Feeding your Dog Raw Meat and Bones

[K9Dave]

So on another thread the topic of feeding the "Raw Diet" to our dogs came up and I thought we should have a place to share what everyone is feeding and why?

I have been a Dog Trainer since I was a child growing up in a Dog Training family. (Military/Law Enforcement dogs mainly)I have Over 30 years of experience feeding this way and am always striving to learn more.

Every dog is different but they ALL thrive off the Raw Diet. In my experience some dogs do better off of certain proteins while others prefer and thrive off of another.

What are you feeding? What got you started feeding this way? What are your sources for purchasing your raw dog food? Have any tips or secrets? (I do)

NAY SAYERS AND JUDGY PEOPLE STAY AWAY PLEASE. If you disagree, that's fine. Without personally attacking another member for what they do or think, post your concerns or questions for discussion. Be grown up and don't ruin the fun.

IMO There is no such thing as a perfectly balanced diet for any animal. I just do my best to provide food that I believe is good for them. My findings/results don't come from Vet's or anything. I pay attention and adjust to how they look, their feces, sleep pattern and behavior etc. I try to live with the belief that I'm here for a short period of time and choose to live with pets and livestock. If I feed them to the best of my abilities and get to enjoy it on it's journey through life, that's a bonus. Animals really do enrich your life.

If you can't take some criticism or questioning about your methods consider this before posting please.

If you're considering switching to this diet and want to know more, just ask. Even PM me if you want. I'll do my best to answer and help.

Enjoy everyone.

 

[subhanalah]

Subscribed. I'm mostly interested in hearing where people source their stuff from.
Your claim of cost has me reeling! I've never found anything that thrifty!

 

[chicksurreal]

Very interested as well. Subscribed.
I have a Pit Bull/Boxer mix and a Queensland Heeler and am always looking for ways to help them be healthy.

My Queensland has been having issues with itching lately and I'm pretty sure it's diet related.

We have been feeding them Nature's Domain dog food from Costco, but I am looking to go natural and more raw for them.

I went raw myself (no meat though) for about 6 months and never felt better in my life. It wasn't sustainable forever for me, but I am about 70 percent raw these days with meat added occasionally.

I think my dogs would do well on raw foods.

 

[subhanalah]

A lot of people ask me if I worry that my dogs will want to eat my chickens since I feed them raw chicken...I can't get them to eat a cull from my own flock, but they will eat stuff from "stranger" chickens. I'm not sure if it's a personal/individual/awareness thing, or if they think it's a trick.
Or maybe it's the whole "how can you eat an animal you have known" mentality, hahaha

 

[K9Dave]

Subscribed. I'm mostly interested in hearing where people source their stuff from.
Your claim of cost has me reeling! I've never found anything that thrifty!

I found a de-boner about 5 miles from my house. It's an Asian company and they sell ALOT of chicken leg meat. They just toss the bones into boxes until they're full. They don't weigh them or anything. They then freeze them or ship them out to restaurants that make their own stocks and stuff. I buy it before they've frozen it and I pack individually. Enough for my 2 dogs for 1 feeding. I don't have a freezer now so I buy every week for $4 per box. I've made friends with the forklift driver and she gets me the heaviest box she can find.

This is the first score from them. Before this I was buying Chicken Necks for $22 for 40 lbs. that's still a pretty dang good price at .55 per lbs.

 

[K9Dave]

Very interested as well. Subscribed.
I have a Pit Bull/Boxer mix and a Queensland Heeler and am always looking for ways to help  them be healthy.

My Queensland has been having issues with itching lately and I'm pretty sure it's diet related.

We have been feeding them Nature's Domain dog food from Costco, but I am looking to go natural and more raw for them.

I went raw myself (no meat though) for about 6 months and never felt better in my life. It wasn't sustainable forever for me, but I am about 70 percent raw these days with meat added occasionally.

I think my dogs would do well on raw foods.

There's no question that your dogs would love the raw diet. I guarantee that in a month's time (prob less) you'd be here raving about how happy you are.

Clients and friends call me most very week with problems with training or health. I've moved around so I have friends all over so that's a lot of calls. I always recommend the raw diet. There is always a little worry about changing a routine. We people are funny about change. They'll say it's too much work. Including driving time, it takes me about an hour to retrieve and package my weeks worth of food. Most of the time they switch out of desperation. The family dog gets sick, Vet bills get too high or it gets elderly and is in pain or something. The results however are always the same and no one has ever looked back. Your dog will become active again with a new found energy. Fido will have a healthy appetite for food again. The coat becomes shiny and soft. Teeth become bleach white like when they were pups. Stools turn white in the yard and turn into powder when you step on them. All that remains are the bone meal and calcium with very little waste. You're basically feeding sushi to your dog and it's their natural diet.

Chicken is my staple because it's the cheapest. Along with this I make sure and give around 10% offal. Liver, kidney, heart etc are great sources. Another Asian market gives me Mackerel heads and they sell marrow bones. A butcher shop around the corner gives me their Pork Hip Bones and occasionally they will have beef bones to give me. I could feed my dogs for free to be honest with you with the pork bones, but I'm not completely sold on the entire safety of raw pork nowadays. I feed it to them occasionally still because they love it and I've seen no I'll affects as of yet.

I will continue to post things that I remember as they come back to me. I've experimented and found a lot of great things to add to the diet but I never write it down so it will be nice to have a place to document this stuff.

Very excited about the possibility of this thread.

 

[vahomesteaders]

We feed all our dogs a mixture of wild blue natural food and raw meat. Wet shoot deer squirrel rabbit ect.. We save all the feet scraps to give to the dogs. We freeze it and cook it for them down the road throughout the year. Since giving them wild game they have been much happier and healthy.

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[vahomesteaders]

Feed not feet scraps

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[K9Dave]

Very interested as well. Subscribed.
I have a Pit Bull/Boxer mix and a Queensland Heeler and am always looking for ways to help  them be healthy.

My Queensland has been having issues with itching lately and I'm pretty sure it's diet related.

We have been feeding them Nature's Domain dog food from Costco, but I am looking to go natural and more raw for them.

I went raw myself (no meat though) for about 6 months and never felt better in my life. It wasn't sustainable forever for me, but I am about 70 percent raw these days with meat added occasionally.

I think my dogs would do well on raw foods.

Kirkland is a decent brand if you had to do bagged. I don't know the other brand you mentioned.

We acquired a new dog not long ago and I switched his diet no problem. Everything's had been going fine until I noticed one he was itching real bad and his hair was coming out and thinning everywhere he was scratching. First thing I think is food. What did he eat that's different? The day prior I had given both the dogs some cornbread and other bread scraps from the kitchen while I was cooking. A fair amount. I already found out that he is Lactose Intolerant because his stomach gurgles the morning after yogurt and such with his food. Immediately I restricted his diet to only Chicken, raw eggs (shell and all), tsp safflower oil, kelp powder (Thomas Vet Lab), Enzyme Pro (Thomas Vet lab), I also applied Lanolin Oil straight to the scratches. (Not recommended on the label but I've always had success with this method). About 4 days later or so, the hair was almost all grown back and thickening. So now I put basically gluten on his list of No-No's. It's not a science, just works for me and mine.

I have a lot of tips and advice for newbies to the raw diet so if anyone plans on doing it, post it and let everyone follow that otherwise may not be totally sold on this.

Our 2 dogs. Camo and Teddy. Post your pics.

 

[K9Dave]

We feed all our dogs a mixture of wild blue natural food and raw meat. Wet shoot deer squirrel rabbit ect.. We save all the feet scraps to give to the dogs. We freeze it and cook it for them down the road throughout the year. Since giving them wild game they have been much happier and healthy.

Sent from my SPH-L720T using Tapatalk

What kind of feed scraps and why do you cook them?

I had 14 hunting dogs when I was maybe 5-6 years old. It's the first animals I remember. We hunted and fished daily in Louisiana and they always got the scraps. Hunting/Dressing scraps and table scraps. Squirrel gumbo was a pretty common meal so my dogs always got the carcass. Of course they love it. It's natural. They appreciate the exercise of the whole thing.

They never need to touch kibble btw. Coming off moms milk, they're able to go right to the raw diet. We had an Affenpinscher on it for ever. The wing bones we fed at the time were as big as his mouth. Lol.