# Every meal vs. over time and gastric distress



## fjm (Jun 4, 2010)

I know exactly what you mean - and to make it even trickier mine need a different balance of bone/meat/veg to keep them in the Goldilocks zone. I have had fairly severe constipation problems with Poppy recently (the night I was up till 2 or 3 am worrying), and the opposite problem with Sophy after she had a chunk of liver (bad news: she failed to wake me; good news: she took herself off down to the tiled floor in the kitchen; bad news: I found it by treading in it, with bare feet...!). I am thinking of doing the veg - with both pumpkin and a little spinach - in ice cube trays, so that I can add it to all Poppy's meals. I'm also giving them more tripe, which seems to help balance things out. I stick to wings and other very small bones, and the mince I get is prebalanced, but it is still too much bone for Poppy.


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## Poodlebeguiled (May 27, 2013)

On this other forum I visit, most people there go by the "prey" model diet and feed no vegetables. (of course, tripe contains some vegetation already broken down) My fear is that with these tiny dogs, it is easy to feed too much bone. And even if vegetables are given to make more fiber in the diet, to counter act so to speak the constipation the bone can cause, they still might be getting too much calcium! Over-dosing calcium can cause heart issues over time. (at least with humans) Breaking bones or cutting them to be small pieces is very difficult really. I use to have some poultry shears but can't find them...probably lost in moving or something. But anyhow...I just don't quite know what to do about this. Figuring out the math is also very difficult for me. I literally cut up their meat this morning into 10 pieces and put it neatly on the cutting board. Then looked at the size of one of those pieces and made a piece of liver that size. And a piece of bone that size. (wore out my knife) I had to do that to see what was 10% of liver and bone. I was trying to make everything balanced in one meal. It looks like I've been feeding too much bone, although since it was every other day, maybe not. Hmm. Every other day, _one meal_ was bone. Gee wiz! Maybe that's too little. (?) Oy vey! I can't do math. Bones have been chicken wings, necks, backs, thighs. One time rabbit thighs or the bottom part of the leg...the distal part. lol. Crap. What do you do? Every meal, every other meal, every other day...one meal? How do you figure out 10%? 

That is not fun that you stepped in the stuff Sophie left you. Yikes! :ahhhhh: It happens. You are not alone. lol. 

Anyhow, maybe I'm over thinking this. On the other hand...I think those ratios are pretty important and I don't want to go on and on doing something that might do harm.


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## fjm (Jun 4, 2010)

I am sure prey model is feasible for toy dogs (especially if Tilly-cat were running the show!), but it is not easy - they are very happy to eat whole young rabbits, and would probably tackle chicken and pheasant, but won't touch mice, voles or small birds which would be the perfect size for a meal. I feed twice daily, and aim to average one high bone meal (half a chicken wing 45% bone, pork or lamb riblet 30% bone), to three or four 10% bone meals (ground meat plus some veg, sardines, etc), to two or three no bone meals (tripe, eggs or just meat). If they are constipated I cut back on the bone, add more veg, etc. I am wary of adding more liver because of the disastrous effect it has on Sophy! The ground meat is balanced, but lacks the benefits of chunks and rmbs; the rmbs are good, but small ones have too much bone to meat for tinies. If ever you find the perfect solution, do let me know!


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## Poodlebeguiled (May 27, 2013)

I just can't see giving bone at every meal unless all the bones are cut into very small pieces...10% of every meal is about 1/2 to 1/3 the size of my thumb, except maybe square. Well, I'll keep thinking and experimenting and will report back with any ideas. Hope you do too. I never thought about the differences in feeding tiny dogs a raw meaty bone diet.


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## nifty (Aug 2, 2013)

Hi Poodlebeguiled, it is an eyeopener to think about serving a raw diet to toy poodles! I hadn't really thoroughly thought about how difficult it would be to reduce say a chicken thigh to an appropriate meal size for a 5-7 pound dog. That sounds challenging! Yes, cutting up those bones into small enough portions has to be difficult and then, are the bones too small then? A choking hazard? It's tough!!

I have been thinking about your situation and I keep coming back to the coarse or fine raw whole animal grinds from My Pet Carnivore. I searched for vendors on the west coast and can't seem to find anything like MPV. I checked out Hare Today, which I think you have used -- and they do offer grinds and a lot of variety too! However, the problem is the ratios in their grinds are too high in bone (for example,their chicken grind with meat, bone and organ ( sounds perfect so far!) has only 68% meat and nearly 30% bone and just 5% organ. Dang.)

I can only speak to what I would do but here I go: I would look at all the effort and difficulty you are facing with getting ratios and servings all right and I would say to myself "well, my time is worth something $$ here! It might be worth the extra expense to get MPV!"

And then I think if I were you, I would seriously consider giving MPV a try even though you would need FedEx shipping to the west coast which is expensive! I still think it might be worth it to you, since you have that great freezer setup and you can order enough in one order at a time for your boys to last several months! The MPV whole animal grinds are nearly all perfect 80/10/10 ratios, by the way. They also have a lot of variety.

Their food comes frozen and what I do is store it in the fridge first to get it to a semi-thawed state (it is safe to thaw and refreeze). Then I take an hour or so one day to open all the containers and get out the zip lock freezer bags and then I divide the food up into individual servings (which for Dulcie are 8oz each - she eats twice a day for 1 lb of food plus a snack and treats making up an additional few calories and teeth/jaw chewing). For your boys, you would obviously use a lot less per serving, and so you could either press the thawed grinds into ice cube trays, or use a tablespoon or small scoop (like a melon baller) to fill the zip lock bags with meat "balls" for the little guys. Lay the bags flat in the freezer until the balls are frozen again and so they don't get all stuck together. 

I also add a little honest kitchen grain free base mix to Dulcie's meals each day. I found that when she was strictly on the prey model raw, she started to forage a bit out on walks -- new behavior for her and I didn't like it! Adding the HK gave her a little extra bulk and also vitamin insurance, so I feel good about that. BY THE WAY using the HK also offsets the putrid odor of green tripe!


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## Poodlebeguiled (May 27, 2013)

Oh Nifty...I have a bag of Nature's Variety pre-made raw in the freezer for occasional use. But I don't want to feed a grind on a regular basis. I want them to have whole food that I pick out myself from a farmer or butcher. I want them to exercise those jaws and teeth, ripping, tearing and enjoying the way nature intended them to. My freezer is filled to the gills already. lol And I want them to be able to enjoy crushing up a bone. It's their favorite. You should see them. When I go in the laundry room to grab two towels to put in their crates before it's "bone eating time," they run to their crates well before I return with the towels, get in, come back out because they've learned they have to wait till I lay the towel in there so they remember and come back out for a second. lol. Then they go in and wait in great anticipation. They enjoy chewing these bones tremendously and there's so much good in them for their teeth and gums. I want them to have some bone every other day at least. Maybe I'll have to add a little grain to bulk them up a little. They don't like their veggies very well so I can only sneak in a little.

Now the hard part is doing the math but get it more evened out I think...not that they get all bone at once, all other stuff at another time because I think that's what's causing this back and forth. For several days or a week, their poo tended to be just right. I must try to analyze what was different. 

It is hard with the tiny dogs I guess to get these ratios right. But it just_ has_ to work. I will not give up. lol.

But I thank you so much for chiming in with your ideas. I might have to do some kind of compromise like you mention if I can't get this worked out so their poo is more consistent. But I'll keep fiddling with this, making adjustments and see if I can't get them more on an even keel. Maybe incorporate some of your ideas. What's the honest kitchen for? I'm so down on commercial foods...their recalls, their poisoning dogs, their dishonesty in labeling...so sick of them, that I don't trust any of them anymore...not that there can't possibly be something that goes wrong with human food. But I at least like to see what I'm giving them from the most basic form I can (without having my own cows) to their bowls. And with all the stuff I feed them, that should have all the vitamins they need, no? Now if I can get their bowels steadier somehow without giving up everything I had planned for them, that would be super. I'll let you and Fjm know if anything I do works better. Thanks so much for your input. I'll certainly keep your ideas in mind because I may have to fall back on something else later. Who knows?


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## Poodlebeguiled (May 27, 2013)

Myths About Raw: Can toy breeds and small dogs eat a raw diet?


This person's opinion is that the toy dogs should not eat small bones like chicken necks, wings etc, because of choking hazzard...but should be given great big pieces as shown in the picture at the bottom of the little terrier. But I'm wondering...even if they crush up a larger bone, they're still going to wind up with small pieces of it in their mouth. Also, just look at those huge pieces of meaty bones! That would make my dogs fat in a heart beat. What do you guys think? Also I don't agree that tiny dogs _all_ think they're big and tough...not necessarily. Every toy breed dog I've had has been pretty cautious and careful of him or herself.

This is from that other link I posted about myths. This one is the myth that small dogs can't or shouldn't eat a raw diet. It caught my eye since several of us have toy Poodles and other toy breeds.


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## nifty (Aug 2, 2013)

Hi Poodlebeguiled! The MPV grinds are simply whole animals put through a coarse meat grinder just as a person might roughly chop up raw meat at home. It's frozen in tubs to keep it during trucking to the various buyers. They also sell other kinds of chews, whole and chunks of meats, organs and so on, several types of green tripe and other less common meats.

But I get it. That's not what you want to buy. You want to select meats for your boys and cut it up or prepare it yourself and it sounds to me like with your dedication and resourcefulness, this is going to work out for you, Maurice and Matisse in time! Good luck!


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## Poodlebeguiled (May 27, 2013)

nifty said:


> Hi Poodlebeguiled! The MPV grinds are simply whole animals put through a coarse meat grinder just as a person might roughly chop up raw meat at home. It's frozen in tubs to keep it during trucking to the various buyers. They also sell other kinds of chews, whole and chunks of meats, organs and so on, several types of green tripe and other less common meats.
> 
> But I get it. That's not what you want to buy. You want to select meats for your boys and cut it up or prepare it yourself and it sounds to me like with your dedication and resourcefulness, this is going to work out for you, Maurice and Matisse in time! Good luck!


Oh gosh Nifty! I missed this post! :ahhhhh: I'm sorry. Yep, it's the same as Nature's Variety. They have a pretty well respected food that is ground up bone and a mix of everything they need. I use that once in a while. I'll check out that company you mention though, MPV and see what all they have and their prices. The place I got a lot of stuff from is all the way in PA,_ Hare today and gone tomorrow_ is the name...and it takes 4 days to get here. You have to order 10 lbs of meat to keep it frozen that long apparently, plus the ice packs. But I'm finding I'm using a lot of tripe so it's not out of the realms to order two 5 lb bags next time. That in itself would make 10 lbs. But I'm going to check out a local farmer around here first before I need more and see what all they have. You're right. I kind of like picking out my own meat, choosing a variety (very important) and the dogs getting whole bones. 

The last several days their poops are seeming to be a little more consistent and better. What I've been doing is giving them smaller pieces of bone or smaller bones but every day, at one meal. They are getting a tad pudgy and maybe that extra food was also bothering their digestion too. So, less food altogether and trying to distribute the bone more evenly might be the trick here. I'll probably know if a few more days if they stay consistent and non-mucousy. Oy, gotta get this figured out. 

Thank you again for your ideas. I'll definitely check out that company, MPV and see what all they've got.


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## nifty (Aug 2, 2013)

You might be pleasantly surprised, Poodlebeguiled. I also keep a bag of Nature's Variety frozen on hand for nights when I just am not up to putting a meal together. I don't think it is really the same thing at all. The My Pet Carnivore grinds are only the ground up animal meat with no vegetable matter or anything else added.

I buy the coarse grinds and believe me, it is exactly as if I had gotten say a whole rabbit or chicken from the butcher and came home and put it through a meat grinder or chopped it up with a really sharp cleaver. It is ground up but in a rough chunky way and looks totally like what it is: raw meat, organs and bones. The whole thing is there - including teeth, nails, heads, etc. With the coarse grinds, there are smallish bits of bone still clearly visible, so for a toy I would imagine it would provide quite a bit of crunching. I can hear Dulcie even crushing away. They source their meats from grass fed or wild caught sources, often purchasing from native American groups and small farms in Michigan. 

It's something to keep in mind if the issue of balancing quantity of bone and meat/organ for tiny dogs continues to vex you.


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## Poodlebeguiled (May 27, 2013)

Oh I see now what you mean. I'll come back to this later after looking at their site. I'm tuckered...just got back from errands and then a loooooong walkies with the Poodle boys after a pretty long walk with just Jose`. So I'm going to investigate that. 

What I'm finding today and several days prior is that this might be working....where I'm giving them less bone but every day instead of every other day as I was. Then they're not bombarded with too much bone or too much meat, organ, veggies all at once. Their poop seems better just lately but it's early to say for sure. Jose`'s poop is reeeeeelly good. I think I've got the egg shell or bone meal (I vary that too) in the right amounts. I mustn't be heavy handed with it. 

Thanks again for your explanation and lead to a place that sounds like an option.


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## Shamrockmommy (Aug 16, 2013)

When I was feeding raw to my dogs, I used a grinder by northern too to feed the chihuahua (3.5 pounds). I could portion tiny amounts of ground chicken with bone one day and just ground beef/organ the next. 

Got my grinder from Northern Tool. 

(Don't feed raw anymore)


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