# Extra firm Poo



## oakley (Nov 18, 2009)

Hey all, my pup is currently on kibble with 7-8 meals a week raw. I am going to try to do all raw soon.. but I'm just getting used to this... 

My boxer puppy Oakley is only 12 weeks old but really enjoys raw. Last night she had two chicken drumsticks, the night before she has a chicken back, and all meals in between then were TOTW Pacific. 

She just passed a VERY firm poo.. she even seemed to struggle a bit to pass it. And the poop had a little blood on the outside.. :frown: I investigated and there was none INSIDE, so I believe this is from her straining. 

Is this normal?

Is she getting too much bone?

I know its not the kibble because when on kibble only she had consistently firm poos... but not too firm. 


Thanks for your help as I find my path to true raw...


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## DaneMama (Jun 27, 2008)

Since kibble takes a long time to digest...can stay in the stomach for 12+ hours...feeding her raw, even at a different meal time can cause problems just like this. Especially since the raw you fed her was high bone content. Mixing the two creates a cement like paste that gets super hard and can cause damage to the colon, which is why you saw blood.

If I were you I would just bite the bullet and switch her completely over. If you have kibble left over, donate it to a local rescue.


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## rannmiller (Jun 27, 2008)

Or just feed her the rest of the kibble till it runs out, then switch completely to raw.


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## oakley (Nov 18, 2009)

Thanks for the quick reply. Hmm.. I might have to do just that.


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## oakley (Nov 18, 2009)

The bone crackin makes me a bit nervous.. still adjusting. I know. I'm a wimp! But shes just a baby with baby teeth!


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## DaneMama (Jun 27, 2008)

Here...watch this...Akasha is only ~8 weeks old munchin' on a chicken wing. Hopefully your fears will dissolve quickly. There is really no need to be scared at all. Crunching bones is what their teeth are made for :biggrin:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nz2rJn4Uhxc

If you really are worried, whack the chicken part with a mallet a few times first to soften it up...but don't chop it up...that can be dangerous...


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## Lynn In Tenn (Aug 20, 2009)

Hearing the bones crack is a good sound. Then you know they're chewing their food


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## JayJayisme (Aug 2, 2009)

My two pups had all sorts of problems on different high-end kibbles but I too finally found TOTW Pacific Stream to their liking. One thing I noticed though is that they produced a LOT of poop on this food. While it's true this food has no grains, it does have potato as the filler. I think they literally pooped all of it out because both of them were going frequently and leaving rather large piles.

I made the mistake of trying to "ease" them into RAW instead of switching cold-turkey. I had my reasons, and they fulfilled their purpose, but if I had to do it all over again and I had the option, I'd go cold-turkey and switch them to 100% RAW from the start. During this time, even when they were on 80% RAW and 20% TOTW, they had problems with hard poop. The problem didn't work itself out until I had them on 100% RAW for awhile with a good ratio of meat to bone. 

Every dog is different but both of mine had similar experiences. Now, as every RAW feeder will tell you, their poop output is less frequent, smaller, stinks less (almost no smell at all), and it turns to dust in a couple days if I leave it (which I usually don't). If there is any way you can go 100% prey model RAW, I highly recommend it. Your dog's system will normalize in a few weeks time and you can forget about all of this kibble nonsense and all the problems that come with it.


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## oakley (Nov 18, 2009)

Thanks guys. Im going to do all raw now...  :O


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## DaneMama (Jun 27, 2008)

All grain free foods are still packed with fillers. They are higher quality fillers but fillers none the less. Potato and sweet potato are the most common ones. The dog food companies still have to think about profit and therefore use fillers in any of their foods. 

I am so glad that you have decided to switch all the way to raw. You will definitely see a huge improvement in the poo department as well as countless others :biggrin:


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## oakley (Nov 18, 2009)

Friday night she had deer heart. Yesterday she had a chix back in the am and a chix back in the evening. This morning.. again really hard tiny poo that looked like a bunch of nuuggets squahed together. So breakfast this morning will be a muscle meat. 

Are two chickenbacks too much bone? I know they have a lot of bone but they both also had a lot of fat and meat and soem organs on them. Hmm.


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## RawFedDogs (Jun 16, 2008)

oakley said:


> Are two chickenbacks too much bone? I know they have a lot of bone but they both also had a lot of fat and meat and soem organs on them. Hmm.


If all you fed were chicken backs then yes, it's too much bone. Backs fed in conjunction with other animal parts and some boneless meals, then backs are a great cheap food to feed. Feeding backs for one meal a day allows me to spend more money on some of the better cuts of meat for other meals. BTW: I have Great Danes and they get one back each for their morning meal. The morning meal for them is little more than a snack. The evening meal is larger.


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## rawfeederr (Sep 9, 2009)

Cut back on the bone some... firm poops are almost always from excess bone.
Good luck with raw feeding!


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## RawFedDogs (Jun 16, 2008)

Poops that come out of the chute white and powdery indicate excess bone in the diet. Firm poops are normal.


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## oakley (Nov 18, 2009)

RawFedDogs said:


> Poops that come out of the chute white and powdery indicate excess bone in the diet. Firm poops are normal.



Yes, I appreciate a firm poop, but I believe these are a bit white and crumbly. Soooo, I will be taking your advice and adding in more meat without bone. 1 chicken back a day. 

Last night I gave her a chunk of deer heart again and left the room to change the thermostat.. got distracted for a minute before returning to the kitchen and she was in a panic.. her tummy all sucked in. I shook her around a bit by the ribs/tummy and then tried to feel/dislodge anything in her throat. She gagged and pulled away and just stood there a second then started sniffing around her towel... The little shit swallowed the piece of heart pretty much whole (7" x 3-4" piece !)  She is such an AWESOME chewer normally, that I thought I was fine to leave the room for a minute. WRONG. I think part of the problem was her dinner was late because we had been on the road and so she was hungry.. and impatient. :frown: Totally my fault, I shouldn't have left her alone. I watched her like a hawk for the rest of the night but she was fine, thank god. Boy, having this puppy is sure taking years off my life with all the stress and worry. :redface: Sometimes I feel like I suck!


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## whiteleo (Sep 7, 2008)

My female at times will crunch her drumstick and then swallow it whole, if she gets distracted from the fact she's fine, if not she'll do the foam puke until it comes back up.

I always cut up my heart into pieces before I give it to the dogs so they don't eat more than they can chew, they are terriers ya know....................................................


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## DaneMama (Jun 27, 2008)

oakley said:


> Yes, I appreciate a firm poop, but I believe these are a bit white and crumbly. Soooo, I will be taking your advice and adding in more meat without bone. 1 chicken back a day.
> 
> Last night I gave her a chunk of deer heart again and left the room to change the thermostat.. got distracted for a minute before returning to the kitchen and she was in a panic.. her tummy all sucked in. I shook her around a bit by the ribs/tummy and then tried to feel/dislodge anything in her throat. She gagged and pulled away and just stood there a second then started sniffing around her towel... The little shit swallowed the piece of heart pretty much whole (7" x 3-4" piece !)  She is such an AWESOME chewer normally, that I thought I was fine to leave the room for a minute. WRONG. I think part of the problem was her dinner was late because we had been on the road and so she was hungry.. and impatient. :frown: Totally my fault, I shouldn't have left her alone. I watched her like a hawk for the rest of the night but she was fine, thank god. Boy, having this puppy is sure taking years off my life with all the stress and worry. :redface: Sometimes I feel like I suck!


I would say that now you know what the right size of meat for her would be so this doesn't happen again. Either feed her a bigger piece of meat so she has to chew it, or feed smaller pieces that she can swallow without issue.

Remember that dogs don't chew their food like us...they don't have to. Their bodies are capable of breaking everything down in the process of digestion. We have to chew our food thoroughly because our bodies cannot break everything, plant matter, down during digestion (this is why you have to chew corn...really, really well LOL). 

Dogs crunch their food until its small enough for it to fit down their throats. Sometimes they get confused, like in your situation, and try and swallow something that cannot fit. Emmy does this on occasion with a turkey neck. She will chew it and swallow at the same time, get a little carried away, and have to puke it up all the way. Its disgusting, but she knows when something doesn't quite fit down.

Akasha, our Dane puppy will swallow anything whole if it will fit down her throat. This includes WHOLE rib bones. At first I was a little worried about this, but she has yet to show any problems from it. I cannot say how many times she has done this. She has also swallowed many whole chicken bones without issue.


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