Can anyone help with a dog with a possible food allergy?

[DobieLover]

Unless you are feeding raw bones or dedicated dental chews regularly, you should probably be brushing the teeth regardless. Kibble is not better for your dog's teeth.

I prefer bone-in raw to do the work for me, but I appreciate it can be offputting to some.

Raw chicken feet...nature's toothbrush for dogs!

 

[ShrekDawg]

I did as well, but my dog didn’t chew the bones with his back molars, and he got an infection that ate into the bone. His front teeth were great, and the back ones didn’t look bad, but then the vet found it had made a cavity between the teeth. We went to get Christmas photos of my kids at the mall, we were gone 2 hours, and I came home to so much blood, I thought someone got shot and broke in to escape being caught (I was living in a building with a broken front gate in Brooklyn so that was more likely than what had actually happened). My bulldog had ruptured an infection that went dangerously close to a major vein or artery, and he had freaked out when it happened and the skin between the two broke and he was bleeding out through the tooth. He miraculously survived and the vet said we were lucky that it must have happened just before we got home. I’m 50/50 on whether I blame myself, I should have brushed his teeth, but the vet should have noticed this at his regular checkups, and just removed the tooth at the start. But the moral is, he had eaten raw through much of his life and did really well on it, but I couldn’t store raw food for 3 dogs in a city apartment. I applaud people who feed raw, it’s great and natural. Just brush their teeth. Compared to actually researching and preparing raw, toothbrushing is easy.

Oh wow that is terrifying!!! glad he made it

 

[Weeg]

I'm just going to throw this out there, the book Raw and Natural Nutrition for Dogs by Lew Olson is a great "get me started" guide on raw feeding.

There are millions of opinions and resources on raw feeding across the web. Lots of good ones, lots of not so good ones, and lots of in between. It can be hard to get started sometimes, but I like this book. Having something physical in hand to reference is great for confidence, or at least it is for me. I've read a few books on the subject of balancing dog food (don't judge me) but this one is the most practical and straightforward. At least it was for me.

Thank you so much! I am gonna look into that book! Honestly, I'm leaning towards the raw diet at this point! @TwoCrows what is your recipe for raw feeding you dog?

 

[Weeg]

How much of food would I feed him with a raw diet?

 

[FloorCandy]

Oh wow that is terrifying!!! glad he made it

I was devastated, I thought for sure I racing to the vet with him for the last time. But bulldogs are tough. The vet said normally the dog would show pain, stop eating etc, or the tooth would have fallen out. I spent every nearly minute of my life with that dog and he never showed any sign of it, he was just our happy little piggy.

 

[ShrekDawg]

How much of food would I feed him with a raw diet?

This varies a lot and there really isn’t a clear answer. You can look up a raw diet calculator and try to use that to figure it out. usually it’s something like 2% of their ideal weight for maintenance but you can use more or less if you want them to gain weight or lose weight or anything like that. It varies by their weight. And then if you want them to lose weight you would use their ideal weight instead of current for example.

 

[ShrekDawg]

I was devastated, I thought for sure I racing to the vet with him for the last time. But bulldogs are tough. The vet said normally the dog would show pain, stop eating etc, or the tooth would have fallen out. I spent every nearly minute of my life with that dog and he never showed any sign of it, he was just our happy little piggy.

Oh wow that’s so strange! What a tough boy!!

 

[Weeg]

@clickchicks is this the right book? https://www.ebay.com/itm/Raw-and-Na...476bb87317df5f6a8c41|ampid:PL_CLK|clp:2334524

 

[LaFleche]

How much of food would I feed him with a raw diet?

According to his age, breed and weight.

 

[DobieLover]

How much of food would I feed him with a raw diet?

After you make a batch, it's fed by weight. Usually 2-3% of the dogs body weight split into two meals a day.