# The final straw :(



## golfbum (Jan 11, 2010)

So I have been trying my hardest to get this raw diet to work with our little girl as I feel it is the safest and best way to feed a dog! I still feel this way and hope one day I can switch back! Any suggestions would be great, but premade raw is not an option as I can not afford it at almost 3.50lb around here.

She had been doing great and other then her poop being runny a couple times a week she seemed great! Her coat looks good and she is full of energy! She has put weight on at about 1.5# a week and the vet I go to loves the way she looks and the rate she is growing! 

Yesterday I fed turkey necks as her RMB in the AM and she seemed great all day long, we did training and she was spot on! At about 4:30 pm I took her out to potty before putting her in her kennel to run some errands and she squated to poop and was acting constipated. She then started to wimper and cry and walk hunched over. She settled down and tried again same thing. I called the vet and was told to keep a very close eye on her. Over the next hour it happened a couple more times and then she started to vomit at which point I took her to the vet. He looked her over and felt her stomach and said he could not feel anything that alarmed him and did a rectal exam and found bones blocking the way about a finger length up. They ended up sedating her and removing all the bones (2 chuncks) and taking xrays to see if anything else was waiting to come out. Her stomach was full of gas, but most the bones were gone. She did throw up several larger bones earlier. She seems fine today and we feed her some rice and cooked chicken breast and she had a nice normal bowel movement that was nice and firm.

This is enough for me to call it quits for now as I am only feeding her chicken bones and turkey necks cause she seems to be able to handle those or so I thought. I do think that RAW is a great way to feed and I can't say that I won't miss feeding her it, but I don't like the idea of her getting plugged up with bones again and maybe next time surgery would be needed? She is a great chewer and works over all the bones before they go down but maybe just not enough? Should her system be taking care of the bones more then they are? I am moving her to a prem kibble in Nature's Variey and will supplement with some tripe and raw meat down the road. I hope one day to return to RAW but at this time I don't think I want to chance it again.

Thanks for all the advice and tips! You guys are great!


----------



## onyx'girl (May 18, 2007)

Turkey necks are alot of bone. I usually will chunk up a tom neck in 1/3's and give a 1/3 for the rmb and then add some mm and om to complete the meal.
Too bad she couldn't pass it or barf it back up, most dogs will throw up what they don't digest. I would add some digestive enzymes. Maybe your dog has an enzyme insufficiency? 
Good luck with the kibble!


----------



## golfbum (Jan 11, 2010)

She did get a smaller amount of the neck as they are more bone then the 20% we were trying for and got her normal amount of MM and OM. She is also on a D E and probiotic. It was sad! I felt so bad for her! Thanks for the good wish!


----------



## mspiker03 (Dec 7, 2006)

I actually chop my necks up for my female into "bite" size pieces. She prefers it that way. She is a good chewer, so I am not worried.

You could actually buy a grinder (I think it is a Tasin, I know there is a thread on it somewhere) yourself that will go through chicken, turkey, duck and rabbit bones (would be cheaper in the long run than buying all premade). Just a thought - although I understand if you want to go with kibble for now.


----------



## Elaine (Sep 10, 2006)

It's no wonder she's constipated if all you were feeding was chicken bones and turkey necks, not to mention how unbalanced and incomplete that is especially for a growing puppy. You should get help designing a good raw diet for your pup or you should switch back to a good kibble.


----------



## golfbum (Jan 11, 2010)

Elaine,

Thank you for the advice, next time you dish out such an informative post do some research yourself. As you can see in the earlier post I strived for 20% bone 75%MM and 5%om. Or 55% RMB and 40%MM with 5%om. I was feeding a very balanced diet and thanks to Natalie and Laurie amoung others (mspiker and a few others) I was very confident in what I was doing. It just did not work out for OUR girl. I will do my best to return to it one day, and am currently looking at commerical grade grinders. She was getting up to 4 different protein sources a week and was getting her 5th added this coming week. Your post is down right insulting!


----------



## Elaine (Sep 10, 2006)

"This is enough for me to call it quits for now as I am only feeding her chicken bones and turkey necks cause she seems to be able to handle those or so I thought."

This is what YOU wrote, not me, and no one will call this balanced. I don't keep track of what people are doing outside of what they write, maybe you have time for that, but I don't.

I hardly think getting help designing a better diet for your growing puppy or switching to a good kibble insulting rather than feed a bad diet she can't handle. I feed a raw diet, but don't feel it's the end all of diets. It is hard to feed a balanced and complete raw diet, so I see absolutely nothing wrong with feeding a good kibble.

I also do not feed raw by the percentage method as you describe above as I don't believe you can feed a good diet that way, but I am one of the few here that actually wants to know what actual nutrition I am really feeding and have had the numbers crunched so I know my dogs are eating a balanced and complete diet and not just hoping for one.


----------



## golfbum (Jan 11, 2010)

Elaine,

Sorry that I jumped on you, I said in this post however what I was feeding, my first post I can understand where you got that info. I too have crunched the numbers and am positive that if feeding RAW it is a great method and the percentages are very close to being right. I am curious as to what you balance your diet with? 

Again sorry, as I read your post it came across as if I had not done my research where I assure you I did!


----------



## Elaine (Sep 10, 2006)

My diets are made to meet the NRC requirements and the nutrition information can be found on the USDA website. It is extremely hard to formulate a diet for a growing puppy as it changes as the puppy grows - my diet was changed with every two pounds of growth in the beginning and then every five pounds later. You can really screw up your puppy long term if you don't meet all their needs while they are growing as they don't have the nutritional reserves that an adult does. This is why I don't recommend feeding raw to puppies unless you have someone like Monica doing your diets for you. A good kibble is generally a better way to go.

Nowhere in the percentage method does it ask if you are getting enough iodine, potassium, B vitamins, or anything else. That's the throw random food at your dog and hope for the best method. It's easy, but I strongly feel it promotes malnutrition long term. A lot of people do feed that way and some do well on it and a some do not. I think it all depends on the dog's ability to handle a poor diet. Just because you are feeding fresh foods, doesn't mean it's a good diet.

I know I eat like crap most of the time, yet when I get on a health kick, I feel a lot better and that's due to better nutrition.


----------



## Miikkas mom (Dec 21, 2009)

golfbum said:


> So I have been trying my hardest to get this raw diet to work with our little girl as I feel it is the safest and best way to feed a dog! I still feel this way and hope one day I can switch back! Any suggestions would be great, but premade raw is not an option as I can not afford it at almost 3.50lb around here.
> 
> She had been doing great and other then her poop being runny a couple times a week she seemed great! Her coat looks good and she is full of energy! She has put weight on at about 1.5# a week and the vet I go to loves the way she looks and the rate she is growing!
> 
> ...


WOW!! I'm so sorry to hear about this. Poor dog!! I can certainly understand why you want to switch back to kibble. HOWEVER, I truly believe a raw diet is the best things you can do for your dog – heath wise that is. 

My husband had HUGE concerns about feeding Mikka a raw diet, primarily because of the bones. From everything WE knew, bones were bad and as you know, bones are a big part of this diet. So, DH and I compromised. We bought a grinder. I grind up everything – bones and all. DH is happy because she is not being feed whole bones. I’m happy because I can still feed her a raw diet. 

Maybe you can get a grinder and grind up the bones. The grinder we bought was about $200 and we purchased it online. If you want, I can send you a link to the place we bought it from. OH, one more thing....only *certain* grinders can grind bone so if you are going to consider a grinder you'll need to purchase one that can grind bone.


----------



## natalie559 (Feb 4, 2005)

Elaine said:


> My diets are made to meet the NRC requirements and the nutrition information can be found on the USDA website.


Elaine and I agree very much on the method behind how we do our dog's diets, and that method was the very advice I gave on one of golfbums posts, but there was never a reply on that thread to know if the advice was received, welcomed and or implemented.

http://www.germanshepherds.com/forum/b-r-f-raw-feeding/131892-bone-rmb.html


----------



## UConnGSD (May 19, 2008)

Elaine said:


> Nowhere in the percentage method does it ask if you are getting enough iodine, potassium, B vitamins, or anything else. That's the throw random food at your dog and hope for the best method. It's easy, but I strongly feel it promotes malnutrition long term. A lot of people do feed that way and some do well on it and a some do not. I think it all depends on the dog's ability to handle a poor diet. Just because you are feeding fresh foods, doesn't mean it's a good diet.


Wow, until now, I have never heard anybody refer to the raw diet (percentage method) as a poor diet. Is that your opinion? Or did you get that from somewhere else?


----------



## natalie559 (Feb 4, 2005)

All diets are different, but as an idea of what a meal for my two in regards to turkey necks and muscle meat would be is. . .when they eat tnecks and turkey Penny would receive 6oz t neck, 11.6oz ground turkey with 4 oz potatoes; Sasha is around 8oz t neck, 17.3oz ground turkey with 4 oz potatoes. Point was that it doesn't take much turkey neck to fulfill nutritional needs while maintaining proper stool.


----------



## Elaine (Sep 10, 2006)

You don't hear this because it's how most people on this forum raw feed and this method is so much easier to feed than actually crunching the numbers. If you even take the time to think about it, you have no way to know what you are actually feeding your dog with the percentage method. I switched to a raw diet for a diet that includes both better nutrition and better ingredients, not who-knows-what-nutrition with better ingredients.

Here's a link to something Monica wrote up using real numbers on a random percentage diet:

Monica Segal January 2007 Newsletter


----------



## natalie559 (Feb 4, 2005)

UConnGSD said:


> Wow, until now, I have never heard anybody refer to the raw diet (percentage method) as a poor diet. Is that your opinion?


Not Elaine, but my personal opinion is that variety raw is incomplete and usually either lacking, overcompensating, or both in the nutritional department. Poor can be defined as ' meagerly supplied or endowed with resources or funds. ' So, yes, in most cases my belief is that variety raw is a poor diet, especially for puppies who's needs constantly change. 

(but don't anyone take that as a personal jab, most here know this has been my opinion since I posted this http://www.germanshepherds.com/forum/b-r-f-raw-feeding/85948-how-i-create-balance-homemade-diet.html 2 1/2 yrs ago)


----------



## golfbum (Jan 11, 2010)

I don't think that a variety raw is poor or unbalanced diet, if what your striving for is a prey model diet. How do explain what an animal eats in the wild as a balanced diet in your beliefs? My girl was doing great on the diet and blood work backed that up, however she had a poor mishap with bones. Im not willing to chance that again as I also feel a quality kibble can be great. 

Changing a diet based on minerals and vitamins every two pounds is not practical for 99.9% of people or IMHO needed. When I find a grinder that is commerical grade and affordable for myself we will start raw again. Thanks for all the input and thoughts however, everyone does what they feel is best!


----------



## Elaine (Sep 10, 2006)

You aren't feeding prey model. You are feeding your version of what you think is prey model and it's not the same. Prey model does meet NRC requirements but that means you would have to kill the animal and feed that whole animal, not the bits and pieces of various animals.

Blood work does not in any way determine if your dog is doing well on the diet as the blood will pull needed nutrients from the bone and tissue and will appear normal until the dog is near death from malnutrition.

You had a known problem with too much calcium in the diet. How do you know that you didn't have a problem with other nutrients that don't show up so obviously and quickly?

You need to feed however you feel is best for you and your dog, be it the percentage method or a good kibble.


----------



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

Some people feel more comfortable crunching numbers. Some don't see the need.

I fall into the later category. I've fed raw to sick dogs, old dogs, young dogs ... raised 2 dogs from pups (8 weeks) on raw and weaned one directly to raw. I don't crunch numbers - other than weights. I try for variety but there have been times when my guys got chicken for several weeks straight. It never caused them any harm.



> Blood work does not in any way determine if your dog is doing well on the diet as the blood will pull needed nutrients from the bone and tissue and will appear normal until the dog is near death from malnutrition.


Blood work might not show any problems but the DOG sure would - and way before they were near death from malnutrition. The dogs coat would show it, their skin would show it, their energy levels would show it.


----------



## Zisso (Mar 20, 2009)

So sorry to hear of your troubles! And very glad she is okay too.

I feed my two tom turkey necks whole all the time and also partially frozen with no problems. I do on occasion see some bone in their stools but not much. Once in a great while(like in the midst of posting this) one will vomit a chunk of bone that they did not chew enough. And now that I think about it, they had chicken leg qtrs last night so that is what my boy did not chew properly. I could have never ever gone to a raw diet without help from experts like Lauri  and I want to thank her every time I see Z's happy dance!


----------

