Teething? Heh.

Try to keep him away from bones. Just try.

 Quote: Steven Lepic

Teething? Heh.

Try to keep him away from bones. Just try.

I'm doing what I can to keep him away from metal! I figure bones would be a step up!

Awww, little Carbs-butt is teething already is he?

Bones are great during teething. They help get those old puppy teeth out of the way. Otherwise you just have dark yucky half-hanging puppy teeth sitting in their mouths forever...

YAY for switching!!!

Don't worry so much. Provide good variety of meats and organs, veggies (optional) and fruits in small quantities and the supplements Connie mentioned and your dogs will do great!

I also buy human-grade supplements only. Better quality and far cheaper than the pet supplements.

Then again, I now feed whole raw fish (sardines and mackarel) on a regular basis to my dogs and I've also started including the brains and eyes of prey, so I don't give the Omega 3 supplements every day anymore. Vitamin C is a great one too.

If you want to add a "super food" in terms of vitamins and antioxidants, try berries!
I include frozen berries (frozen = cheaper and more nutritious) as often as possible for my dogs - berries are certainly far more species appropriate foods for dogs than most veggies that people feed


And if you do mess up their meals, you'll find out pretty quickly. Your dogs might lose all their fur, teeth and go blind within days...

KIDDING!!

I assume you prepare your meals and your child's meals on your own? And that no one in your family is malnourished and dying of nutrient deficiencies?

Happy feedings!!

 Quote: Yuko Blum

And if you do mess up their meals, you'll find out pretty quickly. Your dogs might lose all their fur, teeth and go blind within days...

I know, I know, I'm a loser! Thanks for putting it into perspective!

 Quote: Yuko Blum

I assume you prepare your meals and your child's meals on your own? And that no one in your family is malnourished and dying of nutrient deficiencies?

Well, yeah, but we all lost our fur and teeth and our vision's failing.

Thanks for the tip about the berries, BTW!

Oh, I don't know if this will make you feel any better, but I was a complete newbs when I switched my older female shepherd to a raw diet last year (she was 10 years old then, now she's 11).

The results were incredible.

The very first sign of improvement we saw came after her very first raw meal. Normal poop.
May not sound like a big deal, but this was a dog with chronic digestion issues who'd hardly had anything besides loose stools her entire life. NOTHING we'd ever tried had helped, but one meal of raw and her problem disappeared never to return.

She had advanced periodontal disease (horrible tartar as well) and the vet asked us to consider putting her under general anesthesia to get her teeth cleaned because there's "no other way to reverse the progression of periodontal disease which will inevitably cut her life short".
Two months on raw and she was completely clear of any periodontal disease!!!!
The tartar buildup disappeared from her teeth and her gums (which had gotten diseased and inflammed to the point of bleeding every time she so much as picked up a stick in her mouth) cleared up with all inflammation gone!
The vet was surprised to say the least, and we were told that she now has the teeth of a 2-year-old and no longer requires the teeth cleaning procedure
Unfortunately her teeth are still yellow and stained from all those years on kibble. At least her mouth is clean and fresh and healthy again. I feel so much better knowing that this ALONE has added years to her life

She had also slowed down considerably due to arthritis in her hips (diagnosed with mild hip dysplasia as a 3-year-old) and she couldn't walk for more than 40 minutes a day by then. She also NEVER ran anymore because of the pain.

A few months on raw and she was bursting with so much energy that we had to walk her 2-3 HOURS a day just to keep her happy!

She still wouldn't run, but she was definitely happier.

I'm happy to report that about two months ago I started adding berries to her diet on a regular basis and this has produced an additional astonishing improvement in her energy and mobility.
She now runs again!! She went from never running for the past 2 years to galloping like a young dog alongside my pup and chasing balls and frisbees again.
All these years I thought she'd just lost her prey drive and desire to play, when all along she still wanted to chase toys but was just in too much pain

I had her chasing frisbees and an orbee ball for over an hour every day this past week. I haven't seen her look this happy and energetic since she was 6 years old http://www.gentlesoulsshepherds.com/tears.gif


Oh, also her allergies disappeared within the first year of being switched to raw!
She had terrible allergies to ragweed (vet's best guess) and would chew her legs up raw and bloody every summer/fall season.
You couldn't touch her legs during ragweed season without her yelping in pain.

No more of that... 0 chewing this year during the entire ragweed season, and to think we were considering putting her on heavy-duty steroid treatments because her symptoms were getting so bad!


Oh yes, another thing, her fur had gotten coarse and dry over the past couple of years and her color had just about disappeared! She was a beautiful, very rich black & tan as a young dog, but looked gray and colourless by the time she was 10 (and she started developing a yucky oily smell to her coat).

After 6-7 months on raw, she shed out her entire coat and it regrew so thick and lush. Her fur looks so shiny and beautiful now with no hint of odor. Her pigment also returned!!
The vet told us that once a dog loses its pigment with age that it can't return... boy was he surprised to see her for her checkup this year - he thought we'd bought a new dog and asked what we'd done with Moka!
He'd been Moka's vet for the past 11 years and he didn't recognize her!


And these are just the visible signs. I can only hope at the improvements her internal organs have gone through... and all this after only a year on raw


I did make big mistakes at first... like the time I fed her a whole pork pelvis which didn't have nearly enough meat on it and let her eat up the whole thing. She was vomiting pieces of bone and was pooping powder for over 24 hours after that because of my stupidity

But I learned along the way and she did fine. She was switched cold turkey by the way, literally overnight.

So if I, as a stumbling clueless idiot, managed to switch a sick 10-year-old dog with a host of chronic health issues to a raw diet and saw all those incredible improvements in her health, I have NO DOUBT whatsoever that you're capable of doing this.

Just think of how healthy she could have been if she'd been fed raw her whole life... oh well, better late than never.


I hope this helps to alleviate some of your fears - it really isn't that complicated

Oh wow...poor little Moka-bee. I'm so glad to hear about the improvement in her life. What a wonderful success story! She should be the poster-child for raw feeding!

You really did make me feel better. I'll do it. Taro's been on raw since puppyhood, right? Did you make any changes due to his young age?

Yuko,

I would LOVE to see before and after photos!

Thanks Amber!

I realize as much as anyone that raw isn't a cure-all for everything. But after seeing the astounding improvements in poor Moka, how can I not be enthusiastic and annoyingly naggy about people switching their dogs???

Yep, Taro was weaned onto raw and has never known anything else. I got him at 7 weeks of age and for the first 3 weeks, most of his meals were completely ground up.
At 7 weeks, the bulk of his diet was ground with maybe a meaty bone here and there (more for entertainment and chewing practice). The older he got, the more meaty bones and less "mush" he had. Lost the mush by the time he was 10-11 weeks old which made him very happy

His breeder told me that the pups had been given chicken backs since 5 weeks of age and can handle the bones, but to be careful not to overload him with too many whole meats and bones at first.

She provided all us puppy parents with a couple of weeks worth of puppy mush (ground up meats, organs and bones).

Then again, look at the way she raised the litter (she was sending me these photos before I even picked up my puppy!! It made me so nervous as a newbie raw-feeder!):

http://www.gentlesoulsshepherds.com/gallery/images/th_raw_02.jpg

http://www.gentlesoulsshepherds.com/gallery/images/th_raw_03.jpg

The pups were 6 weeks old in those photos and seem to be comfortable enough feeding raw, hee hee.

It helped me to know that my 7-week-old baby was a seasoned raw eater by the time I got him

Granted when he was little it took him a lot longer to consume his meaty bones. I occasionally smashed up the harder bones (chicken thighs and pork riblets) to speed up this process, but that was more to make me feel better
By the time he was 3.5 to 4 months old he had no trouble crunching up just about anything I could throw to him!!

I doubt that you'll have to take any special precautions with Carbs
Taro was eating whole baby deer heads by the time he was 5 months old! Lol.

 Quote: Anne Vaini

Yuko,

I would LOVE to see before and after photos!

I have to admit, I've taken 234,234,876,654,654 photos of my pup Taro this past year, but hardly any of Moka

Lol, I'll see what I can dig up!

One more thing... I'll make this one short, I promise

I found, with my own dogs at least, that the more variety I add to their diet the better they look and act.

Many people feed chicken, hamburger, veggie mush, eggs, liver, supplements and call it a diet. That's ok, and their dogs do well.

I personally try to do far more than that and regularly add (to the above): green tripe, deer, moose, pork, turkey, llama, whole rabbits, spleen, kidneys, hearts, heads (including brains and eyes), whole raw fish, goose, berries etc... all of which I have cheap and easy access to, obviously. I do have a very limited budget... hehe

Obviously my pup is a young vigorous dog, as healthy as they come, so it doesn't make a huge difference in him. However my older female who used to have/still has chronic health issues serves as a great barometer when it comes to diet quality.

I know I go a little overboard with variety in my dogs' diets, and I'm certainly not implying that dogs NEED all that to be healthy, but I definitely see a positive difference in my older girl with the huge variety as opposed to the usual "chicken and liver" rut

Something to keep in mind... not all raw diets are equal, and the more effort you put into it, the better results you'll see in your dogs!