# OMG... nasty, stinky dogs on raw. Ideas?



## SandiR2 (Sep 15, 2009)

The gang has been doing great on raw this past month. I gave some fish a few days ago and I swear Patch's breath still smells fishy! Strange.

But, that's not my problem at the moment. It's Vinny and Cherry. For the past couple of days their breath and farts smell like dead, rotting chicken. Well, dead rotting meat of some kind. Vinny puked up a sock (ugh, I know. we really do try our best to keep them from him but he knows how to get in the laundry hamper and occasionally still snags on here and there. luckily they've all come up or out. yes, he is insured. sigh...) 

Anyway, back to the story. Vinny puked up a sock this morning along with some bile and a few bone fragments from dinner last night. The sock had to have been from sometime yesterday, as he was in his crate from 11p to 7:30a when he puked it up and had been in the living room with me from at least dinnertime until going to bed. The sock and the remnants of the meal reeked so bad I wanted to puke myself. I've never smelled worse puke from the boy, and he's horked up some pretty nasty things over his 1-1/2 years of life!

Tonight I noticed the smell of death emanating from Cherry's butt. It was oddly reminiscent of the puke from this morning. Maybe I was just projecting. LOL. Then, she burped in my face and I again got a whiff of rotting stench.

What gives? They all smelled clean and fresh up until just a few days ago. I swear the fish with their meal threw everything out of whack. Probably just coincidence, but still. I can think of nothing different. They're eating mostly chicken necks/backs and ground turkey with bone for their RMBs with the occasional beef rib here and there. They get ground beef or ground pork usually for their MMs and/or beef heart some days. I also have a mixture of chicken and beef liver with various raw veggies that the whole glop was run through my VitaMix. (Miss Diva won't eat her liver by itself...haha) They always get a spoonful of pumpkin on top of each meal.

Nothing has varied except the one meal with the fish, so that's why I'm stumped. Any ideas? I need my sweet-smelling dogs back. These ones stink! :wild:


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## Riley's Mom (Jun 7, 2007)

Sounds like a visit to the vet is in order. The rear end odor could mean they need their anal sacs "relieved" which is something I will *not* do on my own. I've heard unless you really know what you're doing you could do some serious damage. Nissa's had to have that done once so I would suspect it could happen again. 

Once long ago I came home to one of our Yorkies having puked and/or poo'd pretty much the entire lower level of our home ... a 7 lb dog had made as much of a mess almost as a horse, it was horrendous and the smell was the absolute WORST smell I'd ever encountered. I cannot remember what was wrong it was so long ago but seems to me it was an infection of some kind or another that anti-b's or something the vet did cleared up. At this point I would not be blaming the food, not until the vet has a chance to examine them THOROUGHLY!

But then again the fish could have been bad, could it not?


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

My guys sometimes have the rotting meat burps. Yum. 

It usually means they aren't digesting their food properly. This can be caused by a couple things:

1. Their food is sitting in their tummy too long. That could have been the issue with the sock.

2. They are getting too much food.

How are their stools?


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## SandiR2 (Sep 15, 2009)

Riley's Mom said:


> Sounds like a visit to the vet is in order. The rear end odor could mean they need their anal sacs "relieved" which is something I will *not* do on my own. I've heard unless you really know what you're doing you could do some serious damage. Nissa's had to have that done once so I would suspect it could happen again.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> But then again the fish could have been bad, could it not?


 
It's definitely not an anal gland problem. We've dealt with that before and it's a completely different smell... just bad gas. It's always possible that the fish was bad but I don't think so. It was frozen fish filets from the grocery store and they didn't have any unusual odor as they were thawing.


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## SandiR2 (Sep 15, 2009)

Lauri & The Gang said:


> My guys sometimes have the rotting meat burps. Yum.
> 
> It usually means they aren't digesting their food properly. This can be caused by a couple things:
> 
> ...


 
Yeah, I wasn't surprised that the pieces that came back with the sock were bad -- he's had that happen before. I have been measuring their food most of the time and eyeballing it at other times. They eat twice a day at a total of 2.5% of weight for Cherry, 2% for Bud and Patch, and 3% for Vinny (since he needs to gain a few pounds). The stools seem pretty good. Vinny had one day after he had a knuckle bone where his were runny again but normally they're on the good to a little dry side. Nobody seems to have a horrible time straining but their poops do almost always tend to turn to bone dust after a day or two -- not sure if that means they're getting too much bone or if it's just simply being raw fed.


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## onyx'girl (May 18, 2007)

Stools shouldn't be chalky, that would be too much bone. Do you give probiotics/digestive enzymes? I would start with that after the vet check.


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## SandiR2 (Sep 15, 2009)

when you say chalky, do you mean chalky at the time the dog poops or that they shouldn't turn chalky with time in the yard/sun? when the dogs go their stools are brown to yellow/brown and soft enough that you could squish one if you wanted to but not so soft that they're mushy.

They sometimes get plain yogurt (about a tablespoon) on top of their food but not every meal -- I'd say about 4 or 5 meals out of the week.


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## JerzeyGSD (Jun 26, 2008)

Maybe try to give some yogurt tomorrow and see if that helps?


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