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Post by John84 on Jul 8, 2004 22:04:06 GMT -5
First day of Raw. I took the advice of fasting him for half a day so I didn't feed Clutch in the morning. Wow did I feel guilty as I stuffed my face with bacon and eggs. We fed him a thawed chicken thigh in the late afternoon but he wouldn't eat it. He just sort of played with it for 5 minutes. He would paw at it and nudge it with his nose. We decided to chop it up into smaller peices and he ate it then. Not sure if I did the right thing. Maybe I should leave him be next time?
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Post by Brooke on Jul 8, 2004 22:20:50 GMT -5
Nothing wrong with chopping them up smaller. More than likely he will get used to it and won't even notice the size within a few meals. As long as the bones aren't too small so that he can choke you should be fine. It all goes the same place in the "end" anyway
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Post by sibemom on Jul 9, 2004 4:39:06 GMT -5
Yes that was fine Mostly in the beggining with some dogs they seem to shocked some will dig right in like mine did, and others won't even try it for several days. I always say they will eat when they get hungry I have a 20 minute rule and that is I put it down and if they do not eat it within 20 minutes I take it away and try again later.
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Post by amyjo on Jul 9, 2004 6:56:31 GMT -5
Yay - another "raw dog" whoo hooo!....you done good! I would only add - now that you know he will eat the chicken, stop chopping it and let him work it out...bigger pieces means less work for you and clean teeth for him.
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Post by John84 on Jul 9, 2004 12:12:24 GMT -5
Second feeding.... I left the thigh peice whole. He started peeling off the skin so I let him be. A couple minutes later I heard crunching; woohoo! I just hope that peice was enough til dinner
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Post by John84 on Jul 10, 2004 9:47:18 GMT -5
Well, all day day 2 Clutch didn't go potty. But this morning on day 3 he went and his poopy was super hard. And, wow ive already noticed his dropping need for water.
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Post by Aussienot on Jul 10, 2004 19:34:02 GMT -5
You may see fluxuations in the timing, consistancy and amount of poop for a week or two as he sloughs off the remains of undigested kibble. And don't be alarmed if there is some transitional vomiting in the first few days. Just keep on the raw feeding path.
After the first week, everything settles down a bit, and you'll feel like an old hand at raw.
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Post by John84 on Jul 11, 2004 21:03:25 GMT -5
Yeah I just came hope to find puke in my backyard My dad is especially worried since picking up some 'how to train dogs' book. The book seems to be against raw feeding. It talks about risk from disease and bacteria in frozen meat. It says meat should be cooked at least a little bit and that bones should be taken out. He's super worried now that we found the puke and the fact that Clutch has only went poopy once in since starting raw. Should we be giving Clutch vitamin supplements - another suggestion from the book.
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Post by amyjo on Jul 11, 2004 22:05:07 GMT -5
John -
You are doing fine - stick to your plan.... don't be sidetracked by all the noise...think critically - give the dog a chance to adjust. Removing the bones removes some of the tooth cleaning ability and vital minerals for the balance the dog requires. Supps are debatable and something that you can definitley explore in the future but totally unnecessary - especially in the short term.
Mother nature provides the best model for feeding our carnivores...and the food she provides is already perfectly balanced. Any deviation (removing bones, cooking) takes you further from her "perfect plan" and sends you down a complicated path of preparation and supplementation that just isn't necessary.
Many people who reccomend a more complicated method of feeding -often have ulterior motives...ie. they want to sell you something like expensive supps or premade raw food. Follow the money as they say on rawfeeding.
Also - I would encourage you to post these questions on that board. You will get much the same response but I think it is helps to get it from multiple sources - there is a woman on that board with 23 dogs and she has been rawfeeding for 4.5 years.....tough to argue with success...There are also folks there who are breeders and who have always fed that way (20 years).
Finally if you are worried about the poops add a little boneless chicken meat to his whole thigh and it will help "soften things up"...
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Post by John84 on Jul 13, 2004 18:46:04 GMT -5
There was some blood when Clutch went poopy this morning. We're afraid it's the amount of bone we give him. We're feeding him chicken legs and there seems to be quite a bit of bone for him to chew on. Also, he seemed to be breathing extremely hard last night and seemed extremely thirsty.
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Post by amyjo on Jul 13, 2004 19:14:43 GMT -5
Sounds to me like he needs more meat. You can try a thigh or a breast or one leg with the bone removed and one with the bone.....please post this to the rawfeeding list and see what the experts say.
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Post by Nicole on Jul 13, 2004 20:36:24 GMT -5
Just from my brief experience (one day) I noticed that there isn't much meat at all on the leg. It is really mostly bone. The thigh has a good amount of meat though. Can you get leg quarters. That is the leg and thigh together. I just read an article about the oldest living dog, an Australian Cattle dog who is 27. He was fed raw emu, kangeroo and rabbit his whole life.
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Post by sibemom on Jul 14, 2004 4:55:26 GMT -5
OK do not worry about the small amount of blood. Amy is right you need to add more meat and less bone for now. Just add some ground meat, turkey would be best, and try feeding just the thigh. I will not feed chicken breast because of the very sharp bones. Stick to chicken leg quarters they are well balanced in meat and bone, also try a turkey leg, that is another well proportioned peice of meat. Hang in there everything you described is normal for the first week or so
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Post by Willow on Jul 14, 2004 9:26:30 GMT -5
I agree with what everyone has said. I know it is scarrey at first, but in the long run, after your dog's body adjusts to the "species appropriate" way of feeding, he will be much healthier. I am sure, as Laura said, what is happening is that a lot of toxins are being expelled from the years of feeding kibble.
I also want to say that with my dogs, I did not "wean" them off of the dog food and I did not just feed one food for a week or two and gradually add others. I jumped in with both feet and went for it, with relatively few problems. The reason I did this is because a breeder gave me her feeding plan to help me get started, so I just followed this until I was comfortable with the raw feeding and then gradually adjusted it to suit us.
At first there always seems to be some vomiting and even now Kera will vomit now and then. They actually recommend you let the dog clean it up if it will. Makes me gag, but perfectly normal for dogs to do this. They vomit when they gulp their food or if there are pieces of bone too large to digest. I actually had Kera go through a bout of vomiting every day for a week or more after she had been raw fed for months. This worried me and I contacted my homeopath who said as long as she appears to be o.k. otherwise to just keep an eye on her. It passed and she is fine.
As to the heavy breathing at night. Kera did this the first time I started them on raw and especially when I fed chicken. Not every dog does this, but other's have said their's have done this too, but no one really seems to know why, and there does not seem to be any great significence to this and now Kera rarely does it.
As Amyjo said, don't "buy into" all the negativity about rawfeeding. There are always those on the opposite side of every issue and especially if they have something to lose by people finding out a better way then theirs of doing things.
It is not necessary to cook/partially cook the meat and of course, NEVER GIVE COOKED BONES. I sometimes do give left over's from our dinner when we have meat/veg's.
I recommend that anyone who is feeding or thinking of feeding raw get Tom Lonsdales book: "Raw Meaty Bones." Most raw feeder's will tell you this is their "bible". You will not worry nearly as much after you read his book. ;D
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Post by amyjo on Jul 14, 2004 9:39:47 GMT -5
I agree that you can start with variety if you want...just be aware if you run into difficulty (either with it coming up or coming out ) ....it is a case of "too much too soon" and not a problem with rawfeeding in general.
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