# Vitamins and Supplements for raw diets



## Guest (Aug 23, 2010)

Do any raw feeders here supplement their dogs' raw diets with vitamins and / or supplements? I just started adding a daily multi-vitamin to my dogs' diet recently and am wondering if such is absolutely necessary. My dogs get mostly pre-made frozen raw.

Thanks!


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## RawFedDogs (Jun 16, 2008)

LabbieMama said:


> Do any raw feeders here supplement their dogs' raw diets with vitamins and / or supplements? I just started adding a daily multi-vitamin to my dogs' diet recently and am wondering if such is absolutely necessary. My dogs get mostly pre-made frozen raw.
> 
> Thanks!


I feed my dogs PMR and never supplement except I give Abby glucosimine for her bad hip. I honestly can't tell its doing her any good and she's been taking it for over a year.

I don't know what to tell you about a pre-made diet because we just don't know what is in them in what porportions. Most of them are very heavy in bone. 

With a PMR, everything is there and balanced by nature. No supplements needed except for any known health problem. Some PMR feeders supplement fish oil or salmon oil for the O3's which grocery store is light in.


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## magicre (Apr 7, 2010)

before they got organ, i supplemented with a multivitamin...

now, they only get salmon oil gel caps

but i also feed a PMR...and i simply wouldn't know whether or not the frozen pre mades are adequate with or without supplementation.


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## Guest (Aug 23, 2010)

I think it's more for my own peace of mind than for the dogs' actual benefit. I like to think their nutritional needs are being met. It can't hurt, though, I figure. If anything, it would help fill the gaps.


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## 3RingCircus (May 24, 2010)

I originally was going to feed packaged raw. However, after reading about RMB I decided to go with it. The major reason was no needed supplements or vitamins. The next major reason was the unknown bone content which can range anywhere from 30 to 50 percent. A supplier of the packaged raw has to feed her dog all kinds of enzymes and vitamins because of how the product is processed and what it contains.

I feed RMB and I give my dogs only salmon oil. They get two gelcaps each per day.


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## DaneMama (Jun 27, 2008)

I only do fish oils as well, and that is only when I think about giving it. Its hard to say if the pre made raw diets are balanced or not, but I will say that it never hurts the dog to supplement it as long as those supplements are water soluble. Its the fat soluble nutrients that can be harmful.


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## ubershann (Jul 29, 2010)

In the store I work in some of the premade raw has bones and organs, some doesn't. Also, some has veggies added, some doesn't. Columbia River has the option of both, and most of their smaller animals (chicken, guinea fowl, etc.) has the bone ground in. Bigger animals like beef and bison don't. I would guess the ones with organs and veggies would have most of the supplements they need, but I'm far from an expert on the subject :smile: Still lots of research to do


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## Huskyluv (Jun 25, 2010)

I feed a partial raw diet (raw + The Honest Kitchen) but I supplement their diets with Nupro Silver w/ Joint Support.


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## ubershann (Jul 29, 2010)

I wanted to add that I give my pup a daily supplement, Joint Mobility by Wholistic Canine Complete. She does really well on it. They have a daily multi-vit called Canine Complete (Joint Mobility is that plus joint supplements) plus several other supplements like Salmon Oil, Coconut Oil, and others. Very good line. It flies off the shelves! They missed a shipment to us once and we had people calling every day to see if it was in yet. They were frantic! lol! :biggrin:


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## Guest (Aug 27, 2010)

I have been supplementing with the Total Health Plus product from The Whole Hound. Website: The Whole Hound: Premium Supplements for Dogs


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## chowder (Sep 7, 2008)

I have been looking for a supplement for Chelsy for when I start her on raw next week. It has to have NO flaxseed, salmon oil, and preferably no yeast, but plenty of B vitamins and glucosamine for her severe back problems. She is on one from Drs. Foster and Smith but it has some ingredients in it that I think are making her itch so I was looking for some alternatives. I will check out a few that were mentioned here. If anyone else has any all natural ones they are using that they like, let me know. She is little and doesn't need much. She is starting to have trouble getting her back legs under her in the morning so the little girl needs all the help I can give her.


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## sassymaxmom (Dec 7, 2008)

Since I am using nutritiondata.com all the time to figure out Sassy's cooked diet I created an account for Max and use it to analyze Max's raw diet. I have a few RMB analysis I put in as custom foods and when I make up a weekly diet for him in My Tracking unfortunately have found a couple low spots in his diet I need to supplement. I use sardines so he doesn't need fish oil but vitamin E, magnesium and manganese are low and zinc tends to be low. I am always amazed at how complete a diet just meat, bone and organ is though.


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## ubershann (Jul 29, 2010)

chowder said:


> It has to have NO flaxseed, salmon oil, and preferably no yeast, but plenty of B vitamins and glucosamine for her severe back problems.


I'm pretty sure Wholistic Pet supplements have flaxseed in them :frown: Otherwise the Joint Mobility one would have been great.


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## magicre (Apr 7, 2010)

chowder said:


> I have been looking for a supplement for Chelsy for when I start her on raw next week. It has to have NO flaxseed, salmon oil, and preferably no yeast, but plenty of B vitamins and glucosamine for her severe back problems. She is on one from Drs. Foster and Smith but it has some ingredients in it that I think are making her itch so I was looking for some alternatives. I will check out a few that were mentioned here. If anyone else has any all natural ones they are using that they like, let me know. She is little and doesn't need much. She is starting to have trouble getting her back legs under her in the morning so the little girl needs all the help I can give her.


maybe take a trip to b-naturals.com

they have some products i really like and have used in the past on dogs that weren't fed raw....
and i used them in the beginning after malia's giardia and bubba's eye surgery....when they were only eating chicken.

once i started on a balanced diet...i found that i had pretty much covered my bases, except salmon oil.


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## chowder (Sep 7, 2008)

ubershann said:


> I'm pretty sure Wholistic Pet supplements have flaxseed in them :frown: Otherwise the Joint Mobility one would have been great.


 They do have flaxseed. Almost all of them do and it makes Rocky scratch so bad that he bleeds. Every time I give him any of the 95% meat By Nature canned food he scratches and chews himself silly and it has flaxseed added to it (I have no idea why they did that) 

I've actually been having a long email converstion with the Whole Hound people. They've been very nice and answer emails almost instantly. They are very secretive about their EXACT ingredients but did tell me that they have no flax or salmon at all in their total health plus vitamin and will answer any other questions that I have and I can call them any time I want. I think I will probably try one bucket of their vitamins since they seem to be really high in the B catagory. We have read extensively on that and increasing Chelsy's B vitamins seems to really help the nerve damage in her back and improve her ability to walk. For her it's more nerve damage then just joint problems....she actually was paralyzed at 3 years old and is losing feeling in her back again. One vet wanted to do surgery on her back again but that's not going to happen at 13 years old!! When she has her extra vitamins and exercise she can walk just fine. The raw food should help her, too.


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## sassymaxmom (Dec 7, 2008)

Raw should help as meat is full of those B vitamins.

Not disclosing ingredients is a huge red flag for me. I haven't bought anything from B-Naturals but ingredients are disclosed there. 

With Sassy's heath issues I trust human grade supplements rather than ones made for pets as they are more accountable. It means a lot of pilling, no liver added so they are tasty!


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## chowder (Sep 7, 2008)

Good idea to just check the human vitamins instead of the pet ones. I"ll do that. I didn't like the of them not telling me the ingredients either. We've been back and forth on several emails and all they'll tell me is what's NOT in it.


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## Guest (Aug 28, 2010)

I have a jar of Whole Hound Total Health Plus vitamins & minerals with Glucosamine, HCI, MSM, and Digestive Enzymes.
A complete list of ingredients is on the label. They aren't hiding anything.


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## chowder (Sep 7, 2008)

LabbieMama said:


> I have a jar of Whole Hound Total Health Plus vitamins & minerals with Glucosamine, HCI, MSM, and Digestive Enzymes.
> A complete list of ingredients is on the label. They aren't hiding anything.


It's just not on their web site though. They just list the vitamin and mineral contents and amount, not the actual ingredients that make up the product. I was trying to get the person at the website to tell me what makes up the product i.e. yeast, flax, fish oil, carrot powder, etc and she wouldn't tell me. Every other vitamin tells you the exact ingredient inside the vitamin. 

For example - 

B-Natural's vitmamins 

Ingredients -*Whey*, Ascorbic Acid (Vitamin C), *Dried Chicken Liver*, Vitamin E Supplement, Calcium Panthenate (Vitamin B5), Riboflavin (Vitamin B2), Thiamine (Vitamin B1),* Alfalfa Meal *(dehydrated), *Lemon Peel*, Vitamin A Supplement, *Kelp* (dried), Vitamin D Supplement, Selenium (Sodium Selenite)

This is all I am trying to find out about Whole Hound Vitamins. I'm not sure why she couldn't email it to me and why it's not listed on the web site. I would love to be able to buy them but I really have to know their full list of ingredients for Chelsy. I don't have any local store so I can't look at a label. I have to order the stuff on line so I have to get it direct from the manufacturer.


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## ubershann (Jul 29, 2010)

chowder said:


> I've actually been having a long email converstion with the Whole Hound people. They've been very nice and answer emails almost instantly. They are very secretive about their EXACT ingredients but did tell me that they have no flax or salmon at all in their total health plus vitamin and will answer any other questions that I have and I can call them any time I want.


That's nice that they'll answer your questions so quickly! But very weird that they won't tell you what's in it. I wouldn't take a supplement if I didn't know what was in it (for myself) so I don't imagine I'd give it to my baby either. Isn't it a law that ingredients must be disclosed? Strange.

I was also going to suggest looking into people supplements. But it looks like that's been covered :biggrin:


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## magicre (Apr 7, 2010)

when we did supplement, we liked the ingredients in b-naturals immune blend and her green blend....for home cooking, we thought it rounded things out nicely...

for raw...they get organs and variety, so i think we're covered vitamin and mineral and amino acid and enzyme wise....


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