Not for the faint of heart

A little over a week ago we started Juno on a raw diet. Our decision to do this was based on reading lots of books, internet postings, blogs and websites that were all based on purely anecdotal evidence and observations of wild canines suggesting that eating raw meat is good for domesticated dogs. There haven't been any comprehensive studies showing that kibble is bad or raw is good and that's fine by us because we've figured out ways to get meat cheap enough to make feeding Juno a raw diet is cheaper than feeding her (premium) kibble --- not to mention the mountains and mountains of money we're going to save when she anecdotally doesn't get cancer or have renal failure.

This is Juno in a sit-stay in front of her kibble. She liked it well enough -- but I knew we could do better.

The first months of a raw diet consist of introducing a variety of proteins into the pup's meals and examining their poop for signs that all is well.

We started with 8.3 oz of chicken necks (5.3 oz) and chicken meat (3.0 oz) three times a day.
She LOVED it -- snarfing it all down in a matter of minutes and sniffing around for more.

Then on Day 3, Eric observed Juno yelping and spinning around towards the exit-only end of the action while she was trying to poop. Apparently the bone was gumming up the works, so we increased her meat and decreased the bone. We also noticed that she was losing a little weight, so we increased her overall intake to 30 oz a day (divided over three meals). Her poops in good shape for several days, we added some ground turkey in.

But the fun didn't end there. We found that in the early morning hours, she was urping up yellow bile. Pups sometimes puke when their stomachs are empty but still producing digestive juices. After some rude weekend morning wake-ups and based on some advice at the German Shepherd Forum, we switched her to two meals a day, making her body used to 12 hour stretches without food.


So now we're at 15 oz (slightly more turkey meat than chicken neck) two times a day. Her poops are well formed and less stinky, which is basically all it takes to convince us that the diet is working. We'll add some veggies, eggs, and fish this week and try out pork and beef over the next few weeks.

Some resources on feeding raw.

The yahoo rawfeeding group.
The yahoo mimdwest rawfeeding group.
BARF world: The website of Dr Billinghurst who wrote the seminal "Give Your Dog a Bone" -- a bunch of good books listed on this website.
For those of you in the Twin Cities area who own a large deep freeze, here are two meat distributors who sell bulk parts to the public. Raws for Paws at Swanson in South Minneapolis and Anderson Produce Company in Roseville.