# I have never fed raw food before... Let me know.



## imported_admin (Jun 16, 2008)

I have in fact never fed raw food to my dogs before. I am very interested in hearing how it is working for everyone else.


----------



## RawFedDogs (Jun 16, 2008)

I have been feeding my dogs a raw diet for 6 years. One is an 8 year old Great Dane with great energy, pearly white teeth, shiney coat, no bad breath, well defined muscle tone, no "doggie odor", and in great health. The other is a 3 year old Dane who has been fed raw since 12 weeks of age and he is in the same condition. They both go to the vet once a year for heartworm tests only. It is the only times either has been to a vet in their lives. BTW: Both are rescues so good breeding does not contribute to their health at all. I also have two cats that are raw fed. The descriptions above apply to them also.

I honestly don't understand why anyone would want to feed that garbage kibble.


----------



## glassygal (Jun 16, 2008)

I started feeding my 7 year old Chow/golden mix raw over 12 years ago. This is a dog who would eat anything, anywhere, anytime. I was astounded when during the transition to raw (feeding part raw, part kibble) she stopped eating her kibble altogether! The first month after switching to raw she lost most of her hair and had goup coming out of her eyes. I was warned that this could happen as her body got rid of all the toxins built up in her system for the first 7 years of her life. I felt so guilty to see this, but within 6 weeks she had a beautiful, shiny, gorgeous new coat, bright eyes, and tons more energy. I was also convinced by looking at what was coming out the other end. The volume of her poop decreased by half or more since the raw food was giving her more usable nutrition than any kibble could. She was a large dog (75lbs) who lived to 15 years of age and I'm convinced she would have lived even longer if she had been fed raw all her life. 
As you can tell I cannot say enough good things about raw. Please contact me if you have other questions or need a hand trying raw with your pets.


----------



## mgwilson (Jun 16, 2008)

I work for a pet food distributor who sells raw. I have fed raw for 6 yrs. 

My dogs teeth are pearl white, they do not have skin allergies or stomach issues. I know it is more expensive to feed raw but even if you can do it a couple of times a week it is so beneficial to your pets. The bones are very reasonable and your dog will go wild over them. 

Cats especially need raw, they are total carnivores. Problem is cats are very picky and get imprinted to where they won’t eat but a certain kind of food in a particular shape. 

I love this forum, I have been talking about good nutrition for 6 yrs now. Pets are part of our family's they give so much, they deserve good nutrition.


----------



## mike594 (Dec 7, 2010)

*I have only fed raw for four days.*

Four days and im amazed at the difference in my Boxer Rosco. I would put a picture up but I cant figure it out. He went from diareah for two months, 5 vet visits and 2 rounds of antibiotics. In 2 days his poop was wonderful. If you ever had a sick puppy its stressful every time he poops and its not hard. Now we are four days in and he has less **** in his eyes, softer coat. whiter teeth and much more pep in his step. More like a strut now. I would not wait another minute to start.

My new motto is if it aint raw show it the door.
Good luck Mike:biggrin:


----------



## WitterKT (Jul 22, 2010)

I only have about a month under my belt. Before I was feeding some bastardized attempt at BARF (for about 6 months), but now I'm doing PMR. It's SUPER easy to get started on, and you start seeing results immediately. Our little guy is a picky eater, and he acts like a fat kid does with cake at meal time. If it works for your dog, it's an AWESOME lifestyle!

Be prepared, though. I find myself "hunting" on my days/time off. Today I scoured Stator Bros., Food 4 Less, and Ralph's for meat deals (found pork butt and beef liver at an acceptable price, thank you). Ultimately I'll be ordering in bulk, but I'm buying a house and don't have the space.

Anyway, it's great and I really believe I see a lot of positive results in our dog.


----------



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

Whoa! This might be the first thread ever made on this forum!


----------



## BTDogRaw (Dec 8, 2010)

*Started Raw Last Night*

Hi Everyone,
This forum has some great info. Thanks to all for sharing your experiences and advice. I anticipated my dog's chicken backs arriving today and oh so disappointingly the butcher's supplier won't have more until late tomorrow. I made a quick decision to keep on raw (take that kibble!) and bought two chickens to quarter for today and tomorrow along with some chicken breast I chunked up yesterday to get her off raw.

I was happy to see someone mention chicken backs are a good start as that's what I ordered to start. :smile: Figure we'll work up to leg quarters soon. What would the "front" quarters of a chicken be called? 

I have a 78 lb Treeing Walker Coonhound who eats anything, but boy, she is loving the raw chicken so far. That nose smells all the goodness to come.

I look forward to reading more great advice and sharing raw adventures will everyone.

Thank you again for this forum and your words of raw wisdom! I am enthusiastically reading and soaking it all in.

Amy J-K


----------



## DaneMama (Jun 27, 2008)

I think a chicken "quarter" doesn't really mean that it's a quarter of the whole chicken but rather just what's it's called. The front of the chicken is just the breast bone with attached meat.

Hello and welcome BTW :wink:


----------



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

danemama08 said:


> The front of the chicken is just the breast bone with attached meat.


And the wings! Don't forget the wings! For a dog the size of yours, you could keep the wings on the "front quarter". That would also up the bone content of the meal, which is good for beginners. 

The only way I feed chicken wings to my dog (which is about the same size as yours) is if they are still attached to the breast. Chicken wings can pose a choking hazard to larger dogs if feed alone because they're juuust small enough to swallow whole.

Welcome!


----------



## Liz (Sep 27, 2010)

*Feeding Raw*

We have been feeding raw for a few months and I can't imagine ever going back. I even changed over a newly pregnant female and she did great. Her pups are huge, active and lovely. My dogs all have sparkling teeth, even my 10 year old and have lots of playful energy. They are not hyper just happy. They are collies and their coats are incredible, their breath is clean, no more ear gunk, even their eyes sparkle. Also they eat everything - I used to have to feed their kibble at night so they could take all night to pick at it. They neverfinished kibble in a few minutes. Raw is eaten in 5 minutes or less. I can't imagine ever goign back and my first raw fed litter is looking to be exceptional. We will be keeping 3 out of this litter.


----------



## Shamrockmommy (Sep 10, 2009)

imported_admin said:


> I have in fact never fed raw food to my dogs before. I am very interested in hearing how it is working for everyone else.


Well I've had the dogs on raw off and on, but recently have been using up all the other stuff I had around (THe Honest Kitchen) up till last week.

THK is a "good" food I suppose, better than kibble in some aspects. It produced HUGE poop. My 50lb PWD would poop 4 times a day on it, huge poops! 

So now that it's been used up (spendy!!, too spendy to just toss) the girls (the pwd girl and 2 bichons) have been on raw for a week now. The poop change has been wonderful. They are small, no odor, kindof hard to find in the grass actually! They poop twice a day now, small poops instead.

Since they've had raw additions, they've looked fine up till now, great coats, nice clean teeth, good breath (they can pant right in your face and there is no odor). No gas or gurgly tummies. 

I do feed ground veggies, as my PWD especially will tear up the lawn eating the grass, roots, dirt and all. She'll graze all day. Add in some veggies and yogurt lately as well and she doesn't touch the grass.

Darby the bichon had yeasty ears, lips and feet on kibbles, even THK. Swollen itchy, smelly feet that clearly bothered her. This week, the licking/chewing/face rubbing stopped, oozy skin cleared, it's nice and pink now.

So overall, awesome!

I've had a few false starts on attempting to feed a raw diet (I prefer to call it "natural diet" myself). For one thing, we had a tiny fridge, so hardly enough room for our human stuff. Now we aquired a new, larger fridge (so 2 fridges, yay!) and a freezer. I've got some good organization skills as well now too. I'll buy rmbs in bulk and separate 2-3 days worth into medium sized cheapo tupperware containers. The veggie glop, I save our veggies that we don't use (ends ,tops, etc) plus whatever fresh stuff we have around and whizz up in my food processor, then put in a 2 cup cheapo tupperware. I can usually make about 3 containers worth at a time.

Organ meat, I get hearts, gizzards and livers, (chiken batch) or beef heart and liver, kidney if I can find it, grind it all together, mix well, and then freeze into ice cube trays. PWD gets 1 cube, the bichons split one twice a week.

Hmm. Oh and a container of yogurt too (they love the taste, not necessarily sure it does any good or bad but anyway...). 
Then I buy the tubes of ground turkey, pork and beef and rotate that around s well.
So the stuff that is thawing has it's own shelf in one of our fridges and it's gotten very easy to just whip their meals up. 

Sounds overwhelming but once you get the hang of it, it's pretty easy.

If your dog does well on PMR, then you won't need the veggie grinding either, so that much easier 
Hope this all makes sense!
Good luck!


----------



## RawFedDogs (Jun 16, 2008)

Ania's Mommy said:


> Whoa! This might be the first thread ever made on this forum!


It is one of the very first. It was made by the original board owner who isn't even around anymore. I think you are the only one that noticed that. :biggrin:


----------



## Shamrockmommy (Sep 10, 2009)

What? Whooops! 

Well just disregard my post


----------

