# Almost two months, a few quick questions



## Jester's King (Mar 12, 2010)

My year old 65 pound american pit bull terrier has been on raw for about six weeks and all is going superb thanks to the detailed guides a couple of members provided. So now a few questions:

1. today I gave a whole talapia for the first time, but noticed the spines in the dorsal and pectoral fins were very tough and sharp, so I removed them. Question is that since I haven't seen any warning about that, I wounder if other people are feeding whole talapia without removing those fins.

2. similarly I feel like feeding whole eggs could have some sharp edges from the shell... is that never a problem going down the throat?

Actually, I guess that's all for now. I had a whole list of questions when I started, but now can't think of what else.


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## RawFedDogs (Jun 16, 2008)

Congratulations on deciding to feed your pup PMR. I'm glad things are going so smoothly for you. We get a lot of questions here from people that it isn't going smoothly for and we tend to think most people have problems switching their dogs and that just isn't the case. Most people have absolutely no problem at all. Thanks for reminding us of that. :smile:



Jester's King said:


> 1. today I gave a whole talapia for the first time, but noticed the spines in the dorsal and pectoral fins were very tough and sharp, so I removed them. Question is that since I haven't seen any warning about that, I wounder if other people are feeding whole talapia without removing those fins.


I have fed them without removing the fins and my dogs haven't had a problem. If you feel better removing them, go ahead.



> 2. similarly I feel like feeding whole eggs could have some sharp edges from the shell... is that never a problem going down the throat?


I fed eggs w/ shells for several years without a problem. A few years ago I decided my dogs were getting enough bone in their diet to more than take care of their calcium needs so I stopped feeding the shells. I give them eggs when I give them a meal they will eat from a bowl like beef heart or canned salmon.


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## DaneMama (Jun 27, 2008)

My two Danes have whole tilapia for their morning meal most days. I don't cut anything off and have never had a problem. Fish bones are very soft compared to a lot of the other bones that we typically feed. Did your dog eat the tilapia without hesitation?


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## Jester's King (Mar 12, 2010)

Thanks for the replies. He did with the talapia the same with ANY new food, which is take it in his mouth, spit it out, sniff and lick it - all before deciding to eat it or not. After all that he did what he does with his most prized food items which is go off to a private corner to enjoy it. I noticed that he pretty much bites off mouth sized chunks and chews them up pretty well, as opposed to his chicken and turkey meals which he just chews enough to crunch the bones and then swallows whole. If you both have had no problem with whole talapia, I'll give his next one tonight without cutting off the fins.


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## Jester's King (Mar 12, 2010)

RFD that makes sense about the eggs. I'll do the same once we move on to feeding organs and beef heart and such. I've pretty much copied your way of giving a chicken back in the a.m. as a snack and some bone content, then his main meal in the evening. Been working great and only very few poop issues. And while on premium kibble I never was so lucky, as squirts were a regular problem at that time.


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## whiteleo (Sep 7, 2008)

Need to bring that pit bull over to give my bull terriers a lesson on how to eat fish!:biggrin:


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## Jester's King (Mar 12, 2010)

IDK but so far i've just been lucky with him taking everything offered. He even took the chicken livers from a whole chicken I cut up for him. I just wanted to see if I'm gonna have a hard time feeding organs when we get to that stage...I'm keeping my fingers crossed, but as a vet tech won't have a problem popping them down his throat if that turns out to be the only way.


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## Jester's King (Mar 12, 2010)

By the way Whiteleo I love bull terriers!


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## RawFedDogs (Jun 16, 2008)

There are many ways to get dogs (and cats) to eat organs. I would try them all before I would try forcing them down their throats. I never had an animal I couldn't eventually get to eat organs. I don't think I ever had one that ate them willingly at the beginning. :smile:


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## dobesgalore (Oct 21, 2009)

RawFedDogs said:


> There are many ways to get dogs (and cats) to eat organs. I would try them all before I would try forcing them down their throats. I never had an animal I couldn't eventually get to eat organs. I don't think I ever had one that ate them willingly at the beginning. :smile:


How did you get them to eat organs? The tough love approach? I have three who won't eat them. I have to do the shove thing pretty much. The only time they have eaten liver willingly was after missing a couple of meals and being hungry enough.


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## Ania's Mommy (Feb 8, 2009)

dobesgalore said:


> How did you get them to eat organs? The tough love approach? I have three who won't eat them. I have to do the shove thing pretty much. The only time they have eaten liver willingly was after missing a couple of meals and being hungry enough.


A few ways I can think of are:

Lightly cooking or searing them
Rub with garlic
Freeze them slightly

You'll want to do less and less of each method until the organs are just plain ol' raw. :smile:


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## DaneMama (Jun 27, 2008)

We've tried everything. We did the freezing thing. We did the searing thing...only half the dogs would eat them only half the time. Searing took a long time and didn't really pay off enough to continue doing it. Plus it made the house reek of cooking organs 

Its just plain ol' easier to shove the organs. It literally takes less than 30 seconds to "pill" each one of our dogs with organs. They are used to it by now and don't struggle. You'd think they would just willingly take them by now, but they still wont eat them at all. Oh well.

Akasha is the only one who still is our garbage pit who will eat anything.


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## whiteleo (Sep 7, 2008)

The slightly freezing worked great for me in the beginning, now the two will eat large pieces out of my hand with no problems, but the "little miss" shes not having anything to do with them, its worked a few times to put them in the fish mix, chopped real small mixed in with an egg.


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## DaneMama (Jun 27, 2008)

Two of ours don't like fish either, tried tough love with them for 5 days...didn't work. We used to make a blend of fishy stuff and organs but they'd eat around the tiny pieces of organ. We tried blending the organs into a patte and mixing it, but then they wouldn't eat it. So, we just shove LOL


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## 3RingCircus (May 24, 2010)

RawFedDogs said:


> There are many ways to get dogs (and cats) to eat organs. I would try them all before I would try forcing them down their throats. I never had an animal I couldn't eventually get to eat organs. I don't think I ever had one that ate them willingly at the beginning. :smile:


Both my pups love organ meats. They loved them from the beginning. I think they hope their diet could consist of only liver. That is their favorite.

Of course, my pups eat anything I give them. They want to try it all.

I wonder though, what would happen if I just placed a huge platter of RMB in front of each pup and let them go at it. Would they eat until they barfed? :biggrin:


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## Jester's King (Mar 12, 2010)

Is there actually a platter big enough for a Leonberger?


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## DestaRR (Jul 26, 2010)

Jester's King said:


> Is there actually a platter big enough for a Leonberger?


I think you could ask the same thing about Ridgebacks


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## DestaRR (Jul 26, 2010)

You know I've never had to struggle to get my dogs to eat organs. But then again Ridgebacks will eat just about anything you put in front of them and they'll keep asking for more.

Only a couple of times have I seen a question mark above their heads or one acting like "what the heck is this?!" and both times it was with fish. First instance was a whole fish, and the second instance (second dog) was with Primal's Sardine Grind. He ate it, but the whole time he was flicking pieces of it everywhere ~sigh~ So what I did was mix it 50/50 with chicken or turkey and slowly up the percentage of fish. Maybe you could try that with the organ meat =)


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## magicre (Apr 7, 2010)

so far, we've been lucky. i started out with a thumbnail of chicken liver and worked my way up to beef.....we'll see what they do with bison kidney....that'll be the end of august.

but i feed them liver every day and only a little piece of it and it's frozen. they think it's a treat. to me, it's a vitamin...they get liver along with salmon oil gelcaps.

they will eat everything else, although i have this beautiful salmon head freezing...so i'll let you know in a month or so how they do with that...

my problem is the ordinary. when i feed chicken now, malia turns her nose up and will walk away, although hunger always gets the best of her....and she'll eat it...but you can feel her wheels turning, like where's that pretty red stuff?


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## whiteleo (Sep 7, 2008)

We are lucky! are dogs are spoiled..................


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## magicre (Apr 7, 2010)

whiteleo said:


> We are lucky! are dogs are spoiled..................


i can't wait to finally finally give them salmon...after all the contradictions i got, i finally found an article about dogs and alaskan salmon....yay.


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