# Feeding a Small Dog Raw?



## Pepper (Aug 4, 2011)

*I've been looking into feeding my Shih-Tzu raw, but everything I've come across shows much larger dogs. So I'm afraid I don't know where to start...

What is appropriate to give a smaller dog? I figured chicken thighs would be good, but how many? 1 per meal?

I know when starting out I should stick with one protein for a little while, but in the long run what else could I give him in terms of beef, pork, etc that would be appropriately sized?

And last but not least (for now!), do you need to mix it with anything ever?

I'd appreciate hearing from anyone who can help, and especially those of you who raw feed smaller dogs. Thank you in advance! *


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## cprcheetah (Jul 14, 2010)

I am currently feeding 2 4# dogs raw, and have been for a year now. I feed Zoey my chihuahua cornish hens & rabbit ribs for her boney meals. Ziva my min pin is a power chewer and isn't afraid to tackle things like turkey necks, venison ribs, beef/pork ribs, rabbit/chicken thighs etc. It depends on the dog. Basically as far as what's appropriate to feed, you will have to cut up into portion sizes (things like roasts etc). For the first 2-3 weeks you want to feed bone in chicken/cornish hen, then gradually start adding other proteins, I went to pork, then beef, then turkey, and then if I introduce something new like Bison or Venison or Rabbit I take it slow. I had a 11# pomeranian I was fostering for a while and he ate Chicken thighs no problems. 

Here is a sample menu Zoey gets 1 & 1/2 to 2oz per day, Ziva gets 3-4 oz per day, even though they weigh the same Ziva is VERY active so requires more food.
Sunday Bone in Rabbit or Whole Prey Mice, Liver 
Monday Boneless Pork 
Tuesday Boneless Chicken 
Wednesday Bone in Cornish Hen or Whole Prey Mice, Rabbit Kidneys 
Thursday Boneless Beef 
Friday Boneless Turkey 
Saturday Tilapia or Mackeral


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## Liz (Sep 27, 2010)

I have a 14 pound and a 20 pound sheltie on raw - these are some of the things they get. Chicken all parts, cornish game hen, duck necks, small end of turkey necks, rabbit any part, goat in chunks, lamb lung, mutton, beef cheeks, beef ribs, pork ribs, tilapia, sardines, canned salmon, pork roast chunks, mackarel, and once they had quail but I am too cheap to buy more. They will hopefully get a taste of emu soon. My littlest fourteen pounder gets 6 ounces per day and can get through pretty much any bone my big guys can, it just takes a little longer. Yours may have alittle difficulty depending on his bite. You do have a lot of options. You want to feed 2% or a little less of his body weight to start and if he needs more add a little. Always start low though. Calculate his weight times 16 and divide that by .02.


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## magicre (Apr 7, 2010)

when i had shih tzus they varied in weight from 9 pounds to 19 pounds....

i have a pug now, and he can eat pretty much anything the big boys can eat...although for edible bone, chicken, pork ribs and rabbit are my meals of choice...

for proteins, you're going to start with chicken...chicken backs, i've learned are probably the way to go, since your dog needs to transition to a whole new way of eating....too much skin, fat, and flesh can give your dog very loose stools....so bonier is better for the beginning....

once you've had solid stools, you can then think about adding in flesh from the chicken....a little at a time. remember the slower you go, the better it is for your dog.


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## Maxy24 (Mar 5, 2011)

How big of a Shih Tzu? My aunt and uncle have an oversized one, 16-18 pounds. Turkey necks are great for her and she doesn't even eat raw, I've just given them as treats.


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## Pepper (Aug 4, 2011)

Thank you everyone for your responses! Now for one more question...where do you find things like rabbit, goat, etc...? I have a store nearby where I can get the neck, backs, and all that, but I don't think I've seen the other meats around here.



Maxy24 said:


> How big of a Shih Tzu? My aunt and uncle have an oversized one, 16-18 pounds. Turkey necks are great for her and she doesn't even eat raw, I've just given them as treats.


He's 22lbs right now...should be 18-19 according to the vet.


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## Pepper (Aug 4, 2011)

Just thought of another question...and it sounds really silly but it's on my mind...

Will feeding raw make my lil guy more aggressive towards the other animals in my home? Right now he coexists peacefully with my birds, but I'm imagining him seeing them as flying meals after this change... lol


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## magicre (Apr 7, 2010)

Pepper said:


> Just thought of another question...and it sounds really silly but it's on my mind...
> 
> Will feeding raw make my lil guy more aggressive towards the other animals in my home? Right now he coexists peacefully with my birds, but I'm imagining him seeing them as flying meals after this change... lol


no. it won't.


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## Pepper (Aug 4, 2011)

Thanks for answering and for not laughing at me lol


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## Dog Walker (Dec 23, 2010)

I have a 12lb yorkie on raw. He eats just what larger dogs eat in smaller amounts. I give him 2% of his body weight so he gets about 5oz of meat a day. I buy a big bag of leg quarters and can usually get 4 meals out of one leg quarter. My yorkie can chew up pork ribs and also can chew through turkey wing bones.

He has not become more aggressive towards the other critters. He already had a high prey drive (tries to eat my guinea pigs and hunts rabbits/squirrels/birds in the yard) before starting raw.


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## Pepper (Aug 4, 2011)

Dog Walker said:


> I have a 12lb yorkie on raw. He eats just what larger dogs eat in smaller amounts. I give him 2% of his body weight so he gets about 5oz of meat a day. I buy a big bag of leg quarters and can usually get 4 meals out of one leg quarter. My yorkie can chew up pork ribs and also can chew through turkey wing bones.
> 
> He has not become more aggressive towards the other critters. He already had a high prey drive (tries to eat my guinea pigs and hunts rabbits/squirrels/birds in the yard) before starting raw.


Thanks! Mine has zero prey drive with the other critters...he just watches them and if he gets too close, he gets picked on. I can't tell you how many times I've had to save him from having his tail pulled and bitten by the African Grey!

Now, does everyone also feed organ meat at some point? I've read that it SHOULD be given, but in moderation. Would that be like one day out of the week?


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## Dog Walker (Dec 23, 2010)

You will feed organ after a few weeks of just plain chicken. The breakdown is 80% meat 10% bone and 10% organ. I usually feed chicken or beef liver and chicken kidney, mostly because that is what I have been able to find. I usually feed chicken heart as muscle meat as it is more muscle than organ. I really don't worry about how many times a week I feed organ, only because my dog doesn't have any digestive upset when he eats too much of it.


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## lucky (Jan 8, 2011)

I feed my 12lb JRT about 120g of raw meat each day, I feed her one meal which she has in the morning. She has chicken wings/drumsticks (2 chicken wings per meal or 1 drumstick) depending on the size of the chicken ... a whole lamb heart would make another whole meal for her ... I buy her a lot of ox heart so i just pack it into 120g size portions ... when i feed fish she normally has 2 sardines or half of a small mackeral. She gets through smaller bones fine (pork ribs/lamb ribs/chicken bones etc), even eats the bone from turkey legs. 
She has liver as a whole meal once a week (usually ox/chicken liver), she also gets ox/lamb kidney about once a fortnight as a whole meal, she will only eat kidney if it's frozen though
Also she was just as desperate to chase small animals before she started raw and is just the same now, her temperement is exactly the same


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## Pepper (Aug 4, 2011)

Thank you to everyone for being so helpful! I have one last question for now... I see that Lucky eats once a day, how about everybody else? Should I be looking at once a day or twice a day? Or is it just completely up to what schedule works best for me and Pepper?


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## schtuffy (May 17, 2010)

Wow, so many people got to this thread before I did! But I'll just tell you what I do anyway :biggrin:

My dog is around 12-13 lbs and when we first started raw, I used primarily chicken wings and chicken necks for bone content to get him transitioned. Nowadays for bone, he gets chicken wings, chicken feet, duck wings, lamb riblets, and whatever other small boney things I can find...such as bone-in rabbit or chicken drummies. For all the boneless meals, I save it for stuff like turkey (breast or boneless thigh if I can find some), beef muscle meat (I just buy a big 4-5 lb chuck and cut it into 2-3 oz. portions), canned fish (sardines, salmon, etc.), beef heart, lamb heart, duck gizzards, and so on.

I try to do mostly heart or beef for boneless meals, since he gets so much of his bone from poultry. Lately I've been introducing more heart, but as of right now I still pair it with a boney meal. For example, last night he had one lamb riblet and a piece of heart that was a little smaller than 1-inch cubed. You won't be feeding organs like liver for quite awhile, but when the time comes, how you feed it depends on your dog. My dog can't handle too much at a time, so I spread out his weekly portion by giving him a nickle-sized sliver with a bone-in meat for dinner a couple times a week. I use the 80-10-10 as a guideline only. Sometimes I forget to feed liver altogether and 2 weeks will pass before I'm like, "Oh...right, I should give you some liver today!"

I feed him twice a day.


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## schtuffy (May 17, 2010)

Pepper said:


> Just thought of another question...and it sounds really silly but it's on my mind...
> 
> Will feeding raw make my lil guy more aggressive towards the other animals in my home? Right now he coexists peacefully with my birds, but I'm imagining him seeing them as flying meals after this change... lol


It's funny that you ask that...I have 2 parrots and I was concerned about Louis spreading bacteria to them when he licked their cages. But after almost a year on raw, my dog is the same little friendly furball. If anything, it's my cockatoo Hermes, who's the mean one. She'll lunge at him and try to sneak a bite at his ear whenever I'm not looking


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## Pepper (Aug 4, 2011)

schtuffy said:


> It's funny that you ask that...I have 2 parrots and I was concerned about Louis spreading bacteria to them when he licked their cages. But after almost a year on raw, my dog is the same little friendly furball. If anything, it's my cockatoo Hermes, who's the mean one. She'll lunge at him and try to sneak a bite at his ear whenever I'm not looking


Hah! Great...I'm glad to hear this. Well, except that Louis gets picked on....Pepper does too by Tango, my grey


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## magicre (Apr 7, 2010)

we intro'd each protein one at a time, using chicken as the base. my dogs did not get liver or kidney until we were about two months in....plus, we intro'd the richer foods a little bit at a time, so they could get used to it.

nothing like giving a newly transitioned dog a full serving of beef heart or liver.


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## Dog Walker (Dec 23, 2010)

My dog is fed once a day. Like most boys he has a hard time waking up in the morning, so no morning walks or feedings for him


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## Caty M (Aug 13, 2010)

Both my two cats and two dogs are on raw, the dogs from puppyhood. The two green cheek conures still rule the house.. and sometimes steal the dogs' raw meat. You can tell cause the dog will start barking, you go see what's going on and the little bird is sitting on top of the bone picking chunks of meat off. :smile:.

I've had my Italian greyhound and sheltie on raw from day one. My IG started at 2lb. She could handle everything from quail to pork ribs no problem.


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## Mollygirl (May 14, 2011)

I feed Ginger and Pinky the same as Molly. Ginger chews thru anything. I mainly feed chicken, I buy the chicken quarters and cut them up. Ginger and Pinky both do better at chewing up the bones than Molly. Ginger is suppose to be Shih-Tzu but the vet said she looked like she had Yorkie in her, so I just say she's a Yorkie mix. She weighs 11 lbs and can chew, I haven't found anything that really gives her problems except maybe turkey necks and that just took her awhile.


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## Pepper (Aug 4, 2011)

Thank you everyone for the great replies! I'm feeling much more confident about this now. I'll go get him some chicken quarters tomorrow and we'll get started!


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