK is very expensive, IMO, so I reserve it for travel only.

Carol, I've been curious what your "glop" recipe is for a long time! What is the purpose of the molasses?

Taste...and it is the base recipe out of the book that I gave you the link to.
Oh, the one ingredient I forgot was Apple Cider Vinegar.

I actually enjoy getting ready for the month and I LOVE the way my dogs look and act on raw.

Also, I travel quite a little, so when I need someone to care for the dogs that I do not take with me, I place each meal (am and pm) for each dog in a ziplock bag and place the dogs name on the bag.
That way the "dogsitter" just has to unzip and dump. Works like a charm.

I highly recommend the zip lock bag idea, too...I thaw out a week's worth of meat at a time and put them in zip locks...then i just empty them out for Brenna and she goes to town...

I've cut back on my veggie portions to about a cup/cup 1/2 or so...I've noticed that she has less gas (thank God!) when I dial back on the veggies...I make enough for several days in the blender and add Omega 3 and Organic Kelp that I got from Ed's site.

I also feed chicken/beef livers, eggs, canned fish, peanut butter in smaller quantities

the last few weeks she's been getting anywhere from 1/2 a chicken to a whole chicken depending on how active we are during the day...a cup of veggies and somewhere around 8 oz of organ/eggs/fish materials.

She is beautiful and her teeth are unbelievably white. No bad breath ever and her energy level is off the charts. I understand sometimes things happen and a dry food is all you can do, but for me, kibble just doesn't come close to raw/prey food.