Hi Everyone,

In reading posts on this forum, and listening to suggestions from my Vet, Groomer, coleagues and friends, I can honestly say I'm totally CONFUSED on what to feed my puppy now and when he gets older.
I curretnly feed him a mix of dry food with canned food.
What is the "Raw Diet" everyone alludes to in some postings?
Should/can a puppy/dog eat just dry food, or should it be a mix of dry and canned?
Can/should I give him raw meats?
I just want to be sure I feed him what is best for him to keep him healthy.

Thanks
Paul

Paul,
Welcome to the board. It is tough to answer your questions as they cover a lot of ground. You are wise to research this topic as you have and you will likely find Ed's Q & A on the All-Natural Diet just what you are looking for. Here is the link:
http://www.leerburg.com/feedingqa.htm
Also, there is a separate forum for threads on "Feeding Puppies" (titled thusly). You will find those threads helpful too:
http://www.leerburg.com/ubbthreads/postlist.php/Cat/0/Board/34
Lastly, some might advise you to purchase a book or two. Ian Billinhurst's books (Grow Your Dog With Bones and Give Your Dog a Bone and The Barf Diet, the three that come to mind) seem to be the primary source, but I'm sure there are others you will find helpful. Ed sells these books on this website:
http://www.leerburg.com/books.htm

Hope this helps....keep up with your research on this board and you will answer nearly all of your questions I'm sure.

Best,
J & G

I thought I would ask a related post to this one. I am a new member. My 18 mo GSD gets a mix of dry and raw. He loves chicken backs, but sometimes they don't seem to agree with him, he throws up part of them. He seems to be able to fragment beef marrow bones after a while, and that seems dangerous to me. Raw beef and lamb is great, but too expensive. I have not found a source of green tripe, but have heard that some people swear by it. Is canned tripe worth trying?

Paul:
The raw diet usually mentioned here on the board is Barf, thought up by an Australian vet named Billinghurst who wrote Give Your Dog A Bone, among others.

I don't feed Barf--my personal feeling is that it's a) too complicated and b) not close enough to what the natural diet would be for a carnivore. I feed prey model, not really thought up but made popular by a colleague of Billinghurst named Lonsdale who disagreed with him and prefered a more whole prey geared diet to the grinding and the veggies and the supplements. He wrote "Raw Meaty Bones", and "Works Wonders: Feed Your Dog Raw Meaty Bones". The first one's a why to, second one's a how to.

As for whether or not you should feed kibble/canned, well, most people are a bit "whatever works for you" but I tend to be very firmly opposed to kibble. It's behind way too many health problems. I look at it this way--any doctor you talk to will tell you to eat fresh foods rather than packaged junk, so why's it any different for your dog? (Note: don't ask your vet, the nutrition course they get is taught by the pet food companies so they're a little biased).

Raw is better--for the larger breeds like the GSD is keeps growth rate nice and steady, rather than spurts, thus cutting down on the instances of pano and HD, among other things. There are other reasons, but they'd take too much room, so PM me if you wanna talk.


Polly:
Mixing kibble and raw tends to upset dog's stomachs, since raw is digested in about 5 hrs and kibble takes about 16. Also, chicken backs are very boney, which tends to irritate the bellies of dogs that are new to raw, hence the throwing up--he's still learning to digest them, and once they've been in there long enough his tummy says, "Okay, out one way or the other bucko."

No kidding lamb is expensive--and beef, well, the only time my guys get beef is when it's beef heart or cheek meat, or if ribs are on sale. Also they get beef liver and kidneys, and sometimes hamburger. The only get lamb once in a blue moon, except I've recently found a source for a relativly cheap lamb organ mix (and llama! Whoo hoo!).

Mostly the red meat my guys get is pork. It's cheap, and it's just as good as beef healthwise. Why don't you give that a shot--and get your pup off of the chicken backs--try leg quarters.

As for tripe: canned is still cooked, so it's not all that great. If you can order it online, http://www.greentripe.com has great stuff--I'm lucky enough to have an outlet so I don't have to order it, but my guys love their tripe/gullet/trachea mix. As for swearing by it, eh. I've heard of some people giving it something like mystical powers or the like but honestly? It's the stomach of a cow. It's an organ, 99.999% of dogs love it like no other, but that's about it.

Sabrina,
I have noticed that a lot of people feed pork. Is trichanosis no longer a problem? They only got the beef and lamb when it got left a day too long in the fridge, it smelled fresh, but I preferred to treat the dogs rather then feed it to my kids. Thanks for the tripe site. Also, what about cow or pigs feet. We have a large store with a wide selection of meats.

If pork is frozen for at least 3 weeks, the flukes will be killed and trichinosis shouldn't pose a threat.

If you're buying meat meant for humans packaged in the US, England, Australia, or several other EU countries, trich is not a problem whatsoever. However, like Kristen said, if you're really worried, freezing the pork for a while will kill the flukes.

Pigs feet--know your dog. My dogs love pigs feet, however I had a rescue who I couldn't trust with them because she tried to gulp them down without chewing--they were just small enough she thought she could do it, and just big enough that she couldn't. Happily, she horked them up and chewed more carefully. For a German Shepherd size dog, make sure they're *whole* pigs feet, not quartered, or get a pig leg--asian markets call them long feet I think? It's the foot up to the knee or further and my adult dogs love'em.

Cows feet--if they're raw, maybe--depends on the dog. If they're cooked, like most I've seen are, I would advise against it--they can splinter (plus they smell awful, but that's not a deciding factor considering I feed tripe).

You mentioned beef and lamb--don't forget about chicken, turkey, duck, goose, fish, venison, rabbit...beef and lamb are great but there are a lot of other kinds of meat out there. There are people on the rawfeeding list who get ahold of stuff like llama, yak, kangaroo, antelope...I'm jealous <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />