I have been seriously considering switching my dogs to an all natural diet- I currently feed Canidae and it is doing wonders for my older dog so I was going to continue it with my new dog, but after reading through some this site and learning a bit more about a BARF diet I am thinking about switching.

I have a few questions though for those of you that do this type of diet. What do you do when you are travelling? If you go to a seminar say in another state with your dog, do you bring the food with you and if so where do you store it? I may one day be called on 10 day deployments with my dog and was wondering what I would feed. I knwo alot of you take you take your dogs with you places so what do you do?

I see that some of you feed a mix of both kibble and Raw and was curious as to the over all effect it has on the dog? Does it lessen the effectiveness of feeding an all nautral diet? Do you see the same types of improvement in all around health as those that only feed BARF? I guess I would be able to feed the kibble on a small dose to keep the dogs used to it and when I go away feed him only the kibble, but I am wondering if it is kind of like jogging 2 miles to catch up to the ice cream truck, does one cancel out the other?

Thanks for any input-

Due to time contraints, I feed my dogs about 75% raw or cooked food, and 25% super premium kibble. I used to try to feed them 100% BARF, but was unable to keep up with it. I haven't seen a noticeable decrease in their health since I started using some super premium dog food. The key to it is not to feed both kibble & raw in the same meal. If you are going to do it this way, feed kibble for one meal, and raw for the other. Do not mix them together because it takes much longer for the kibble to digest, which means the raw food ferments in their digestive system until the kibble has been digested.

As for your question about travelling, I don't travel so I can't give you much advice there. There are a variety of different freeze dried foods out there that would probably work well. If I'm not mistaken, BARF World sells freeze dried patties. PetSmart also sells a meat roll that I use sometimes that isn't too bad. Something like that would probably also work if your travelling.

I had the same questions when I was feeding BARF. I decided to keep my dog on kibble for breakfast, and BARF only for dinner, so that if I got called out, I could carry kibble in my pack.

You could make some BARF meals and freeze them, then toss them into a cooler when you get a call out. You could keep the cooler at base camp. I have also heard about freeze-dried food, but haven't checked into that one. I would think the freeze dried would be good, as it would probably be lighter than kibble, and take up less space in your pack. But, it sounds expensive.....I'm still considering looking into it, but for now, I feed Solid Gold Millennia.

If you have a cooler that you're taking with you or will have a freezer where you are staying, BARF World also sells 1/2 lb. frozen patties that already have everything mixed together. They come in a bag of 12 and are very convenient, but pretty expensive.

http://www.barfworld.com

I've heard of grinding everything together (with 1/2 tsp of egg shell powder per lb of meat instead of bones) and putting it in a dehydrator. Then you don't have to refridgerate it, and it's almost the same thing you feed at home (I plan on making the veggie mix with as much of the stuff as possible, so this would just mean buying ground chuck and saving a few egg shells). I haven't tried this yet, so I can't say how well it works but it sounds like something I will try when we ever find our dehydrator.

I think there are also a few dehydrated food rolls available from various sources, or you could always use kibble.

Thanks for all the repsonses- I think I am going to do a mix like some of you have suggested. For short call outs I wont need alot of food, and I will just keep the kibble that I have now stored away in case of a call out. And when the time comes for a longer call out then I can use the kibble. The freeze dried and frozen will be a good way to go when I have to leave the dogs at a friends when I travel without them, yes I do that sometimes,adn not expect them to handle raw food.

Now I just have to find a butcher.

Thanks again

I might be the wrong example to follow but this is what I do. Kibble, raw, and cooked. I use kibble because it’s easier and I don’t have to worry about screwing up. I do raw because of the extra protein and calcium, and cooked because I like to share my food with my dog. As a matter of fact last week while taking a little road trip to see my sons
Graduation. We made two stops at a fast food place and she had a hamburger each time. All I could tell you is that her eyes are clear her coat is shiny and she has enough energy to do 8 to 10 miles of roadwork each day. If you are going to introduce raw do it gradual. I started with shank bones. I must of done something because she never had to deal with any of side effects some people complain about starting raw.

GSDAR First issue I want to address is mixing kibble & BARF, that is not the way to go, if you still feel comfortable feeding kibble than you haven't really grasp the whole concept of why you should be feeding BARF only. Kibble has to be cooked which destroys a lot of the nutrients among other negative things. I think these books from Ed would answer a lot of your questions (Give Your Dog A Bone, The Barf Diet & Natural Nutrition for Dogs and Cats). Also checkout http://www.barfworld.com & http://www.home4life.com tons of info. I feed BARF thats already prepared and when I travel I use a cooler and I just refrigerate the rest when I get to my location. Using a prepared BARF product is very convenient.

Where do you get the prepared BARF and what does it consist of?

Yes, Rock, a prepared BARF diet is very convenient, but it is also VERY expensive. Some of us cannot afford to go that route, hence the raw, cooked, kibble combination, that milt & I both mentioned. I also enjoy sharing my food with my dogs, and it makes for greater variety. I don't know about the rest of you, but my dogs hate monotony, and if I try to feed them the same thing day in and day out, they will stop eating for 3 or 4 days.

There are some good natural kibbles out there like Innova, California Natural, Solid Gold, etc. There is nothing wrong with feeding a natural kibble if that's the best you're able to do, so don't try to make those of us who can't afford to spend a fortune on prepared raw food feel guilty about it. I started out feeding all raw and then had to switch to the combination way, and my dogs are just as healthy now as they were when they were eating all raw. Yes, an all raw diet is the best, but that doesn't mean you can't have a healthy dog any other way if you aren't able to do an all raw diet.

In answer to your question Jeannette, the prepared raw foods can be purchased at:

http://www.barfworld.com
http://www.auntjeni.com
http://www.stevesrealfood.com
http://www.omaspride.com/products.htm

and there are numerous others.

The link Rock listed for Homemade4Life wasn't right, but the Aunt Jeni's link is the one he was trying for. These prepared foods have everything already ground together, the meat, veggies and some of the extras.