# Uh oh.



## Noey814 (Apr 18, 2012)

Stella (our 2 1/2 yr old rescue) is currently on Kibble with the main ingredient being lamb meal. This is what the shelter gave us and what the person at the pet store suggested to my DH (darling husband).

She's pretty lazy most of the time, but I do worry about bloat. I have read kibble diet Spoos tend to get it more.

I am VERY new to all this. What does Raw mean? What do you feed your Spoo? Any suggestions of a good supplement for her or should I switch? HELP! I feel bit lost and want her healthy and happy. I want to do what is best for her, but still not too terrible on the ole' pocket book (we do have 3 kids and one other 4 legged family member).

Any advice? Anything I should know (and/or avoid?) 

TIA!


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## Carley's Mom (Oct 30, 2011)

Raw means raw meat with some bones and organ meats included. I am new to it also, and I am feeding a high quality Lamb kibble in the a.m. and "raw" in the p.m. meal. I will let the others that are more up on this diet to give you advice. I will say that they have convinced me that raw is the best for my dog. Good Luck.


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## tortoise (Feb 5, 2012)

What you need to know. Raw diet has risks, but if you follow a few rules, most dogs thrive on it.

1. Never feed cooked or smoked bones of any kind. These bones do splinter and are dangerous.

2. You MUST feed bone or a calcium supplement. If you choose to not feed bone, you can use Pearson's Square to calculate how much calcium to supplement with. Be aware that feeding excess calcium is as damaging as a calcium defiency. With that said, puppies are more suceptible to problems with excess calcium.

3. "Recreational" bones do not count as part of the diet. They can be dangerous, with risk of breaking teeth, constipation, and bowel obstruction. If you feed recreational bones, they must be taken away when they dry out. Recreational bones are weight-bearing bones, like "soup bones", and pork neck bones. Pork neck bones are particularly worrisome because of their irregular shapes and sharp edges.

4. Some safe Raw Meaty Bones (RMBs) are chicken and turkey backs, chicken leg quarters, chicken and turkey necks. Those are the easiest to find. Some raw feeders will feed whole skinned heads of cows, and deer, but deer heads should not be fed in CWD areas. The bone in a RMB is relatively soft. They can be cut with kitchen shears. Dogs have no problem chewing and swallowing RMBs. 

5. Be cautious if you get chicken necks or backs with excess skin. The skin is very fatty and it can lead to upset stomach or pancreatitis. I saw a young dog that died from pancreatitis because the raw diet include way too much fat - from chicken skin. Also be cautious if you get RMB with little meat (boney bone). Bone is an important mineral source, but has little protein or caloric value. If you get RMBs with a lot of bone, you should add boneless meat (meaty meat) to it.

6. Organ meat is essential and rich in nutrients. Liver is easy to find in grocery stores. You should be able to find chicken heart and gizzard easily as well.

7. Variety is essential to keep raw diet safe. There is not a complete protein source, but no source is better than another. Constantly changing the protein source is not necessary. A "base" of 2 or 3 protein sources can be fed consistently if it meets protein requirements. Protein in cooked grains is 70% digestible for dogs and can be used in the diet. You can find protein information on the USDA nutritent database and compare it with AAFCO. Variety is more important in the non-RMB portion of the diet. While veggies, grains, fruit, and dairy make up a very small portion of the diet, they supply the vitamins that are not in sufficient amounts in RMBs or organ meat.

I'm sure there will be lots of comments to add, but these will keep a raw-fed dog alive.


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## fjm (Jun 4, 2010)

I found this website very helpful when I wanted to move away from feeding kibble: DogAware.com: Homemade Diets for Dogs

It has easy guidlelines for supplementing kibble, home cooked diets, and various raw diets. As Tortoise says, the most important thing is to get the balance between muscle meat, organ meat and bone approximately right. There are many opinions as to what constituts the ideal diet for dogs, but I think that few people would deny that a minimally prcessed diet rich in animal protein and fat is better than one based upon highly processed waste from human foods - and in my experience it is also much cheaper than feeding a high quality kibble!


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