Just gave Carbs and Farley a dollop of plain yogurt. Carbon LOVED it. Must be a taste explosion after the bland food!

Alice suggested chicken necks as a good intro into raw for Carbs. Well, I still don't have chicken necks...but today I managed to score (for free! ) turkey necks. Would those be okay? Or would the chicken backs be better?

Included in my free windfall:

half a cow heart (which, if I remember correctly, is included as a muscle meat NOT an organ for feeding purposes, right?)

AND beef ox tails (how can beef be an ox tail?)

Are these things okay to include later for Carbon, and now for the Corgi?

Sometimes Amber, Turkey necks are too rich (in meat & bones) for young pups, chicken backs IMO are better but it really depends how carbon does with the necks.I remember Bandit would throw up the turkey necks a bit,but yet did so well with the backs so I guess you wont know until you try.As far as the heart my dogs love it and I gave it with the organs.That is how they would eat it naturally I make a mix of heart ,liver,gizzards,kidneys about 8 oz to 10 oz for my big guys .I give the tripe first thing in the morning and the organs mix W/ muscle meat in the afternoon and the RMBs at night.I keep it very simple..You sound like you are enjoying feeding raw!

 Quote: Amber Morgan

Just gave Carbs and Farley a dollop of plain yogurt. Carbon LOVED it. Must be a taste explosion after the bland food!

Alice suggested chicken necks as a good intro into raw for Carbs. Well, I still don't have chicken necks...but today I managed to score (for free! ) turkey necks. Would those be okay? Or would the chicken backs be better?

Included in my free windfall:

half a cow heart (which, if I remember correctly, is included as a muscle meat NOT an organ for feeding purposes, right?)

AND beef ox tails (how can beef be an ox tail?)

Are these things okay to include later for Carbon, and now for the Corgi?

For Carbon, who has indicated that sudden increases in animal fat do not agree with his system, I'd stick to poultry for some time.

I haven't used turkey necks, but I think they are the same (except bigger). Maybe someone else here knows better. (Oops.... editing; I see that Angelique addressed this. )

I'd hold off on flavored yogurt for him, too, because of the sugar (more than the fruit). Sugar can trigger diarrhea too. I like to avoid sugar anyway, using low-sugar fruits like blueberries.

This is just my own personal feeling about a dog who obviously has a more sensitive system than the average dog: I'd probably go some time without adding back the animal fat. I'd probably add a little sunflower oil (which is also an Omega 6 food, like poultry) after a week or so of normal poops and watch the reaction. Then if that went well, I'd slowly add back in the dark meat (fattier).

The first fat I would give would be salmon oil.

Again, I'd be very slow about adding items, and I would not add more than one at a time, so I could be definite about what was the trigger in case anything caused a little beginning of diarrhea.

You know too, Amber if you were to give your young guy green tripe first,it would adjust his digestive tracts and process, so much faster than tiptoeing around certain foods(meats ect..), I guarantee it.That is why all canid eat the stomach first, to set their digestion to par for the rest of the foods they will eat.. just an advise.No yogurt to worry about and meats..

you are making this too complicated. i wouldn't feed any raw foods until carbon is in the clear. give him a week on boiled rice, with BOILED chicken or BOILED hamburger (all fat skimmed off) gradually added into the rice so that it goes slowly from 100 percent rice to mostly boiled meat over the course of a week. keep the meals frequent and small.

if, at the end of this very conservative feeding period, carbon is fine, stools are normal, there is no heaving or vomiting, THEN, and only then, fast him for 24 hours, and start feeding a few raw chicken necks at a time. all fat and skin removed.

if, after several days of only defatted deskinned chicken necks--by that i mean three to four days--carbon has no problems, then and only then, you can start adding in other chicken cuts and other kinds of meaty bones. chicken backs are fatty and have a lot of bone. they are not a good place to start. turkey necks are a bit richer than chicken, not as bland.


just follow the very simple GI diet that vets have been using successfully for decades and you will give carbon the best shot of making a smooth transition into raw.

find some chicken necks. and never feed yogurt that has been sweetened. plain unsweetened yogurt is fine. no other kind.

another excellent bland food to feed while you are in the chicken neck stage is cottage cheese. some kinds do have probiotics in them. cottage cheese and a whole raw egg is an excellent bland meal during the raw switchover phase.

I don't think of it as complicated, I think of it as learning.
Yes, go slow, yes, bland foods, yes, watch him when you start adding meat without a lot of fat, and so on.

Then, chalk this whole experience up to learning and receiving ALL kinds of good advice from people who feed raw a little differently from the other.....

I agree, there is nothing complicated about my diet and many others , but boiling foods and cooked rice is far more complicated to a dog transition than raw, but that's most VETs' advice , boiled chicken and rice etc..,yet they can't tell you why in good detail...The more processed or cook food you give a dog ,the less he'll want raw, especially at a young age.
JMO and experience but hey no one said you had to follow my way.. There are many different beliefs on what is best..

the reason WHY is because it is what WORKS. a dog with explosive watery stools is nothing to fool around with.

and nothing you feed your dog is going to make him less interested in raw. that's ridiculous.

if you want to feed on theories instead of taking advantage of decades of hard-earned experience from others, be my guest. i've already posted a book on this subject in this forum. it's all in the archives.

'later.

When my pup had diarrhea for about 3 days, the vet recommended boiled white rice with cottage cheese mixed in after the rice was cooked. The "why", according to the vet, was because both have binding properties - making the stool firmer. It worked immediately. Better than the pup getting dehydrated from diarrhea. I kept him on it for 3 days, then started to boil some pieces of chicken with the rice so both cooked together, added cottage cheese and continued this way for a couple more days.

In his case, it wasn't an adjustment to raw food that he needed (had always been on it), but the issue at the time was stopping the diarrhea, most important priority. Cooked chicken is a good way to go, there's certainly no harm in it IMO. I think it's easier to digest than raw for a overstressed digestive system like in Carbon's case.

I agree 100%. Bland, easy to digest, unfatty, while the system re-boots.

And recovering from explosive diarrhea indicates avoiding foods that encourage BMs (for a little while).

He will still love the raw food as much as ever.

This diarrhea-plus-vomiting is nothing to fool with. The diet Alice and Sandy and others have mentioned has proved itself to work over decades (or more).

It sounds counterintuitive, I think, but rich foods with lots of animal fat and roughage might be best avoided for a while.

People care about this pup, it's obvious! I'm so glad he's doing better.