SPAM me please!!! Raw diet info....

[ChristyMarie]

Hi, anyone remember me?  I have a fat yellow lab.  LOL.

So Sam...poor, round, happy Sam...He's 18 months old.

In August he was 92 pounds.  We added more walks and switched to a diet food (Eukeneuba) based on the vet's suggestion.  He went down to 78 pounds and stalled.

We switched to A Taste of the Wild along with a cup of fresh veggies.  Went back to weigh him yesterday and he GAINED TWO POUNDS.  ***bangs head against wall***

So the store suggested a different brand (sorry, cannot remember what) that does not contain any potato like the Wild did.  It is $56 a bag.  ***sticker shock***

I bought it planning to let him get through that while I figure out how to do a raw diet.

Great, start at my library, start googling....and you know what?  There's a LOT of information out there.  There's a lot of contradictory information out there.  I have no idea what to believe and what to dismiss.  I'm not counting on my vet having much (if any) info on a raw diet since he pointed me to eukeneuba.

Can anyone point me in the right direction?  Please???  Sam would so greatly appreciate it.

He is at 78 pounds:   (ooops, meant to insert an image link, we can insert images now?  How did I do that???)

[Mirzam]

Raw prey diet is the way to go (IMO), dogs are carnivores they do not need fruits and veggies. There are some really great resources out there. Here are a few links I have:

Raw feeding 101

Raw Fed

Raw Fed Dogs

Raw Meaty Bones

Jane Anderson's Raw Learning Site -- she is the list owner of the rawfeeding yahoo list, very busy but worth joining to get all your questions and concerns answered. She has a link from her website.

The Many Myths of Raw Feeding

I would also recommend joining rawK9s yahoo list which is especially for beginners starting out. Many people on both yahoo lists have experience with dog weight loss.

On a personal note,  I have raw fed my 20 week old English Mastiff puppy since we got him at 9 weeks. He is doing magnificently on the diet. I started cold turkey, actually cold chicken, and fed him boned-in chicken breasts or quarters until his tummy settled down. He now eats a variety of meat, mostly buffalo: heart, tongue, tail, he also eats chicken, turkey, pork, beef and raw green tripe. I feel lucky that I am able to get the buffalo, but many people feed grocery store meat, just make sure that it isn't enhanced, read the labels, if it mentions sodium content don't feed it to your dog. Asian/Ethnic markets are a good place to look for exotic cuts of meat.

Here is a link to some online suppilers, if you want to go that route sometimes for variety you can't get locally:

GreenTripe.com

My Pet Carnivore

Hare Today Gone Tomorrow -- This is where I get our raw green tripe from, and Oscar loves it!

The thing to remember is your dog needs 80% meat (which can include heart, gizzards, lung, tripe), 10% bone (although some dogs need more to keep their stools firm, some can do with less) and 10% organ meat (of which no more than 5% should be liver). You don't need to be anal about these percentages, as every dog is individual and it will take some trial and error on your part to get the right combination. And the percentages don't have to be achieved every day, this is an over time thing. Your dog will need to eat around 2% of his ideal body weight a day; some, mostly smaller breeds and very active dogs need up to 4% of body weight a day, but in your case I would go with 2%. Here is a link to a raw feeding calculator so you know how much to feed him.

So, if I were you, I would ditch the kibble today, donate it, take it back to the store, give it away. Go and buy a whole chicken fryer and cut it up into quarters, weigh them to get some idea of how much each portion is and give him one. Don't worry about the bones, he will be quite able to eat them. Labs are know to be gulpers, so don't give small pieces of meat with bones. Join one or both of the Yahoo lists and ask the same question there that you did here, you will get some very good advice. Good luck, raw feeding isn't as hard as it sounds!

[*Dawn*]

These are the links in my favorites on raw:

http://rawfed.com/

http://www.rawfed.com/myths/omnivores.html

http://mypetcarnivore.com/

http://rawlearning.com/

http://www.dogster.com/forums/Raw_Food_Diet

http://www.dogster.com/forums/Raw_Food_Diet/thread/491589

http://dogtrainingbyjess.web.officelive.com/Documents/Canine%20Required%20Nutrients-Meat%20vs%20Fruit-Vegetables%20Comparison%20Chart.pdf

I absolutely 100% agree with Mirzam on the fact that dogs are carnivores and do not need fruits or veggies.