# Camping



## Flutter (Aug 2, 2013)

We're hoping to do a lot of camping with our dog. Last time we took his food frozen in a cooler bag and not only did the food thaw but a plastic bag leaked so it was a stinky mess by the end. In the future we won't have room for his frozen food. How much weight will he lose over four days? 

I've looked into the dehydrated foods and it's looking like it will cost around $6/day to feed him Honest Kitchen. I'm not sure we can afford that price increase once we factor in everything else we'll be paying to go camping. One of his main foods is a prepared/ground raw that contains meat, bone, and organ. Has anyone dehydrated their own food? If I dehydrate and rehydrate his ground raw will the bone shards still be safe for him to eat (with a fine grind)?

If you're backpacking and don't want to carry many pounds of raw meat what do you feed your dog? Do you do an immediate switch to kibble? Suck up the cost and feed dehydrated?


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## Courtney (Feb 12, 2010)

We hike/camp alot. Sometimes I can pack his raw frozen if we are stationary. A lot of times we are on the go. He gets Primal freeze dried raw. It's so easy to throw in our backpacks. He hasn't had kibble in years. But I don't think it would be the end of the world if he did. So far I have gotten around keeping him on the diet I prefer.


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## Flutter (Aug 2, 2013)

I've never heard of Primal, I'll look it up 

ETA: it looks like they all contain alfalfa which he's allergic to  Same with the Sojos brand.


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## Lauri & The Gang (Jun 28, 2001)

I would just pick up a small bag of a very good kibble for the trip. You don't want to dehydrate bone.

Another option - get a vacuum sealer. Freeze the food in his portions (flatten in ziplock bags) then take out the frozen block and vacuum seal it. That will help avoid the mess. Take enough of that to last the first couple days then switch over to the dehydrated raw or kibble.


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## ladyluck (Jan 28, 2004)

We do a lot of horse camping with our dogs. we tried dehydrated (honest kitchen?) from leerburgs site. we have 2 gsds rawfed for years. Male gsd didn't like it and was hard to get him to eat it and both male/female gsds developed diarrhea! YUK! not fun getting up multiple times during night to take the dog out. loved the idea of only have to add water....and not worrying about keeping meat cold. so now we freeze leq quarters chicken and take with us. works well for weekend we have trouble for our longer trips keeping frozen until we need it. we have used blocked ice/ice cubes. we are going to see if dry ice lasts anylonger. Dry ice is just hard to find sometimes. Look forward to any suggestions.


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## Flutter (Aug 2, 2013)

We gave him more kibble than normal Monday night (less than 1.5c) and his belly was broken out in ulcers the next day. We have no idea what's wrong with this kibble. We did introduce one new treat but I'm 90% sure that wasn't introduced before he broke out. If it was indeed the kibble that set him off then we'll try a new one but we're running out of things to try. 

We're hoping that all of our camping next year will be back country so we'll never have anywhere colder than ambient for raw. 

We'll look into Honest Kitchen more and try it out beforehand to make sure he'll eat it.


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## ladyluck (Jan 28, 2004)

know what you mean about running out of kibble choices. Last year when they developed the diarrhea while we were out in the wilderness camping with the dehydrated food we made a special long distance trip into a big town to locate some high end kibble which resulted in multiple stools and diarrhea. grrhhhh.


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## Mikelia (Aug 29, 2012)

So far I have used Honest Kitchen when we travel but it is soooo expensive. On a hiking/camping trip raw would be way too heavy. The HK costs me $25/day to feed them so it is not going to always be an option but so far I have not found a kibble they can tolerate more than 1/4 cup of since they were switched to raw 
I like the vacuum sealed idea. A feasible option I guess would be to vacuum seal some chicken legs and muscle meat (ground would be too messy for me), keep it as cold as I can for as long as I can and take as much of it as I can. Then switch to HK when I run out.


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## Flutter (Aug 2, 2013)

We're trying the HK this weekend. He had it for dinner last night and so far things are going well. 

We may just leave it as 50% of his meals; the HK person said to switch slowly. How quickly have other people switched their dog to dehydrated?


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## Flutter (Aug 2, 2013)

He did really well on the HK this weekend thankfully


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