Merry Christmas, It's been a while, just updating, been about a year on raw feeding ... man my dogs love it. Raw Chicken & a daily multi vitamin my vet can't believe how healthy they are. Fritzi gained about 10 pounds all muscle, she don't look all scrawny anymore. Best advice I ever got is right here.
Thanks a ton Leerburg folks.

 Quote: RC Dennis

Merry Christmas, It's been a while, just updating, been about a year on raw feeding ... man my dogs love it. Raw Chicken & a daily multi vitamin my vet can't believe how healthy they are. Fritzi gained about 10 pounds all muscle, she don't look all scrawny anymore. Best advice I ever got is right here.
Thanks a ton Leerburg folks.

Well good!

I'll assume that since you learned the raw diet here, you do NOT mean just chicken and a vitamin (which is in no way a balanced diet).

I think you were planning on getting one of the raw books? And you got a few questions answered?

Here's a quick check, if you were looking for it, of your raw diet:

http://leerburg.com/webboard/thread.php?topic_id=32656&page=1#366439



Congrats!

PS If you are really feeding just chicken RMBs and a vitamin, you will definitely want to check out the link I posted and ask a few questions. There would be some shortages in that diet that would become serious over time.

PS

Happy holidays!

yes i didnt mention, they get veges almost everyday, Im the cook in the house and all we eat is fresh veggies, slightly steamed but still crunchy. Fritzi & my son love carrots she gnaws them like bones and she likes cauliflower more than broccoli but wont eat green beans. Tibby eats pretty much anything even squash. And I give them regular Dannon yogurt 2 to 3 times a week. Fritzi won't always eat it, Tibby licks it up like theres no more being made.
I was surprised they had them but I found a couple raw diet books at my local library. "Raising healthy pets" was one.
I do need to try some probiotics though ... kinda failed on that part. My wife uses Culturelle but I read the dog probiotics are different so I never gave the dogs any. Isn't the yogurt the same thing?

And of course fully digestible bones in the chicken, and some organ meat (5% or so of the diet), and some other meats for variety, plus fish oil and E.

I give yogurt and call it done, UNLESS the dog has a need to replenish probiotics because, say, of an antibiotic protocol, in which case I give plain unsweetened yogurt or kefir plus a probiotic supplement stirred in.

As for separate probiotics for healthy dogs ..... ehhhh ...... I'll just say that while the good bugs in a dog's gut do differ in some respects from the ones in our gut, I'm not really convinced about the need for separate products for healthy dogs. The crossover (the overlap) is big. This is JMO. http://www.ehow.com/list_6718233_human-probiotics-dogs.html


BUT if I had a dog with serious or recurring diarrhea or on repeated antibiotic protocols, or other challenge for which I want to give as much as possible of certain bugs, however, I'd be fussy. Here's some discussion of probiotics for dogs:
http://www.whole-dog-journal.com/issues/15_3/features/Probiotics-For-Dogs_20473-1.html

So, are you going to link us to pics of your dogs?

Congrats on the success you're seeing with raw feeding!

Nobody knows more about this topic than Connie Sutherland, so take her advice to the bank.

Raw bone-in chicken parts can certainly be the preponderance of the diet. But you really should try to start working in some additional items (if you haven't already).

The veggies are a good start. But even more important are these, IMO:

Red meat. Include some beef, pork, venison, or whatever you can on a regular basis, substituting some of the chicken for one of these different protein sources. These can be the cheapest cuts you can find. Beef and pork hearts are about the cheapest I can find, and are a regular part of my dogs' diets.

Organ meat. This means liver or kidney (from any source--chicken, beef, etc.) Small amounts, introduced slowly.

Also try other poultry sources: turkey is cheap, and so are some duck parts.

VARIETY in the diet is one of the best ways to ensure that you're covering all the bases nutritionally. Even eggs and canned fish like mackerel or sardines provide variety that is easy to find and cheap.

Even more important than a multi-vitamin and probiotic (IMO) are a daily fish oil and vitamin E supplement.

Mine get yogurt regularly, which I think is a fine supplement...as much for it being yet another protein source as it is a natural probiotic.

Again, congrats and good for you. Now that you're comfortable with raw feeding and are seeing success, it's time to just "take it to the next level."

This is a wonderful overview of a balanced raw diet: http://dogaware.com/articles/wdjhomemade2.html

My dogs eat primarily chicken and turkey raw meaty bones, with some pork rib tips (also called brisket). Muscle meats include beef hearts, lamb hearts, turkey hearts, chicken gizzards, turkey gizzards, course ground beef from Blue Ridge Beef, green tripe, and more. I try to keep the chicken and turkey muscle meats to a minimum since those meats are the main source of RMBs. Organ meats are beef liver (5% of total diet), chicken liver, lamb liver, beef kidney, pork kidney, etc. I do not go out of my way to feed vegetables, but will feed leftovers from my own meals.

I have given them pork once or twice, and chicken livers, nobody in my house but me eats liver so I seldom buy any liver.
I love beef & chicken Liver.
They pretty much have just been on chicken and the veggies. But I only give them veggies or yogurt like 3 times a week. neither of them has had diarhea in ages, their stools are moist but solid.
So is Vitaman E for humans the same for dogs? and same with the fish oil? My wife takes Vitamin E softgel 1000mg is that ok? or do they need doggie E.
The vitamins they get have Vitamin E 15IU in them, they also have fish oil .. I give them 2 tablets twice a week and 1 tablet 5 days a week. I don't want to overdo vitamins, But I will start giving them more meat variety from now on.
I havent taken pics of them in a while, I'll get some in the next couple days and put on my webpage. I have some videos on youtube but theyre a year old. this is the only recent one, tibby chomping chicken
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUnkO3YAH4k

Yes, the vitamin E and fish oil sold for humans is the same for dogs. The amount in the multivitamin tablet isn't enough.

The fish oil provides an essential fatty acid that is largely missing in even the best dog's diet, raw or manufactured, so supplementing it is important for all dogs. The vitamin E is added because it helps the dog's body metabolize the fish oil.

I have no problems with multivitamins as a nutritional "safety net" to supply missing nutrients. I take one myself. But I don't give one to my dogs. I'd rather spend those dollars on things I know they need more--like the fish oil and E...along with a varied diet that includes multiple protein sources.

So here's what I'd like to see you do to fine-tune your raw feeding:

1. Substitute a third of the chicken you're currently feeding with some other protein source. You can "rotate" in turkey, beef, pork, cooked eggs, canned fish, or anything else you can find. By the way--what chicken parts are you feeding now? Leg quarters? Whole chickens?

2. Continue to pay attention to the poops. If you add some boneless meat (say, a hunk of pork shoulder) you'll need to adjust the "boniness" of the chicken. I think chicken backs are just about the perfect dog food--they have lots of soft bones in them, they are super-cheap, and they are just right for mixing with some boneless meat in a meal.

(the amount of bone in the diet is largely responsible for the firm--but not rock-hard--poop consistency that raw-fed dogs have.)

3. Feed organ meats, liver or kidney, several times a week---up to 5-10% of the diet. But start this EXTREMELY slowly. Start with a piece of liver the size of your pinky fingernail. Then gradually increase the amount you feed. Too much organ meat fed at one time, especially to a dog unused to it, WILL cause diarrhea, I guarantee it. Organ meats provide a lot of nutrients that are not available in muscle meat. They are a must-have, IMO.

4. Stop focusing so much on the veggies as an "important" part of the diet. They are fine to feed some--and they do provide some additional vitamins---but not to the exclusion of the more important animal-source proteins in the diet. Vegetable matter should not make up any more than 5-10% at most. Also--any vegetables you feed your dog need to be "processed" in some way to make the nutrients available. Cooking, freezing, or pureeing are all possibilities. Raw vegetables will pass right through the dog and come out the other end unused because unlike humans, dogs cannot digest cellulose. So you have to do a little "pre-digesting" for them in order to make any plant-based food a suitable source of nutrition.

(this is why many people seek out "green tripe"...which is the partially digested vegetable matter left inside a cow's stomach. Dogs instinctively love this stinky mess. You can accomplish the same thing by freezing vegetables until they are mush, or putting them in the Cuisinart and blending them to pulp.)

Leafy greens and berries will give you the most nutritional bang for the buck...but mine also like occasional scraps of carrot, broccoli stems, peas, apple, sweet potato. But again, any of these plant foods are a very small "side dish" to a diet that is very-much meat based.

Hope some of this rambling helps.