The wrath of a woman .... Raw fed dogs.

[basil]

I took the dogs out to the beach in the camper yesterday for some exercise. Sox and Jeff which are lurchers and Molly who is a Yorkie.
On the way I stopped off at the supermarket to pick up some chicken for the dogs.
We got to the beach and off we went for what was a good couple of peace, quiet, very enjoyable stroll. Sox and Jeff did their normal run for England, Molly did her usual on her own exploration in the sand dunes.
Getting back to the van, kettle on and water out for the dogs. Then they crash out on the grass which is when the chicken came out, each dog happily munching away including Molly. She`ll happily deal with chicken bones.
I`ve just made my coffee when I hear a voice .. `Is that chicken raw`?
Yes, said I `Why do you ask?
Then it happened .. I got read the riot act that the chicken should be cooked and why was I feeding a Yorkie chicken bones, raw ones at that.
Quietly I`m seething.
Have you finished? I asked. No answer.
Have a look at this says I. I showed her Sox mouth. 11 years old and not a sign of bad teeth, 11 years old and never seen a vet. Jeff, 5 years old, clean teeth and never seen a vet. At this time Molly was off exploring again so I couldn`t show her Molly`s set.
Can you say the same for your dog? I asked her. Not much of an answer came back apart from her dogs teeth are cleaned by their vet.
My final bit of conversation to the woman was .. `Until your dog has teeth like my dogs, coats as shiny as my dogs and general conditioning like my dogs go away and while you`re away do some homework`.
Some people just haven`t got a clue.

 

[nun_hunter]

Problem is she has probably been convinced by her vet to buy a whole/complete/medicated/hypoallergenic dog food that just so happens to be the one the vet sells/recommends as it happens to be the brand that pays the vet to stock it (or at least take them out for a swanky lunch once a month to keep them sweet and restocking).

 

[reloader54]

Problem is she has probably been convinced by her vet to buy a whole/complete/medicated/hypoallergenic dog food that just so happens to be the one the vet sells/recommends as it happens to be the brand that pays the vet to stock it (or at least take them out for a swanky lunch once a month to keep them sweet and restocking).

and in some cases actually funded their training,,,

 

[Monkey Spanker]

That's why Foxes can't eat raw chickens and pheasants.................
MS

 

[Pedro]

I think there's a general aversion to dogs eating chicken and similar small boned animals, indeed also big bones because, when they have been cooked, there's a danger of bones splintering and splinters being ingested and piercing parts of the dogs internals. Not a great problem with raw food, but the aversion sticks anyway.

 

[Rupert J]

I've only ever fed my current Labrador on raw food, and I wish I'd converted many years ago. Her treats include chicken wings and if she is very lucky a duck neck in the season. I must admit to being surprised the first time I saw raw food being fed, but it makes a lot of sense.
sadly, as you've found, not all agree. Pleased you pointed her in the right direction

 

[Coddy]

I posted my comments and what i do, on another thread here a few days ago.

But, this is a common issue as soon as you say raw chicken. Gasp, horror.
As said, it is COOKED bones that are brittle. When raw bones, including chicken bones go into the dogs stomach, the stomach acid which when feeding raw has a PH of 2, makes the bones even softer, to break down.
I have yet to see a dog, or any wild animal that eats raw meat show David Attenborough how it operates an Aga or a Microwave.
If is the same as feeding raw pork. Gasp, what about Salmonella.

I just got a delivery today of more RAW food.
60 packs of various raw minces.
About 30kg of various Chicken / Duck wings, heads, necks, feet, Rabbit heads, Tripe, Herring, Pigs ears. All RAW, nothing cooked.

And like OP, dogs teeth are like they should be, no plaque. There was plaque on the older dog before we started this diet, and now clean.
Skin and coats, perfect.

I would advocate this to anyone who has the time to do it, not that it takes much time.
The mince is ready to go, just needs a defrost 12 hours before feeding, and i spend about 1 hour every 2 months making up the correct size portions for the evening feed, which is more bone and meat based.

On my other post, i said that what i read up on, was the need to feed your dogs on RAW with between 2%-3% the dogs weight on food per day. I started at 2.5%, but my dogs are active (Working Cockers) and i increased it to 3%.
3 year old was maybe slightly over weight before, but he lost 2kgs and the 2 year old was right weight and stayed the same.

Only thing with raw, is you can feed a Kibble and RAW diet, but you cannot feed them at the same meal. So you can do Kibble in morning and RAW in the evening or visa-versa, but not at the same time as RAW food and Kibble digest at different rates. But for me, there's no point. Either do it or don't.
I keep kibble for if we are away somewhere and we cannot keep food frozen, but other than that, RAW all the time.

The dogs love it, they get all excited as soon as you mention the words Breakfast or Supper, and run to the garage where the freezer is kept. My wife was a bit sceptical at the start, thinking god, here is another fad. But she is now an advocate of it and she goes a group walk with other people on a Sunday morning, and 2 of the dog walkers have also started it.

 

[Alantoo]

@ Coddy since your last post on the other thread I have been researching the raw food options. Is the mince you speak of the mince with bone that most of the dealers sell? Either chicken or mixed meats with ground bone...

@ Everybody feeding raw dog food... How do you cope with the dogs eating meaty bones...I always give mine meaty bones like shoulder blades or fallow ribs outside so they don't gnaw and wipe them all over the house interior and carpets! Are your dogs in kennels or are the meaty bones just things like chicken wings and necks and the pheasant legs that I give mine which they can just crunch as one mouthful?

Alan

 

[Coddy]

Alan.

Yes, the mince's i use all have bone in them. You can see the small pieces of bone when you look at it. You hear the dogs crunching it.
Sometimes i find the mince a bit bloody, so we put the pack of mince on a sieve, to allow most of the blood to drain out.

My dogs either eat it in the garage, or if dry, they will run out to the garden to eat it.
They say that if feeding bones, to keep the dogs seperate, incase one tries to steal another dogs bone and they fight. I have not had this issue. They happily sit beside one another and will watch one another. The older dog will sometimes give me a growl if i go over when he has a meaty bone (and only does this with me), but after about 3-5 seconds, he will come over and offer me the bone. Basically saying, bugger off its mine. But this in no way changes a dogs behavour and makes them aggressive or a blood crazed animal.

Regarding bones, you need to make sure the bones are not to large or hard. No point giving a Cocker Spaniel for instance the leg bone for a cow. It's too big and can cause teeth to be broken. A bones should be of a size where it can be eaten in 15-30 minutes.

 

[aris]

Is it ok to feed them whole rabbit and squirrel?

 

[reloader54]

@ Coddy since your last post on the other thread I have been researching the raw food options. Is the mince you speak of the mince with bone that most of the dealers sell? Either chicken or mixed meats with ground bone...

@ Everybody feeding raw dog food... How do you cope with the dogs eating meaty bones...I always give mine meaty bones like shoulder blades or fallow ribs outside so they don't gnaw and wipe them all over the house interior and carpets! Are your dogs in kennels or are the meaty bones just things like chicken wings and necks and the pheasant legs that I give mine which they can just crunch as one mouthful?

Alan

as others have stated,I also buy the mince/bone in various "flavours" lamb,beef,duck,chicken, tripe and oily fish, duck and tripe ,ect I get my main supply from Bulmers and the dogs have the required amount in a large stainless bowl twice a day, I supervise all mealtimes and any extras such as deer carcass remnants,rabbits, game,ect are put through a Hobart industrial meat grinder. and frozen for at least a fortnight to kill any parasites that may be present, its important to remember to "balance" the food intake with various meats,fish,[whole raw sardines are perfect] with bones,the odd raw egg complete with shell, and of course offal, tripe,liver,kidney,ect. as previously stated my dogs are full of energy, have perfect dentition, glossy coats,ect.

corn,maize,rice,ect is for poultry not dogs.

 

[Coddy]

Is it ok to feed them whole rabbit and squirrel?

Yes.
Some people leave the fur on. I don't.
But i will split a rabbit between my 2 dogs.

 

[John Gryphon]

One of the absolutely BEST feeds especially for litters of growing pups are uncooked chicken frames.There is nothing on them that a pup/dog cannot digest.Calcium galore and as the average chicken boner is only caring for his smoko break they leave a heap of meat on the frames. Fed as an adjunct to other specials whether be it dead cow (yum) especially in winter when fat is important for creating warmth and of course any venison/veni scraps/paunches/livers/axe split heads that a dog will work on for hours. Kibble kept/fed as a back up.
I am trapping near a dead cow,not at her as I don`t want eagles trapped and I take my three dogs to the cow so they can pis$ around and scent it up for the wild dogs. Lucy the new bitch in advanced stages of pregnancy went straight to the liver although she had been fed at home. Nature telling her to "eat this" Dogs know what they want and even the most favoured poodle will eat a piece of cow paunch any day rather than his feed of boiled brown rice and chick pea burgers....as the local moll said " Dante loves them" Eff me Dante eats them because he has nothing else ffs ha ha.

Dead raw cow pic below, the wild dogs and scavengers have reduced it down to buggery since a game camera snapped this pic. It wont be long before the cartilages break down and she will be scattered.

Wild dogs thrive on raw btw lol and basil your last line is spot on "Some people just haven`t got a clue."

Lucy new bitch whelped the other day so her pups will get the same old same old...no cooking required

 

[Alantoo]

Alan.

Yes, the mince's i use all have bone in them. You can see the small pieces of bone when you look at it. You hear the dogs crunching it.
Sometimes i find the mince a bit bloody, so we put the pack of mince on a sieve, to allow most of the blood to drain out.

My dogs either eat it in the garage, or if dry, they will run out to the garden to eat it.
They say that if feeding bones, to keep the dogs seperate, incase one tries to steal another dogs bone and they fight. I have not had this issue. They happily sit beside one another and will watch one another. The older dog will sometimes give me a growl if i go over when he has a meaty bone (and only does this with me), but after about 3-5 seconds, he will come over and offer me the bone. Basically saying, bugger off its mine. But this in no way changes a dogs behavour and makes them aggressive or a blood crazed animal.

Regarding bones, you need to make sure the bones are not to large or hard. No point giving a Cocker Spaniel for instance the leg bone for a cow. It's too big and can cause teeth to be broken. A bones should be of a size where it can be eaten in 15-30 minutes.

Our old springer used to get very possessive about pigs ears for some reason, but with any other chews or bones they would/will occasionally growl but then think better of it and offer them up.

as others have stated,I also buy the mince/bone in various "flavours" lamb,beef,duck,chicken, tripe and oily fish, duck and tripe ,ect I get my main supply from Bulmers and the dogs have the required amount in a large stainless bowl twice a day, I supervise all mealtimes and any extras such as deer carcass remnants,rabbits, game,ect are put through a Hobart industrial meat grinder. and frozen for at least a fortnight to kill any parasites that may be present, its important to remember to "balance" the food intake with various meats,fish,[whole raw sardines are perfect] with bones,the odd raw egg complete with shell, and of course offal, tripe,liver,kidney,ect. as previously stated my dogs are full of energy, have perfect dentition, glossy coats,ect.

corn,maize,rice,ect is for poultry not dogs.

I will have to think about including the eggshells...the dogs often get a raw egg broken into the bowl. The youngster is a brilliant soft mouth egg finder and retriever for when the ducks decide to lay in the garden rather than in their house overnight, so I have been obscuring the source of the lovely runny stuff so they don't see the shells. She is only a little springer and has a really funny expression when her mouth is closed over a duck egg!

Alan

 

[Alantoo]

One of the absolutely BEST feeds especially for litters of growing pups are uncooked chicken frames.snip...

We end up breasting (for us) and taking the legs and thighs (for the dogs) off a few dozen pheasants every season, I will need to invest in another freezer to hang on to the carcasses methinks...

Alan

 

[User00033]

Glad to hear some blokes are doing the right thing by their pooches. My Grandpa taught us as kids that a cheap dog food diet just returns and bites you in the arse in the form of vets bills, and how right he was.

Now I know this isn't possible for a lot of people as meat is expensive and hard to source reliably. But dogs thrive on raw meat like nothing else. Doesn't really matter what it is, as long as it is raw. It can be a bit smelly, green, slimey, doesn't matter, down it goes. For many many years, this has been the way for all our dogs. A steady diet of venison, boar, goat, rabbits (whole), various offals from slaughtered livestock, a chopped up old ram, a crippled calf, whatever comes along. A supervised chew on a cattle beast's leg bone sorts out teeth, you mustn't leave them with the bone for too long though else they'll end up constipated. We supplement with some decent large biscuits for roughage, just a couple in the bowl. Oh, and we can't keep free ranging chickens because they just disappear, inside the dogs, feathers and all.

The difference in condition between raw meat fed dogs and biscuit fed dogs has to be experienced to be fully appreciated. Coat glossiness is one indicator, sure, but the one that I notice above all else is stamina and recovery times. Our two Staffordshire Bull Terrier house dogs will go hard all day in the bush and running alongside the bike on their little legs, but feed them just biscuits that evening and they'll struggle to recover for the next day and you can see it in their faces... aww dad I'm still feeling a bit tired. Feed them a bowl full of raw meat and the difference is crystal clear, they'll be up and about early and getting impatient, they just want to go. Too many biscuits also make them a lot thirstier and if they are very tired they tend not to go to the water bowl as much as they should, which doesn't help at all, the dehydration makes them much worse.

The heading dogs and pig dogs are also fed a mix of meat and quality biscuits in a roughly 80:20 mix by volume, and there's one very important aspect that I think is frequently overlooked: quantity. The majority of dogs I see are overweight and this has a massive impact on their overall health. When we get townies come down to the farm at home or to the hunting block, they see the heading dogs and assume we are mistreating them, I've heard that once too often. Why? Because they are lithe in the extreme, very lightly built, and fast, nimble, huge stamina. Feed them too much and they show it immediately.

The dog that showed the biggest changes in condition as a function of meat vs biscuits was our pedigree champion Rottweiler who was a very large dog, very strong. He had hard core stamina for a heavy dog and would just about keep up with the lean hounds as long as he was on a 95% meat diet. But put him on rubbish biscuits and after 10km he'd lie down in a puddle and refuse to continue, and wait there until we got back.

Lucky dogs... old stinky stag on the menu tonight.

 

[Coddy]

Mine wont eat the egg shells. Devour the runny bits though. Tried them a few times.
My wife is not to impressed when she see's them crunching through chicken heads. There is a look of a smile on their faces as they do, as she walks away looking the other direction.
There is a shortage of rabbits up my way just now, so bought a few kgs of rabbit heads. See how she gets on feeding them.
The younger dog, he is loves the bone meat, but is a bit more tentative when eating chicken / duck hearts, as if he doesn't like the feel of them, but still eats them.
But as i said on the other post, the thing they seemed to enjoy the most was pigs tails. Right shape, tough skin and a good crunch.

Good thing about a whole chicken (wild bird) carcass (apart from you taking the breast meat off), is they have to work their mouths around it, to get into some nooks and crannies. So, adds a bit of a change to regular eating, as does RAW. Not just shoving their snout into a bowl of dry food.

We also hide stuff in the garden at feeding time, and they have to find it. Making sure they both get the same amount.

I also occasionally add some minced up carrot, brocolli, apple, honey.
I mince it, then allow the liquid to run off. Roll into golf ball size balls and freeze. Add this to their mince.

Dogs are eating better than me.

 

[kes]

The best dog food we used was also used by so many keepers, we had to get to the abattoir early. Tripe was the 'wonder food' put tons of muscle on my ridgeback and cant have been a problem as he lived for 14 years with a life expectancy of just 9. Best dog (and therefore dog food) I ever had.

 

[aris]

The best dog food we used was also used by so many keepers, we had to get to the abattoir early. Tripe was the 'wonder food' put tons of muscle on my ridgeback and cant have been a problem as he lived for 14 years with a life expectancy of just 9. Best dog (and therefore dog food) I ever had.

I have read about that. 'Green' (uncleared) tripe in particular being very good.

 

[landkeeper]

when i kept a kennel of working dogs i used to feed mine on green tripe and lambs heads from the local slaughterhouse great feeding and they thrived on it , but don't take too many of them in a closed van if you have a sensitive nose