hi all. i have a 10 week female rottweiler?cross from a rescue. my last dog was utterly transformed when i switched him to a raw diet, so i'm fully converted. my problem is that for 4 months of the year i live off-grid with no refrigeration, way out in the middle of nowhere. it makes feeding raw untenable. so, as much as i would like to, i'm worried that the transition from raw to kibble and back again would be too much for my pup. my vet is good with vaccinations (by which i mean, lack thereof), and supportive of raw, but not very informed. alternately, if anyone has ideas about how else to do this (other than ordering expensive prepacked raw foods, which is not really an option) i'm open.

i backpack with my dog, so i've had to explore the same thing. here's a few options, and you may want to combine them:

you can feed canned mackerel, which is usually the cheapest option.
you can feed a kibble like wysong or innova evo, which i would not recommend for long-term, but for a few months shouldn't be too bad.
you can feed a dehydrated diet like honest kitchen (very expensive).
you can feed dehydrated raw patties that you rehydrate with water (also very expensive).
you can also feed whatever it is that you are eating.
you can add yogurt as a supplement by making it with a starter and powdered milk in a thermos.
if you are out in a remote area where there is fishing, beware of feeding freshwater fish like trout, as they carry the rickettsia organism which kills dogs. freshwater fish should be cooked before being fed.
you can also get cheap army rations, MREs, at army surplus stores.

if it were me, i'd do some of all of the above, just to keep it interesting and also make sure that any one option doesn't turn out to be the wrong one.

For one dog, The Honest Kitchen shouldn't be too bad, especially if you mix it with a good kibble, like Evo or Raw Instinct or Timberwolf's Wild and Natural Dry. THK does get expensive, but for 4mos it shouldn't be all that bad. I don't see much of an option besides THK, since you have no refrigeration, unless you're planning on hunting daily.

I think you'd be surprised at feeding costs per day if you checked into it; kibble seems a lot cheaper than it really is, when you consider that they eat less of a better quality food.

i'm on lake ontario, so i don't do any food fishing. thanks for the ideas - i hadn't thought of canned stuff like fish, or mre's. as far as feeding what i'm eating, it's usually vegan with lots of raw veggies from the garden, so i'm don't think there would be nearly enough protein.

yes, you're probably right. i haven't actually sat down and done the math, in part because she's only 10 weeks so i'm not sure how much she's going to be eating by the summer.