Leia's Raw Food Diary,

Hi all

So we have finally decided to take the plunge, and we are putting Leia, our 4 month old SBT pup on Raw. I have wanted to put her on it since I first started reading about it on here, but my partner wasnt so sure.
What made the difference was, at our second week of puppy training we had a talk about nutrition, and the trainer asked, if any of us fed raw ?

My girlfriend just gave me the look, as we all said no the trainer moved on and we started to discuss the various types of kibble and wet food, we all told her we fed our dogs and she said we where all feeding a low to mid range food.

I asked the question would Raw make my dog more agressive, the trainer laughed and said no she feeds her GSD raw and then went on about all the health bennefits that go with it, this thankfully was enough to convince the other half.

I asked if I could make my own, to which she informed me that I would need to be registered with DEFRA, but gave a card of a supplier just up the road from where we live.
The Dogs Butcher
I have spoken to Jo who runs the bussiness over the phone and her Facebook page, and what a very helpfull lady she is, she dosen't claim to be an expert just experienced

At the moment Leia is on about 300g a day of Iams puppy, she does'nt have like a morning, afternoon and tea meal we just fill her bowl twice a day and she eats when she wants, this will obviously have to change on her new diet, so I am going to try and start her on three to four meals a day.

she also has wag training treats which we will be replacing with something more natural (not sure what yet though)

She is teething and needs to chew alot, so we give her what I call pig sticks, they are dried pig skin rolls, they dont last very long but keep her out of trouble. Im hoping to give her something like a cows hoof instead.

I have read a lot of Banes diary a quick scroll down on this forum, and found it very usefull, so I am looking forward to his comments on this, I know Bane was a bit older than Leia is when he started, but only by a month or so.

Im not sure what Im going to start her on yet, but it will be either Chicken mince or Ox Tripe mince for the first week and then gradually introduce bones and offal later as well as different proteins. I really just need to see what is in stock and what other advice I get.
I also need to get her weighed again, She was 5.5 KG last month so I am expecting her to be around 6-6.5 kg, she is a very active dog, most days she has a short walk in the morning and a good 1-1.5 hours in the evening, I say most days as she doesn't like the rain, so she has lots of training and exercise in the house aswell.

She poo's about 6 or 7 times a day which seems a lot for how much she eats, and makes me wonder how much crap do they put in these foods, her stools are solid and always sthe same colour, and has only ever had an upset stomach twice which I think was possibly a reaction to her injections.

Although I cant wait to get her on this diet, I am a little worried I might muck it up, so any comments and advice would be greatly recieved.
Many thanks in advance
Damo & Leia

I started Millie on raw at about 3.5 months and we've had few problems. We started on turkey with bone minced in, and some turkey neck bones to get her started on them. It took her AGES to get through one little bit with her baby teeth, but she's now munching away happily.

After the turkey we ventured into tripe and I made the mistake of ordering a bag of 10 x whole lambs tripe - they're huge, it stinks and I'm veggie!!! And then onto fish, fish with tripe, and now she's on whatever the others are having but we are going slowly with the offal.

Aside the feeding, the only other thing I picked up in your post is the amount of walking she's doing. Even an hour is a long walk for a puppy, never mind 1.5hrs. At 4 months he should be doing more like 20 minutes at a stretch.

I wish I could get away with 20 mins, but she has so much energy, I hate rainy days she just bounces off the walls, and wont go out.

perhaps the raw diet will make a difference to her energy levels, but im not sure how I would feel about that.

she is a very happy puppy, and is always happy to play, even after a good walk she has time for her mad charge around and be silly session, except if we take her down the beach, the sea air is the only thing that knocks her out


EDIT: Your post got me thinking and I came up with this.
KC Dog walking tips

Dont know what to do now, start another thread probably

You might well find the change of diet helps. A lot of dog food (most!) has cereals in it which can affect some dogs like this. I'd see if that does sort it out first.

Have you tried things that keep her mind occupied would too much walking? My favourite is hiding treats around the place for them to hunt out, or putting something yummy in an old cereal box or cardboard tube for them to try and work their way into. You might find that sort of stimulation helps as well.

Thanks for the reply LizP

She has loads of toys, a solid plastic treat ball, and the kong treat ball are one of her favourites, squeaky toys, fluffy toys, chew toys, wraggy toys, a football and a few tennis balls, and she does enjoy tearing a cardboad box to shreads, or just racing up and down the living room, like I say bags of energy.

When she first started going out she wasnt very keen at all, so I just gradually built her up. (or so I thought), what I read in the link I posted makes a lot of sense with regards to causing them joint problems later.

I walked her to the park and back tonight had a quick mess around with her football, and did some sit down and stand training she wasnt impressed as we were only out of the house for 30 minutes,and she was only off her lead for about 10 she had her usual 20 mins this morning and my OH took her on the same walk at lunch time.

It's great to hear that you are giving it a go! I'm sure that she will love it and I look forward to reading how she gets on!

The main thing to remember is that you will have ups and downs. It's obviously not as easy as tipping some kibble in a bowl, but it really isn't difficult once you get into the flow of it!

The first few weeks can be tricky as their body adjusts and gets used to the different meats and digesting of bones, but as long as you keep an eye on her at meal times (especially when bones are involved), her body condition and what comes out the other end you should be fine

You may find that once she starts on raw food, she will calm down a bit, and also should reduce the amount of times she goes to the toilet!

I bet she is going to get some real treats I am rather jealous of your Dog butchers shop you have! If you are looking for some more natural treats have you thought of making them yourself?

We regularly make these, Bane loves them and we know exactly what goes into it! (The liver cake can be frozen as the recipe makes a lot)

http://www.hearingdogs.org.uk/news/the-dog-blog/liver-cake-recipe
http://www.bdws.co.uk/2012/12/06/sardine-oatcakes/

Sorry for the essay If you need any help or tips there are a few of us on here to help! I can only go by my own experiences but am happy to share

Cheers Bane!

The treats look great, wonder if they would work with makerell, got a load in the freezer, hmmm.

Well managed to get over to the Dogs butcher today, and picked up some minced Ox tripe, so Leia will be starting on that as soon as its defrosted, it's in the fridge so not sure how long it will take, but hopefully tomorrow.

She has diahrea today and not sure why, because nothing has changed in her diet yet, she hasn't eaten much of her food today either. going to keep an eye on her for a couple of hours and decied wether to take her food away or not.

We have used other fish in the recipe but it has always been tinned in sunflower oil. I'm sure if you go for a similar weight and add a bit of extra moisture to it it would work just as well, maybe an egg

Oooh she is very lucky! I think Tripe is one of many dogs favourites...the smellier it is the more they like it
I hope she feels better soon! If she isn't quite right still, maybe try a little bit of plain scrambled egg or boiled rice. Or what a coincidence, raw tripe is said to be good for tummy upsets!

Please keep the comments coming Bane, I have done a lot of research, but find a lot of it is quite conflicting.

She was still very runny at 9 oclock tonight and had a full bowl of food, so I took it a way and gave her some scrambled egg, and rice.
There is enough rice left to fill her bowl in the morning, and will see what her stool is like before I go to work.

I have taken the Tripe out of the fridge, so it will defrost quicker, so hopefuly she can get on it, around lunch time, im going to give it her in 100g servings maybe 4 times a day, which is around 5.5% of her body weight and just see how we go.

we have puppy training tomorrow night going to get some cheap raw chicken for rewards

This is a great thread, thanks for sharing your tips guys

Don't panic too much about runny poos. Puppies eat all sorts of things (the more revolting the better it seems!), so it might be that. As long as Leia keeps well in herself and unless it persists, I wouldn't worry. And as Emma says, tripe is great for settling tummies (except those of the poor owners who have to deal with the stinky stuff).

Homemade treats are great, aren't they? I do buy them as well, but a 'homemade' sort that doesn't contain all sorts of floor sweepings.

Yeah the internet seems to be all over the place with information and it's a bit daunting as you don't know what is right and wrong! Every dog is different though, you just have to find what works best for you

I hope that she was feeling a bit better this morning! Let us know how she likes the tripe

Thanks for all the comments again folks, sorry I didn't post yesterday, it was a bit of a hectic day.

So day one went well, I got up and let Leia out the back door, her poo was still not good, but a bit firmer than the day before so I gave her the rest of the rice, while I got showered and ready for work, then took her for a walk, a couple of hours later I gave her, her first bowl of tripe.
Normaly Leia will mill about your feet when serving her food, she knows its comming and gets a bit excited. This morning was very different, she was practically on the work top jumping up to get at her food. We have always tried to get Leia to sit before we put her food down but she never has (half hearted attempt by us maybe) until now that is!
Because she had the rice I cut the portion down to 70g and it was gone in seconds.

She had a 100g portion for lunch, 130g for tea, and another 100g for her super, stools were still quite loose but getting better.

Day 2 :

First poo of the day was pretty good, there has only been 3 so far and the last one is pretty much back to normal, except the colour.
I have upped her intake today as she just didnt look full, not skinny or under fed, but I dont want her missing out.
I have also put her onto three meals a day instead of four, the timing of her feeds just dont seem to be right to me, to much of a gap between breakfast and lunch then two cramed in at the end of the day.
Today she has had three 150g meals, so I am happier with her shape and she isnt going out either hungry or after a meal.

I need to start thinking about ordering next weeks food, Im going to stick with tripe as the main ingredient and start adding a different type to it, just not sure what to get. the chicken mince I can get is 50% bone but I would like to get her something to chew on, so Im also thinking of chicken wings.

Sounds like it's a thumbs up from Leia then for the tripe! Glad she is getting better!

Adding bone would be a good way to go as it can also help to firm up her stools. If she struggles a little with the bigger pieces of bone in the wings, the chicken mince sounds like it would make a great accompaniment to the tripe, and her bone:meat ratios would probably be pretty spot on!

Quite often on a raw diet, dogs will require more than if they were on kibble so don't be surprised if you have to keep upping her intake

Cheers Bane/Emma

Collect my second order of food today 3KG of Ox Tripe, 1KG 50/50 Chicken Mince, and 1KG of Chicken wings.

Leia has been doing well on raw and seems to be keeping a good shape on 3, 150g meals. She is still having a movement about 3 or 4 times in a day, but they are much smaller than normal, still very firm, but looking less and less like an Iams poo every time.

She isn't drinking as much water as normal, but I am putting this down to her not having to rehydrate her food, and the water content in what she is now eating.
Yesterday my partner met me after work with the dog which was nice, but she pulled on her lead the whole way there and back, probably because my son rod his bike and she just wanted to get to him, when we got back she had a huge drink then went out the back garden I could see she had been for a couple of wees on the patio, but later got caught short of the door and weed in the kitchen, now this hasn't happened for a while. as we started to point at it and ask her whats this, then put her outside until we had finished cleaning up. One thing I did notice when cleaning up this little accident was how clean her wee was, very clear and hardly any smell, is this because of the detox proccess or just because she had such a large drink when she came back from my work. Im not worried in the slightest, just interested realy.

Day 5 In the New Raw Feeders house(Use jordie accent for full effect)
Introduced a new protien and bone today, would appreciate someone checking my maths though

I got 1 kg of Chicken Mince which is 50% bone, so if a 500g serving contains 400g of tripe and 100g of chicken mince then that would give me 10% bone content or there abouts ?
I had 3 of these 500g meals made up today and just divided one up over 3 servings during the day.

I will probably source some cheap chicken to add to my next set of meals Sainsburys basics type stuff and replace the tripe with chicken before I add the chicken wings to her diet

She is pooing about 4 times a day, and they are strange, but no more black Iams poos, I have seen a couple that had slight runny bits, one that was full of hair (I think dog hair )and what looked like hay from my chicken coop (not that she gets any where near that) and this morning she had what I can only describe as "Big rabbit poo" that she really struggled to get out.

Other than that everything is fine. Leia looks and seems very happy, fit and healthy She had 500g of food today and by tea time was taking her time with what she was eating rather than gulping in seconds, that extra 50g has made a big diference, and means she is eating about 6.7% of her body weight.

Are you buying her food from Sainsbury's, Damo? If you can bulk buy with a decent sized freezer, there are cheaper options.

I think Emma uses DAF:

http://www.daf-petfood.co.uk/4-daf-frozen-dog-foods

and I use Landywoods:

https://landywoods.co.uk/product-category/fresh-frozen-meats/

I'm not sure there's a vast amount in it cost wise. I personally like Landywoods' ever expanding range of fish and animal bits I'd rather not have to deal with but that the dogs love (whole tripe, oh yum )

We managed to get a mahoosive chest freezer for £40 on Gumtree, really worth it for the savings of buying a month's worth at a time.

I get the bulk of her food from here Liz The Dogs Butcher they are just up the road from me, but I know she delivers all around the Country. I mentioned Sainsburys because the chicken mince from my supplier is 50% bone, I want her to have a go at chicken, so will dilute the 50/50 chicken with standard mince chicken before I move her on to the chicken wings. I wont be buying it often from Sainsburys only while she gets used to it all

Got you! I've just had a look at that website - squirrel and horse! That's pushing it too far for me.

Squirel aint that bad Liz. It wasnt very long ago, that if you had the means, it was illeagal not to kill Grey Squirrel, although there's not a great deal of meat, its quite tasty, a bit like nutty chicken, dont really fancy horse, but we have probably all eaten it, if we've shopped at tesco's lol.

Yuck, yuck and more yuck. I think I'll stick to my veggie burgers.

All is well, infact I have quite a good routine worked out now.
Leia is having around 450g - 500g of mince a day now, still 100g of 50/50 chicken mince to 400g of of ox tripe which to my maths is 10% bone 10% chicken 80% tripe, (please can someone confirm lol)
I have not been Sainsburys yet so still no plain chicken mince, Leia isn't complaining she goes nuts for tripe, much to the dissapointment of my other half, she says its like a cow has peed in her kitchen.
I have made space for a small freezer, we have done ok with one drawer because our supplier is only 15 mins up the road, but in the long run, being able to store more should make things easier and cheaper, which is always a plus for me.

Sounds like you're really getting into the whole raw thing Damo

It's a lot less windy around here Ian, thats for sure, less poo, and she looks so healthy, the pros certainly out way the cons.

It sounds like she is doing great and like you are getting into the swing of things

As for water, they do drink a lot less! Just yesterday the OH and I were trying to remember the last time we saw Bane drink. When his mince fully defrosts though, he has at least 1cm of water/blood in the bottom so he is getting a lot of liquid from that!

Not sure about the smell of her wee. It probably was a mix of the amount of water she drank in that one go and also the change of diet. Just look at how much her poo has changed in size and if it's the same as for us, smell too! Most of Bane's are almost odourless!

Your ratios sound correct for bonetripe - 10:10:80. I hope she enjoys the wings It'll give her something to crunch and clean her teeth!
And it never seems to take long for them to get their own freezer

Hi all not been on for a while as I have been quite busy
Anyway Leia has been on raw for about 3 weeks now and is loving it.

Week 1 was just ox tripe around 450g a day

Week 2 was ox tripe and chicken with ground bone, with more chicken and less tripe towards the end of the week, she also had her first raw egg, she isn't overly keen on the shell, but I just think its the texture, as she eats more of it (and leaves less mess) every time.

Week 3
This is really the update for this post
We started giving Leia chicken bones this week, mostly chicken wings, the first one to defrost was quite big and she was sick a couple of times but ate it after an hour I took it off her and put it in the bin. I then gave her one every day for a couple of days until they only started to last 5 mins so I gave her 2, to day I defrosted the last bit which looked like a carcase, it kept her busy for about an hour, I have not seen any evidence of bone in her poo the odd tiny white bit, but nothing to write home about. I have been giving her slightly larger portions of tripe with diced turkey from sainsburys for her breakfast and tea as well so she is going through about 500- 550gs of food a day.

This next week
She has more tripe, I have read so many good things about this food I am going to make sure she has it every day, along with what ever else she is eating, I also have ox meat, but aswell as getting mince I got chunks, and they are chunks, so tommorrow she has a chunk of tripe and the rest will be meaty ox mince, Im going to get her some ox bones in a day or so when there is some room in the freezer

Sounds great! Seems like she is getting the hang of those wings! She'll be crunching carcasses away in seconds soon

What meats will you be introducing next? We used to get so excited about introducing a new meat! How sad haha

OX heart I think, but I think its about time she had some offal as well
Im going to get her some meaty ox bones as well

brilliant topic

I have just read this entire thread, and have really enjoyed it!
I am definitely considering a raw diet for Theia, and have been doing a huge amount of research over the last week or so. I think Peter is a bit hesitant, but I am becoming more enthusiastic after reading someone's experiences!
Theia is fit and well, no allergies, skin probs, has firm smallish poos (as she is fed on Orijen), but I just think it's more natural for them.
I might have to wait til end of September before we make the switch though, not sure how the dog sitter would react to a fortnights worth of meat dumped on her!!
Lynn x