# Probiotics



## Poodlebeguiled (May 27, 2013)

Oh, I can not tell you how ecstatic I am about switching to raw. My dogs are remarkably healthy on it. And I don't think the cost is so much more than TOTW kibble, which I also use to use, along with some Merrick canned and Hound and Gato, some other "premium" foods. I just don't think about expense. lol. I look for good deals...sometimes things are about to expire and I snatch them up...like grass fed, organic Angus beef and leg of lamb. I've got a big freezer and my dogs are so much healthier and more energetic than they were. Well, it's hard to say with the Poodles. They've always been energetic. They're young. Their teeth and eyes gleam. Their coats are lovely. It's especially noticeable in my old dog, Jose`. I wrote a thread about him and the wonders of tripe in the health forum. If you want a good probiotic, get raw green tripe. I just ordered two more 5lb bags of the stuff from Hare Today, Gone Tomorrow, an online place to get some stuff. Tripe is hard to find. It's not the bleached out stuff in the grocery stores. You probably already know that since you fed raw before.

If you go through this subforum...back a couple pages you'll see all kinds of threads I made while transitioning to raw. I also posted things about the commercial food industry and how corrupt they are, lying about what's in the food... the bare minimum being put into the food, the recalls, the poisoning, the rotten job the AAFCO does in checking it, how cooking really louses up the nutrients, where the stuff comes from that goes into the food etc etc. I just got so "fed" up with the whole thing. I was a bit "chicken" to do it on the one hand. But I went cold "turkey" into it. And my dogs certainly have no "beef" with me for any meal I've prepared for them. :act-up: They love it all. And their teeth and vitality are something else again. I know that fresh, raw, unprocessed, well balanced food is the best thing for all of us, including our dogs. No more processed, over cooked, junk for my babies. Okay, I've turned into a food snob. I never thought I would. I always thought premium foods were good. And I still think they're better than others. And I had dogs live long lives on Purina. But I think feeding a natural diet of raw, whole, unprocessed food is better...is optimum. There's a difference to me of getting by and thriving. 

As far as your original question about probiotics. I tried some store bought in a jar as per my vet's suggestion for Jose`'s poisonous smelling bad breath...vet thought it was acid reflux, then another vet thought something else. It did NOTHING for Jose`. Then I got the raw green tripe. And Viola`! Bad breath gone. You can read about it in the health forum. So that's what my suggestion is...raw green tripe, not some processed stuff that is expensive and may not work.

Next post I'll tell you how I really feel. lol.


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## fjm (Jun 4, 2010)

I feed raw and home cooked to the cats as well as the dogs. I base their meals on a complete mince (80% meat, 10% bone, 10% organ) and chicken wings, but am increasingly finding that Poppy in particular is getting too much bone, so am striking out into more chunks of raw meat. It seems that Sophy and the cats have a very definite preference for red meat in chunks rather than minced (Poppy is a gannet and eats anything and everything!). The ground meat mixtures are much cheaper to feed than a premium kibble; buying supermarket meat on offer and combining it myself would come in at slightly less than the best kibble based on the prices I have looked at recently, partly because my small dogs can't get through the larger, more economical bags before they start to get stale. 

Like PB I get raw green tripe which covers the probiotic side and which they love. In the freezer at the moment are meal sized packs of raw beef chunks with kidney, halved raw chicken wings, and raw mixed minced chicken and salmon, and there is a big pot on the stove with minced chicken, lamb and beef, plus some extra beef heart and liver and a mixture of vegetables, ready to be portioned up when it has cooled. In the oven is a rice and beef liver loaf which will get turned into biscotti treats. The dogs maintain a healthy weight with minimum effort from me, their teeth are not as good as I would like but at 6.5 and 7.25 years old they have neither of them yet needed a dental, all four animals are fit and well (with the exception of Pippin's arthritis caused by an accident when he was young), and they thoroughly enjoy their meals!


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