Another question that i dont see anywhere ... how do i get them to stop GULPING their food down, to the point where they choak on it every single time? Is this a sign that im not feeding enough ?

 Quote: selene lindhout

 Quote: tracy collins

Feed the bones of those small animals and you'll be on the right track.

Raw vegetables and fruits are virtually useless (nutritionally) to a dog. Dogs cannot digest cellulose. You need to cook, purée, or freeze those plant-based foods in order to make the nutrients available to the dog. And this vegetable matter shouldn't be any more than 10% max of the diet. Leafy greens and berries will be the most nutritionally dense.

They get carrots (chunked ) but the whole thing.. greens and all, celery carefully chopped and de-stringed.. I see peas in the pics on that page... are these good for dogs? ( or better?) Also .. rocky is constantly raiding my vegable garden, turn your back and my lettuce is gone.

I agree that produce (in the small amounts mentioned by Tracy) is needed in the diet.


As Tracy mentioned, raw produce, unless it's very tender (like berries or young leafy greens) isn't nutritionally accessible to the dog. Raw carrots are on the list of produce that has cell walls that aren't digestible by dogs.

A wild canid would get his produce partly digested (largely in the gut of the small prey he devours in its entirety) or sometimes in the form of ripe fallen berries or young tender greens. He isn't designed to process raw peas, raw carrots, etc.

So if we can't supply green tripe, we process the produce to simulate the state the wild canid would get his produce in.


And again, it's a SMALL part of the dog's diet. The first thing to attend to would be the RMBs.


First and most important is the calcium-phosphorus ratio. (The dog's breed is irrelevant.)

This ratio is, basically, the digestible bone to meat ratio. Small prey (birds, rabbits) "come with" a good ratio, to which lesser amounts of boneless meat from larger animals (like a deer or cow) can be added. Nature works great!

Before getting into the produce, I'd have a solid idea of how to supply the calcium the dog needs.

So if you tell us what the bulk of the dog's diet is (the meat with the bones that "come" in it), we'll know how much muscle meat (boneless meat) you can safely add for protein variety.

I would start there.

Eggs and yogurt and organ meat and sardines and produce can then all be added ... all good stuff .... but the crucial basis is the RMBs.

Using the bones in the raw rabbit meat is great .... and the raw squab, too ... My concern is, are these bone-in digestible-bone RMBs a large enough part of the diet?

The reason I'm concerned, is that except for squab and rabbit, the other meats (lamb and beef) don't offer much in the way of digestible bone.


I'm also not seeing the needed 5-10% organ meat listed there.



"also we were told to add the SOME, not all of the egg shells grounded for calcium"

True, but again, this isn't the bulk of the diet.

(You would not include all the shells, since half of an average eggshell, if actually consumed by the dog, supplies enough calcium to cover a pound of boneless meat.)

 Quote: Selene lindhout

Another question that i dont see anywhere ... how do i get them to stop GULPING their food down, to the point where they choak on it every single time? Is this a sign that im not feeding enough ?

What kind of food? The answer will depend on what food you mean.

Kibble? RMBs? What?

Also, you know that Pugs and other small breeds usually need at least two meals a day, right? Many (or most) toy breeds can't eat a day's worth of nutritional requirements in one meal.

We live in a farming community that has LOTS od islamtish butchers where you can pick your foor free rang ( IE go into the yeard and pick it while its walking around) so i can get it cut anyway i want, i usualy get it slaughtered there and then bring it whole home and cut it myself. Hubby works in a meat plant also so we have access to all kinda of equipmet and he gets to keep any organ meants that he want.

When we feed lamb i usualy leave the thigh bones but remome the lower leg bone ( they splinter horribly and scare me) they get breast bones, ribs and tails (tho the tail bones are REALY small they love them) there wide and flat and cant be awallowed that easly whole.

Squab they get whole, tho sometimes i cut out the small ribs because of the gulping, they try and swallow this, bones ands all whole. Moles and mice they eat whole 1 gulp and its gone.. im not even sure they chew (wild found around the garden)

Fisht they get whole I susly grab a maceral or a salmon or eel and just give them the whole thing minues the tail since its just anooying choaking hazard. THere not opposed to eating a sea deveil if i buy one.. there big and playfull so they like it.

Chicken is filet 9meaning i debone it but they still get it in one big piece. I see that here it says chichens are a great RMB So i will definatly look into changing this, still scared to death about these bones.

They get 1 egg each about every other day (dr said something bought bad for pugs hart) but it confuses me cause in the wild ( yea right lol) they would eat an entire clutch if it found one. They dont get ALL of the shell but some of it. I also have calcium shells that i bought from the pet store made from eggs, and ocean shells. (not a powder but good crunchy stuff) which they get a sprinkle from about 3 times a week.

Organ meats - they get all the squishy bits that would be accessable to a small dog... liver, kindeys, eyes, testicles, brains, harts and stomachs... im leery on feedin g other organs since those are waste producers and while they WOULD eat them n the wild, these are house dogs that dont have access to the "natures medacine"that a wild dog would. I takem them from sheep (tho not alot since its 60% fat on these guys not a good lean meat/fat animal)chickens, calf, deer, bison again they get the squab WHOLE. I kill it but the rest is up to them, fish they get WHOLE. Yesterday he grabbed a baby swan by the river and ate it in 1 bite... i just couldnt get to him fast enough, he was on a leash and right by me but it took like a millisecond for him to snach it and because of the gulping it was gone before i could react. I didnt punsih him for it, since it was a wild animal and and he was doing what he does.. jsut not sure what i should have done.

Also we make a blood pudding and feed it to them oce a day, a small tea spoon, again in the wild they would eat alot of this, consumed in the wild and deliberatly drunken for the iron content but i guess it doesnt have ALOT of nutritional value so we dont give it alot.

I was feeding the carrots in a blender since i dont like the chaoking hazad (again they gulp) but someone said in a raw diet you need to feed like they would get it IN THE WILD. But i see here and i will go back to the food processer. THey dont get alot.. usualy jsut 1 carrot a day

We have been toying with the idea of adding goat to the menu but at this point i feel like we have TOO MUCH variety.

We are currently having a "goose plague" and there going to cull about 1500-2000 of them in my area, where we hunters are allowed to take them home after certification. Is this something i could add and if so, which parts?

These guys get feed 2 times a day and then stuff in the garden in between, usualy when there out with me in the afternoon. The amount of food recomended by the vet for thier size (5 kilo and 9 kilo) is shocklingly small 120g a day for rocky (9 kilo) and (he said 150 but i feel she needs more while nursing so i give about 400-500) for ginger (5 kilos) half given 2 times a day. But they eat it SOOO fast and gulp what they can down w/o even chewing. I gave them some home made wurst last night and once again had to reach down his threat and pull it out. even if i cut it small they take huge moutfulls and still choak on it. I thought feeding them in their crate would stop this but it didnt, jsut makes it so i cant see when their choaking. TO me this sounds liek there starving and need more food, but im heasatnt to add anything or an extra meal in the afternoon because he said that ginger is perfect and rocky needs to looe weight. They do get excersize but they are house dogs, not working dogs so they dont get an aggresive work out that the bigger dogs do however.. feeding them this SMALL amount jsut seem cruel. ohh and , never realy knew this... what IS tripe?

Edited by Selene lindhout (05/26/2011 03:52 AM)
Edit reason: tripe ???

Okay. Let's recap. This thread started because you said (or we assumed) that you were not feeding any bones other than marrow bones. Sorry for that misunderstanding. I would still not offer any more marrow bones to your pugs.

I'm now glad to understand that a considerable portion of your dogs' diet does consist of raw meaty bones--in the form of whole squab, whole fish, bone-in lamb parts and the occasional foraged cygnet.

If your dogs are healthy and they are producing firm poop (but not so firm that they are constipated) then I'd give this diet the thumbs up.

The occasional egg shell is fine. If you are offering this much bone, I don't think you need the calcium supplement you describe. The best indicator is the dog's poop. Too firm, crumbly, or difficult to produce means too much bone (or other calcium source.) Too soft can mean many things, among them too little bone or overfeeding.

The amounts to feed are generally 2-3% of their ideal weight.

For a 5kg dog, that's about 125 grams of food a day (62.5 gm per feeding x 2)

For a 9kg dog, that's about 225 grams of food a day (112.5 gm per feeding x 2)

Adjust that up or down based on whether the dog has a special need (i.e. to loose weight, or additional nutrition while whelping).

Which leaves the question of gulping. For a larger dog, I might suggest feeding larger peices that would require the dog to tear it into smaller peices--but for these tiny meal sizes, I don't know if that's even possible. You could try mincing the food into pieces so small that they are no longer a choke hazzard.

I doubt if this is a behavior you can train away. The best you can do is minimize the choke hazard. (a hazard that would exist whether you were feeding raw or kibble.)

Tripe is stomach (or stomach lining)--here, it's generally beef tripe, but it could also come from sheep, ox, deer. Raw feeders here feed something we call "green tripe" which means that the stomach contents have not been washed away. It's a way to give the dog some vegetable matter (the grass the cow ate) in a partially digested form.

Whew! Great post, Tracy!

Selene, about this: "this sounds liek there starving and need more food, but im heasatnt to add anything or an extra meal in the afternoon because he said that ginger is perfect and rocky needs to looe weight."

If they are overweight, they have too much food, and if they are perfectly fit and slender, they don't. You do NOT want an overweight Pug, for all the reasons mentioned earlier.

Why are you supplementing calcium? Again, this should come from the digestible bone "as it comes," and it sounds like it is.

"Extra" calcium is not desirable. The correct ratio (as mentioned) comes from feeding small prey with the digestible bones.

There are situations where calcium supplementation is needed, but feeding a balanced raw diet complete with the digestible bone is not one of them.

Why are you supplementing calcium? Again, this should come from the digestible bone "as it comes," and it sounds like it is.


umm cause they told me too :S he said a sprinkle a few times a week

Tracy ! thanks for that post I wanst sure what kinda of bones i should and should not, and was afid that since i dont give legs bones that there went geting enough and ofc the actual chicken i filet.
today i put everything in a chopper and gave them lil balls to eat, which they had more fun with but ate anyway and evern tho it was the same amount they seem genunily satisfied which is what ive been looknig for

Their poops arent really hard but there .. well rounded i guess lol .. sometimes they get a bit squisy but its ulualy the first walk of the day. ( i know this cause i have to pick it up after ewwwwwww )

Any bones that the pugs can eat (meaning totally consume in a short amount of time--not just gnaw on or play with) are okay to give them--as long as they are raw. You can start including the chicken bones as well--the bones in the backs/ribs/neck/possibly wings will be the softest and easiest for them to eat. But I bet they can handle a chicken leg too just fine.

As you make up meals, just mentally approximate "about half" of the diet should come from these parts with bones in (whether it's from the squabs, chickens or anything else), and the other half should consist of some boneless meat (30-40%), organ meat (eye, kidney, liver, brain) 10%, and the remainder (less than 10%) would be vegetable matter. Eggs can count as boneless meat. Count heart as meat even though it is an organ.

A half an eggshell maybe, on occasion, if you're short on bony parts. No more calcium supplements.

I like your idea of mincing the food into meatballs. If that slows them down, so much the better.

You say you offer fish--mackerel? sardines? those are great. Continue that. In fact when you don't feed the fish, you might even look for a fish-oil supplement to add to their diet every day. That would be a much more reliable source of missing nutrients than fooling with marrow or blood pudding--although I see nothing wrong with feeding any and all parts you have available to you.

Good luck. That's a very happy pug in your signature picture and I can see why. He eats very well.