Hello there!

[RachelsaurusRexU]

My name is Rachel and I have five dogs (and four cats!) that I just began feeding raw a few weeks ago. I look forward to chatting with other members and learning more about their dogs' raw diets.

[luvMyBRT]

Nice to have you here! Welcome to the forum.
It's always great to see another raw feeder. We would love to see some pics. of all your animals!

[DaneMama]

Hello and welcome! How are all your animals handling raw at this point?

[dogmom]

Hi and welcome. I'm a newbie as well and it looks like we started about the same time. It's really exciting to see their progress and the love of their new diet. However, I only have two small dogs (Shih Tzu's). How's it going with 5 dogs and 4 cats? That's quite an undertaking - I'm impressed.

Brenda

[MollyWoppy]

Hi and welcome from me too. What type of dogs do you have? And, have you managed to get your cats on a raw diet as well, or is it just the dogs?

[RachelsaurusRexU]

Thanks, all!

My pack is comprised of Maggie- a 7ish year old pit bull/JRT X, Guinness- an almost 6 year old American Bulldog, Romeo- a 5ish year old pit bull, Frankie- a 7 year old Catahoula/Boxer X, and Brooke-Lynn- an almost 4 year old pit bull X, all rescues. I have thousands of pictures and will surely share some!

They're all doing very well on raw thus far! Nobody has had loose stool and they've all been pretty eager to try and gobble up new things except for Guinness, who can be a bit stubborn at times. I think once she gets used to the textures and smells she'll do just fine, not that I give her much of a choice

The cats, on the other hand, are proving to be MUCH more difficult to transition! Right now I have two at the point of eating chunks of meat without any canned food mixed in. Another will eat chunks of meat as long as they're mixed with a bit of canned. One of them won't touch a meal that has raw mixed in; won't even eat around it. I think I'll try him on ground mixed with canned and see how that goes. It has been pretty frustrating. I can't imagine ever getting to a point where they're eating bone and organ but I hope I'm wrong! I try to be tough with them but, unlike dogs, it's dangerous to let them go 24 hours or more without food, and if these cats don't like something they'll flat out refuse to eat it no matter how hungry they are Very frustrating.

[MollyWoppy]

Join the club. I got my first cat a couple of months ago and I'm getting quite brassed off trying to get her to eat anything other than the McDonalds of kibble. I was hoping you had the magic formula. Nevermind!
Glad to hear the dogs are transitioning well though. Thats neat you have given your heart and home to all those lucky pups. Can't wait to see your photo's.

[RachelsaurusRexU]

LOL! I hear ya. Mine ate kibble before I knew any better. It took a while to transition a couple of them to grain free canned, but the other two took right to it. Have you tried starting with a "junk food" canned mixed little by little into her kibble? Then you can decrease the amount of kibble and increase the amount of canned until she's only on canned. Afted that you can gradually transition to a high quality, grain free canned and then do the same with with ground meat in the good canned. I think I jumped into it a bit to fast with the cats. I should have started with ground mixed very well into the canned. Once the cat is eating solely ground raw you can start to add tiny bits of meat until it's eventually all bit, and then gradually increase the size of the chunks, etc, etc, etc. I've heard from other raw cat feeders that it can take up to a year to fully transition a cat! I am NOT that patient!

I'm going to get some pictures uploaded to photobucket so I can post them!

[RachelsaurusRexU]

Maggie


Guinness


Romeo


Frankie

[RachelsaurusRexU]

Brooke-Lynn


Bunny, Milner and Meatball


Miles

And I also have a coop out back with chickens and pigeons. I don't want to go too crazy with pics in this thread, so here's a link to my Flickr! Flickr: Rachel from the Black Lagoon's Photostream There are also some more pictures of Maggie, Milner and Meatball, and some of the aquarium habitants in there. Enjoy!