Raw and Vacations

[luvMyBRT]

What do the raw feeders here do when they need to go on vacation?

If your taking your dog with you?
What if your needing to leave your dog with a good kennel?

About once a year we try to go on a family vacation. I have been very fortunate and have found 2 excellent kennels that I trust with my dogs (and I don't trust just anyone with my dogs). In the past we have always feed kibble so I don't know how I would go about leaving them and feeding raw.

[CorgiPaws]

If your taking your dog with you?

When I vacation with my dogs, I just take their raw along with. Depending on the kind of vacation and duration, I will either just stick it in a styrofoam cooler or a bigger plastic one if I need the space. If I am going somewhere near a wal mart, I will just grab chicken leg quarters when I get there. It's not going to do any harm to have a week of just chicken on vacation.

What if your needing to leave your dog with a good kennel?

If a kennel is not willing to accomodate a special diet, trust me, they aren't worth leaving your dog with!
I package my raw food a little easier for kennels to deal with. Rather than put a whole day together, I do it per meal for them in seprate baggies and label them. "ANNIE-FRIDAY-PM" "GRISSOM-SATURDAY-AM" or something to that effect.
I've never seen a daycare that doesn't have a fridge and freezer, so that shouldn't be an issue.

[whiteleo]

Most upscale kennels should be able to accomodate a raw diet with a freezer, I haven't run into one yet that won't feed it. Good Luck!

[g00dgirl]

Well i've done it both ways.
Last year I had to board them so I portioned out all their food into sandwich bags, one meal per bag. You can label them, but my dogs are close enough in size that I just instructed them to feed them each two bags per day, one in the am and one in the pm.

I JUST got back from a mini vacation in the smokys and what I did for the road trip was portion a bag of chicken leg quarters into meals, put them in bags and freeze it. Put the frozen stuff in a cooler and that's it! The individual bags allow you to feed it still frozen if necessary.

Feeding raw on vacation takes a little forethought but it's just as easy as at home once you get there.

[rawfeederr]

If I am going to be gone longer than a week, I buy a bag of grain free kibble (usually TOTW) and a few cans of grain free canned food (usually Wellness CORE).

If I am going to be gone less than that, I pack baggies of raw in a cooler with ice, and I am good to go..


I never leave my dog with a kennel. I let neighbors come watch him on the rare occasion when I can't take him with me. I try to make it easy on them, and leave kibble/canned since most are scared of feeding raw..

[DaneMama]

What do the raw feeders here do when they need to go on vacation?

If your taking your dog with you?
What if your needing to leave your dog with a good kennel?

About once a year we try to go on a family vacation. I have been very fortunate and have found 2 excellent kennels that I trust with my dogs (and I don't trust just anyone with my dogs). In the past we have always feed kibble so I don't know how I would go about leaving them and feeding raw.

If we can't take the dogs with, we have a person come stay at the house when we are gone. They are well informed at what our dogs eat, how to portion it out, etc (usually a fellow raw feeder friend stays with them). The typical price for an overnight stay in home is $35-50 here. If we can't find a house sitter we "pawn" them off on my mom and friends LOL. If it came down to having to board them, I would just do it at my work and we have a freezer there. But I know that you can call ahead and ask kennels if they will accommodate a raw fed dog. If you are a good standing previous patron of a kennel they should be happy to help you out with your dogs no matter what their diet consists of.

If we take the dogs with, we pack a cooler with FROZEN meat. That way it will keep for longer and slowly thaw out. We tend to fast our dogs if we go on a long road trip while they are in the car to avoid any car sickness...since we fast our dogs once a week or two anyways.

[conansmom]

The only time my dogs aren't fed homemade raw is when we go camping or if I don't have a way to store it. Then I feed The Honest Kitchen. It's dehydrated raw. I feed Embark and Force.

[Jodysmom]

I'm glad you asked this question. Our family is going to Durango, CO at the end of July and we are taking our GSD,Jody, with us. We found a pet friendly cabin that allows pets. She eats PMR so I need to do a search for WalMarts or stores in Durango. Kibble is not an option because she is unable to digest it and it goes straight through her. Would premade raw patties be okay...just for the week?

[RawFedDogs]

For a week or so premade patties would be ok or you could take ground beef or turkey or any combination. I would prefer putting chicken quarters in a cooler.

[DaneMama]

I'm glad you asked this question. Our family is going to Durango, CO at the end of July and we are taking our GSD,Jody, with us. We found a pet friendly cabin that allows pets. She eats PMR so I need to do a search for WalMarts or stores in Durango. Kibble is not an option because she is unable to digest it and it goes straight through her. Would premade raw patties be okay...just for the week?

Frozen pre-made patties have a lot of inappropriate ingredients in them that Jody might not handle well since she doesn't do well on kibble. Since you are going to have to store the frozen patties in a cooler anyways, I would just get frozen quarters or something. Durango is a fairly large city and they do have a WalMart:

Walmart.com - Store Detail