A raw dog diet?

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Lizzywhit
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A raw dog diet?

Post by Lizzywhit »

Hello. I'm considering changing my dogs' diet from Royal Canin to raw. Does anyone else feed raw? I'm a bit overwhelmed by what to buy and worried that feeding them raw bones with 2 toddlers in the house is a good idea. Also, if I decide it's too difficult, is there a better kibble than Canin? Is Burns better? All ideas and opinions welcome!
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Re: A raw dog diet?

Post by Totally Scrambled »

I believe Wendy, our resident dog expert, feeds her hounds the raw diet. I'm sure she'll be along later to advise you )t'
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Re: A raw dog diet?

Post by Willow »

I had to read that twice !! yike* {rofwl}
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Re: A raw dog diet?

Post by Totally Scrambled »

Willow wrote:I had to read that twice !! yike* {rofwl}

I knew what she meant but did check she wasn't posting from Korea )t'
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Re: A raw dog diet?

Post by wendy »

Ha ha.
Yes I feed raw. But they don't get that many bones as such. Mainly they have raw meat and some fish.
I do have a wimpy male who thinks he cannot manage 'hard' bones and my female would push him away and eat his.
So they have raw and raw chicken wings or turkey necks twice a day, as he can manage that. I am trying to get him onto pork trotters, as she loves them.
He is so difficult to get to eat, and he has only just started to eat every day }hairout{ Will not touch biscuits of ANY kind and will only have raw vegetables, so would have starved if I had used kibble at all.
Have a look at the BARF diet on the internet. I can understand your reluctance to feed bones with youngsters, as some dogs can get 'funny' over bones. But you can feed raw of any kind.
Much better than dry food. You put it down and you can see what your dog is actually eating. I don't eat processed, so my dogs don't either.
Roy al canine hasn't very good welfare issues, I believe, with the testing of their foods.
I think Mercedes feeds her beautiful little Shih Tzu a raw diet. My two are a GSD and a GSD/Husky cross.
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Mo
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Re: A raw dog diet?

Post by Mo »

As well as the dog protecting the bone you would need to think of hygiene issues if you're leaving raw meat around. Toddlers will try anything.
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Lizzywhit
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Re: A raw dog diet?

Post by Lizzywhit »

Yeah it was the hygiene thing really. I'm in Yorkshire so it's too wet and cold to shut them out to eat bones. There are some new companies that sell raw frozen dog food inc. ground bones. Maybe that's the answer. What do you mean by Canin welfare issues? It's Mars isn't it, same as Pedigree.
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Re: A raw dog diet?

Post by wendy »

I have seen something on FB about Royal Canin , not pedigree. But cannot remember what it is about.
Yep the food I get is frozen mostly and I get some from a local butcher.
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Re: A raw dog diet?

Post by Mercedes »

We started feeding Daisy a raw diet last June and she is loving it. In the warmer months I do give her raw meaty bones from the supermarket, like chicken thighs and lamb chops and also green tripe, liver, kidney, heart. I just feed her on the patio with the big lumps of meat but this time of year I am a wuss and feed her a BARF diet as it's got all the ratios of meat/bone/offal worked out for you and you just defrost it and feed them, so it's very easy. Right now we are using a food called Nutriment as we can buy it fairly locally so saves on the delivery. Another good one is Wolftucker, in fact I think the Wolftucker is probably better as it has less vegetables added. For some reason a lot of these BARF diets do have veggies in them, but of course dogs don't need them.

A cheaper option is to buy the minced meat with ground bone, a couple of suppliers are MVM and DAF and if you look on their websites you will be able to see if you live within their delivery area, if you don't there are lots of other suppliers who will stock those brands. If you buy their minces you need to feed about 10% offal, 5% of which should be liver. Daisy isn't very keen on liver or kidney so I used to cut it up into small pieces, freeze it and feed it to her frozen and she was fine with it.

If you look on the whichdog site you can find out information on all the dog foods and Royal Canin does come out very badly on there.

I don't know what part of the country you are in, but I will give some links to places I know of and if you are on facebook there are a number of raw feeding groups on there with links to local suppliers.

http://www.nutriment.co/dog-food/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.wolftucker.co.uk" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.manifoldvalleymeats.co.uk" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.daf-petfood.co.uk/4-daf-frozen-dog-foods" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
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Re: A raw dog diet?

Post by Gwenoakes »

Sorlry to disagree, Mercedes, but dogs do need veg in their diet. In fact Clare has researched into it and dogs can live on veg/fruit alone, but should not live on meat alone for some reason.

If you think of the wild animals, the Alpha one goes in first and gets to the stomach where all the food is partly digested including veg/fruit/berries, this is why it is as we understand best to whizz the veg in a mixer until it is pulp like to mimic the stomach contents of partly digested food. The next best for veg is to partially cook, but raw is not recommended.

Yes we do feed raw food to Teddy our GSD puppy, duck/chicken wings, green tripe, lamb, beef and he will be tried on pheasant, rabbit and lots of other things in the future as he grows.

Bella our Staffie will only sometimes eat raw, think she would rather starve herself than be on the raw food only........peculiar dog that she is, but she does have veg in with her food which is either from the mixer or partially cooked and loves it.

Peas and beans have the higher content of protein, broccoli is very good and celery and cabbage have the lowest protein in them. We had to research this when Lexi was ill with IBD as she was allergic to protein and we were trying to find out which one, without success I might add as it was a minefield.

All our dogs have loved oranges, apples, pears, bananas. strawberries, raspberries and every vegetable you can imagine and that was long before we learnt about the barf diet.

We did notice when Lexi was with us that if she had veg in with her raw food then she didnt eat grass, whether that was just a coincidence or not I dont know.
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Re: A raw dog diet?

Post by Mercedes »

According to this article http://rawfed.com/myths/feedraw.html and many more, they claim dogs are carnivore not omnivores and don't need veggies, although there are veggies in the food Daisy has and I have no problem feeding them to her. She does have a liking for bananas and always has to have some of mine when I am having my lunch :-D
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Re: A raw dog diet?

Post by Gwenoakes »

I will agree to disagree on that one, Mercedes. {hug&kiss}

Glad to hear Daisy likes bananas. LOL
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Re: A raw dog diet?

Post by Mercedes »

Gwenoakes wrote:I will agree to disagree on that one, Mercedes. {hug&kiss}

Glad to hear Daisy likes bananas. LOL


Yes it's odd the things she likes, she seems to have a real thing about bananas and as I have one every day for lunch she just sits and waits for me to give her a couple of pieces. She also likes raw carrots and when I am making soup I usually give her a few pieces. I tend to forget how small she is though and give her titbits which are probably more suitable for a large dog {hug}
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Re: A raw dog diet?

Post by wendy »

Mine have raw veg daily as well.
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Lizzywhit
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Re: A raw dog diet?

Post by Lizzywhit »

Thanks guys. I have a tube of Nutriment defrosting in the fridge right now! Hope my husband doesn't come home and mistake it for pate.
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