btw, barbara, one would not start off a dog on the raw diet in the way you have described. a chicken leg would be inappropriate for a dog new to raw feeding. before you condemn the diet, get good advice for how to switch.

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does evo have any kind of grains in it?

Evo is grain-free. Here is a link...

http://www.naturapet.com/display.php?d=product-detail&pxsl=%2F%2Fproduct%5B@id%3D%271246%27%5D

Linda

I'm not condemning the diet, I'm just saying there are other ways of feeding that reap benefits too. It's not for everyone. I think you're right that the chicken leg wasn't the place to start, but I still have an aversion to the diet.

When you cook chicken bones for hours, there's nothing to splinter. The bone crushes to powder under your finger. It's perfectly safe.

I get the same stool results from Evo that everyone else gets from raw, it's convenient and hassle free. Evo has no grain, Wellness does but they're brown grains. They get liver (cooked) a few times a month, other odd inards I can find in the store, eggs, and other things I'm not thinking of, stewed.

I think that ANY bones are a hazard to some dogs, and it's a gamble. Before I understood the raw concept I read about people feeding chicken bones to dogs, so I fed them to mine. Cooked. I did this for about 2 years never imagining what everyone was talking about was raw. Even the elderly golden retriever I had at the time ate cooked chicken bones <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" /> They were fine with them, LUCKILY. Do I feed cooked bones now that aren't cooked to powder? Of course not, I know better, but I really think the likelyhood of a bone splintering with raw OR cooked is there depending on the dog and luck of the draw. Having fed the cooked bones (not cooked to powder) with no issues, only affirms that in my mind.

I do respect people's wish to feed raw, I just don't share it. It's just as easy to cook the food, not worry, and add a raw style dry food. For me anyway. No offense meant at all. It's just not for me. At this point, the dogs are all gourmets so raw probably wouldn't go over well anyway, even with Savannah <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

there are plenty of times i would love the convenience of kibble--traveling, backpacking, when i forget to defrost, or even just for variety.

how much does evo cost per pound? i have a budget limit of .99/lb. for dog food. i try to average it out to .60/lb. wonder if you can get it bulk? ben eats 3-5 lbs. of RMBs a day.

If my math is correct (which is not a strong point of mine) it's about $2.28 per pound. It comes to $48 for 17.5 pounds. You feed half of what you would feed of normal dry food. I would guess your guy eats a lot. My male 130 lbs eats 1/4 cup per day. Anything more and he balloons up like a pig. My female 95 lbs, and other male 60 lbs, eat 2 cups per day, plus I supplement all the dogs with meat, and vegetables.

It would probably work out great for you for hiking, and other convenience type circumstances.

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.....if you avoid feeding bones to a dog that eats a natural diet, is his diet going to be severely lacking any vital vitamins/minerals/nutrients/proteins?.....

Yes. They need calcium and phosphorous in the ratio that bones (or bone powder or bone meal) provide.

This book: Dr. Pitcairn's Natural Health for Dogs and Cats, while not new, is not outdated, IMO, and it's good reading. It isn't dry or scholarly; it's interesting and helpful.

I do believe that dogs can flourish on home-cooked food, but since it is not what they have evolved eating (just as they have not evolved eating large quantities of grains or commercial cooked foods), it requires a little more care and study to adapt it to the canine requirements than it does to feed what their systems are made to digest (which I believe would be meat and bones and other parts of their prey in ideal times, supplemented with fallen produce and other scavenged foodstuffs in less than ideal times; most times, IMO, would be less than ideal).

If you read up on dogs fed muscle meat only, you'll find that they don't do well without some kind of bones.

This site isn't perfect and is less than fully-footnoted, but it has a good quick overview:
http://www.newcastleboxers.com/diet.shtml

This site, like almost all the raw-feeding sites, mention grinding to eliminate any fears about bones.

I don't feed hard bones any more, which was a personal decision after seeing and understanding the costs involved in crowns on dogs' teeth (which involve general anesthesia). One was my granddog, a working earth dog, who fractured a molar on a raw bone, and the other was a neighbor who did it on a stolen cooked bone.

Chicken backs are great bones for dogs (IMO) because they're softer and have a good ratio of meat-to-bone.

The Honest Kitchen (which Leerburg carries and which has their own site, too) is a great backup or travel-food for people feeding any diet, IMO.