Transition Woes

[magicre]

I've noticed a common thread throughout this forum and others.....about the transitioning of dogs.

being humans, we don't give a second thought to changing our eating habits.

we decide to become vegetarians so we no longer buy meat or animal proteins....fill up on cereals and milks and eggs, etc. and off we go.
maybe a little digestion issues, but nothing we can't handle.

FOR THE MOST PART.

then, we see the light for our animals and we decide that kibble sucks and prey model raw is good.

many of us make the same mistakes over and over again.

mine was overfeeding and giving chicken quarters right out of the gate to dogs who had been kibble fed and then home cooked...

from there, it went downhill because i was advised to then give them chicken thighs. big mistake. thighs are even fattier.

so.

here's what i propose....

for those who have successfully transitioned their dogs and for those who are going through the process, i thought it would be a great idea to either:

1. drop a pearl of wisdom for the folks who are biting their nails through the first sound of bone crunching to the ones who are cleaning up liquid stools.....

2. tips and tricks

3. stories of your own transitions - great and bad....although i shall be jealous of those who have garbage gut dogs...

4. advice, besides the go slowly one, since we really have problems with that.....:)

i can tell you from experience --- go to bed,bath and beyond. there is a product there called Folex. white bottle with purple lettering.

clean up urine or poo with paper towels. take soaking wet towel and literally soak the area, if you have carpets. follow directions of folex on carpets and on floors. it takes the stain out, even bile....and it takes the odour away.

my experience was awful. so awful that i did it twice.
i had received generic information on another forum.
i now know each dog is different and needs to be approached differently...that's where 'know thy dog' comes in.

without going into specifics, i think each protein took at least a month. even now, i am well trained to only give finger nail sized pieces of something new before feeding an entire meal of what ever novel protein i find.

my dogs are fully transitioned now. it will be two years in march. i only just now figured out just how much dietary fat means to a dog.

we are all happy to report that bubba is no longer bald and his penis is properly covering with fur. it was a source of embarrassment to him, for which we are sorry.

but.

fat in the beginning is something that needs to come in slowly. that's why your dogs are going to look like crap the first month or so....the breath and teeth sometimes take longer than other dogs...to clean up.

it's a good idea to get your dogs' teeth looked at before starting raw. knowing the condition of the teeth will determine if one more cleaning is called for or dentition is such that once they transition, all will be fine.

digestive issues are a biggie.
we tend to over feed and feed too quickly that which gives the dog liquid diarrhea.
don't let those sad eyes fool you.....dogs are manipulative and we made them that way. manipulation is a human thing. but dogs are not stupid and we project those sad pathetic eyes as 'you're not feeding me. i'm starving.'

we worry about vitamins and supplements and dairy which is not doggie appropriate because we want them to get all the nutrients that kibble manufacturers have pounded into our heads.

here's a pearl:

KIBBLE MANUFACTURERS ARE WRONG. they add in this crap because it makes US feel good to see turkey and cranberries...reminds us of thanksgiving. in reality, it's because they expelled and extruded so much out of dog food, they HAVE to add back in. rather than use chemicals, they are telling us they use the essence of alfalfa, the glory of tomato pomace...and a whole bunch of useless crap that will never be utilised properly by a dog's digestive acids.

ok. i could go on and on. but i suspect there are a lot of questions and stories......

[xellil]

Not sure anyone went through as much as you did to transition.

the only thing I really had was puking, and I just didn't worry about it too much. I realize that I was probably giving foods that were too rich too soon, but since no one had diarrhea and they normally ate the puke up, I still did it.

I would do that differently today - when snorkels got into candy last week and when she puked she apparently aspirated some of the vomit, which caused wheezing and possibly a lung infection from breathing in bacteria from her mouth. I had never thought of that before.

And I take that back - I DID have trouble with salmon. Neither of my dogs can handle it very well. Rebel got diarrhea, and Snorkels didn't get diarrhea but she got this bad constipation and when something came it out was just a few drops of liquid. So I had to learn to regulate the salmon, giving them just a little bit at a time.

Rebel still has nasty farts. I should probably pay more attention to what he is eating - I am sitting here in a fog of fart right now.

[magicre]

i don't think i'm alone.

and i think there are more people out there who have given up raw because of the beginning not going smoothly.

and i don't believe for one minute that raw fed dogs don't fart. my pug does and it's not like it was, but dayum.

[xellil]

Glad it's not just Rebel. I hear all these stories about farts going away - I am still waiting for that :) Even Snorkels will have a very stinky fart now and then.

And I bet you are right - you may just be more stubborn than most people!

[Mondo]

I've been pretty lucky, although one of my boys (Tuffy the Tibby) is picky and what he ate yesterday with gusto, today he might refuse. Yes I know, "tough love", I'm just a softy though.

The one constant with him as been chicken necks. And beef of any kind. Chunks of beef or beef liver. He's also in love with the ground sheep I got from the bulk distributor. But necks are my fall back with him, duck necks are usually hit, but sometimes miss. Chicken necks he's refused once or twice, but due to illness.

That's my big tip. for little dogs. Chicken necks. Low in fat, a nice bone source.

Wings and backs, I've fed without the fat removed, and these can lead to some puddin' poops.

As an aside, I love my Green Machine.

Little Green (R) Deep Cleaner

On review. Farts have gone away. Breath is better. Not "fresh", but not knock ya over either.

Contacted a holistic vet today, checked the website and they are on board with raw feeding!

[monkeys23]

I am the poster child for how most people should not transition, lol. It went extremely smoothly considering though! Buuut I did finally switch Lily because she was having constipation issues, so thats another consideration.

Things I would do diferent: Never feed pigs feet and would not have done half and half with Scout for the first few months. I obviously was not thinking on that one!

So here's how it went: Lily I transitioned using chicken quarters morning and night (untrimmed besides!) and I ended up having to switch out a quarter for a boneless chicken breast one meal a day that first week even with all the fat on the quarters. The second week went mostly the same, except I fed beef heart a couple mornings in the am and included liver with her chicken quarter on Tues/Sat night and kidney with her chicken quarter on Th/Sun... at the full amounts she normally gets no less. I have no idea how that went so perfectly, but it did. Do not follow my example, lol! I will say I did know she'd done fine getting elk meat, beef liver, and assorted other things way before ever going raw. A whole beef tongue in addition to her normal daily kibble once even... didn't even result in any loose poo. Anyway I digress! Pork feet were no bueno and I think pork necks are too bony for her as well. The primal sardine grind went well, but she didn't care for the texture/taste/smell at all, so I stopped feeding it after five or six months (was only feeding it once a week to start). All turkey, deer, elk, lamb heart, etc. has gone great. Pork was the only thing that gave issue and that was only the bone-in pork.... cheap pork roast seems to sit fine.

Scout I did half and half for a couple months. It went okay when she was on acana grasslands, but terrible when she was on TOTW SM. I shouldn't have done it to begin with anyway, that was stupid of me.
So I was doing a chicken q in the am (untrimmed) and kibble int he pm. Second week I switched it up with kibble am and chicken q w/organs in the pm. She did fine with it.
Tried pig feet, oi that was a terrible idea. Beef heart went fine oddly, but man things were much better when I switched to full pmr. She did fien with the sardine grind, however was not a huge fan of it. Fine with all turkey/chicken/beef/deer, however she gets a little gassy with elk meat and lamb heart was super no bueno for Scout.

Oh and I got some bunny organs one time, both dogs did great with those! And both did splendid with intro-ing tripe. I suck at transitions, I just fed them a whole meal of tripe the first time. Its a new all time fave! I also still think its a lot less icky to handle/divy up than the sardine grind was. I also never trim the big fatty hunks off of anything. The beef heart especially has a lot. They do fine with it and fat seems to be a key diet component.

I do not supplement with fish oil, despite not feeding fish. They seem to not need it. However this could be due to extremely high quality natural beef, grass fed green tripe, grass fed lamb hearts, antibiotic/hormone free turkey necks, game meat (deer/elk), and homegrown eggs providing more balanced Omega-3/6 ratios than a diet based on CAFO produced meats. I do feel I should be adding additional joint support, but I'm very picky on ingredients and I can't really afford to be paying for pricey joint support for myself or them... plus I need it worse myself because I actually have a joint injury that I conservatively manage (torn meniscus). In the big picture, they are way better fed than most people's human children so I'm feeling pretty okay with it all. :)

I was way slower with transitioning my little foster dog. I followed the guidelines. He has done extremely well. However since he's been at the training facility being evaluated for service dog work all week, they are feeding grain free kibble (NB LID).

[CoverTune]

i don't think i'm alone.

and i think there are more people out there who have given up raw because of the beginning not going smoothly.

*raises hand* I'm pretty sure you're all familiar with my trials with George.. BUT.. I'm not giving up.

It's easy to see my mistakes now.. #1 feeding WAY too much. And #2 trying to transition WAY too quickly. Even though I've been feeding raw for almost 6 weeks now, I feel like I'm starting over at square one with George. We're gonna try this transition thing again in a couple of weeks, but much much more slowly!

[magicre]

i, too, am picky about joint support.

i finally ordered K9 because my friends have had such great results, but i get it through my co op.
plus, i ordered connectin because it is the cleanest joint support i could find, so we'll see.

ouch on the torn meniscus. surgery?

my dogs didn't do well, because i didn't research enough and i followed a guideline that was way too generic. i also had a ten year old dog and a pug who was a rescue who was scared of everything and i didn't take that into consideration.

so they were overfed.....i never had to clean up so much puke from bubba horking up a thigh all over my kitchen as i did that week.

the liquid squirts were the worst. but this could all have been prevented had i done what i eventually did, which was to start them on backs....after going back to home cooking.

their digestive systems, by that time, were a mess, so that's why we ended up going so slowly.....mostly because i was scared....plus, malia had giardia and we didn't know that.....

once we knew that, their transition went more smoothly....but i still erred on the side of caution...

[Imgliniel]

You are fully allowed to hate me, I have a garbage gut dog haha. But she came of the streets and spent probably the first 8 months of her life literally eating garbage, so, meh, guess it makes sense. I had her fully transitioned including organ meat in a month. I never trimmed fat or skin off anything. She never skipped a beat. She can get the occasional soft stool, mostly from to much liver, but never really had true cannon butt. Never went in the house. Had, oh I think 2 bile pukes the first week and then never again after that.

You know what I would say to most people? Calm down, softer poo is not the end of the world. As caring dog owners we tend to panic over every... single.... tiny.... thing.....

Do you do that with your own eating habits and bowl activity? I doubt it.

To those of you cringing at the bone, terrified your dog will swallow everything whole. Gulpers can be reformed. Lucy practically inhaled kibble, and my biggest fear when I got started was that she would swallow large chunks of bone and cause herself some damage. I feed everything frozen, and started with chicken quarters, she thought about it for awhile, nibbled, pulled at it, walked away, didn't realize it was food. 2 days later when she decided it must be food mom keeps putting it in front of me she went pretty dang slow about eating through it. Just out of curiosity how does thins taste still not sure kind of attitude. Since then she hasn't gulped anything. This is a 65 lb doberman mix and she will even thoroughly chew a small chicken neck. (She stole it from the cats, I don't normally feed her chicken necks, haha). The little nubby bone end of a turkey drumstick even gets chomped several times into much smaller pieces before she swallows.

[Donna Little]

I think most problems stem from human error. I see posts on here and the FB page I'm on all the time with people saying, "My dogs been eating raw for 3 days and has explosive diarrhea. She's getting skinned chicken quarters and liver only. Why is this happening?!" Starting out with liver? Why!!!!! Who told you to do that?
One of my best friends wanted to put her Pitbull on raw and I gave her the link to this forum and talked to her about exactly what to do to get him transitioned. She started with skinned quarters and it was going great. Then literally less than 2 weeks later she was telling me he was going to have to go back on kibble. He just kept having blow out diarrhea and obviously it just wasn't working for him. Then she told me what she'd been giving him and I couldn't believe what I was hearing. She gave him the chicken for a couple of days and because all was well and he liked it so much she gave him venison sausage, bacon, pork, smoked pigs feet, and liver! Ahhhggggg!!! She's never gone back and tried again and the failure was totally on her.
READ the info about transitioning! Start with bony, mostly skinned and de-fatted first. Preferably chicken unless you KNOW your dog is allergic to RAW chicken. If that's the case go with turkey. Can't get any easier than that. When all is going well add a little boneless chicken in with the bony pieces. If all's still well a week later give a little chicken with skin or a bit more fat. Start slow though and don't over-think it. I was very intimidated at first too but mainly because I had a very sick dog and just wanted to know I wasn't going to kill him by trying raw food since his system was so down already.
I really went by the book with all my guys and every single transition was perfect. The only problem I've had at all was with organ meat and we're slowly trying again and so far so good. Half of mine just couldn't handle the tiniest piece of organ meat without getting the runs. Now they handle it much better but I have to make sure they have bony meals before and after. I've also learned just how different each dog is and that I've tweaked each one's diet as I've learned. Two of mine are the same size for example but they get much different quantities of food every day to maintain a good weight. Don't expect to know all this within 5 minutes. You'll learn as you go along.
So I guess to sum up:
USE common sense and USE the info that's provided for you on this forum (as well as many other places too) but anything you need to know about successfully transitioning can be found here.
Don't be so excited to try the next thing that you set your dog up for failure. Go from one protein to the next slowly.
Don't be freakin' out about the fact that your dog IS only getting bony, skinned chicken but still has the runs and the ONLY other thing your giving her is smoked beef treats when she gives you sad hungry puppy eyes. If they're having digestive problems stop... giving... treats.... and see what happens then.... Bony chicken and ONLY bony chicken at first means just that.
Once they've gotten to the stage where they can handle other proteins continue to keep an eye on the poop. If it's soft or runny, give more bone, too dry, less bone. As you go along you'll learn what your dog needs because your dog's body will let you know. It's taken a while but now it's like second nature.
It's been about 8 months for my guys and although I'm sure there'll be plenty of things I still need answers for, I know I have a community of people here that will give good advice. And like I've been told time and time again, "Know thy dog." Best advice yet.