Help with my dogs diet. Thinking of adding raw.

You don't need to do anything to kill bacteria... humans get food-borne illnesses while food sits in the intestine - dogs digest much more quickly and therefore are not as susceptible to food-borne illnesses. They are *supposed to* crunch and eat the bone itself when you feed raw bones. Raw chicken bones are surprisingly soft and you will see your dogs just chow them down. I would suggest giving your little dog a chicken wing rather than a whole leg - at least to start. Always supervise your dogs eating raw bones... what you don't want is for them to attempt to swallow big chunks. They should be chewing and crunching them up.
 
[Mods move to Nutrition??]

Thanks for the quick reply! I know this is better suited for the nutrition topic but I thought it would get more traffic here and I want to start feeding this soon so I can address the tarter problem in the ABPT before it escalates.
So, the bones wont scratch up their throat/intestines if I don't let them swallow big pieces at a time? That is a relief. I was half expecting to have to let them eat the meat and then get the bone before they tried to swallow them. I don't know anything about feeding raw. *shrug*

I usually rinse the chicken piece in warm water, hand to dog, and dog goes chomp crunch crunch and entire chicken piece is gone.
Raw chicken bones are completely digestible and should turn into jelly in the dogs' stomach. For cleaning teeth, you might want to offer them three times a week. Don't forget to cut back on the amount of other food you give. And you may get diarrhea the first few times you feed them simply due to the sudden change in diet.

I actually think you will get more responses in Nutrition...I would like to move this there with your permisson Undefined?

You can absolutely move it, thanks.

I'm Molly's mama. I feed the little ones chicken wings. Seven pounds is plenty big enough to eat those. (I actually feed them half wings since that's how they come in the package). My three pounder eats half a wing with no problem although it takes her longer than some of the others who can eat them in 30 seconds.

I'm sure your big dog would have no trouble with a bigger piece.

All you need to do before you feed it to them for the first time is make sure you have vallium. (That's not for the dogs, it's for you.) I was absolutely terrified the first time I gave them wings. I was sure they would choke and die and I couldn't decide who to try it on because, well, how do you decide which dog you're going to kill?! Nobody had any problem and dogs are really good at regurgitation (my couch can attest to that) so there isn't a great chance of them choking.

My vet always tells me she'll be seeing me when they have an obstruction or salmonella but she also tells me that they have good teeth - as if it were by coincidence.

I give my dog Joy a whole pork tenderloin or butt roast, depending on the size. She's about 23.5 pounds, so I figure about 2-4 pounds of frozen plain meat (w/ of w/o bone, I give Joy boney food along with her supplements in the morning, roasts for teeth at night) per 20 pounds. You really want something the dog can chew on. I feed all of my meat frozen, because Joy is a gulper. I can give her a tenderloin and in to gulps it'll be gone. Frozen helps with that a ton, plus adds chewing time. If you have a little guy, I give turkey necks. When we first got our malinois Knox at 5 weeks old, he was just over 5 pounds. We immediatly switched from Iams to raw. He had one half of a lamb heart, or a turkey neck for breakfast. He had such great teeth...He's about 2 and a half right now, and he's never had a single scaling or brushing.

I also like chicken feet. I just grab one at random times of the day for Joy when she's getting bitey, and they're nice and boney for that daily calcium.


Bunni, that thing about you seeing you vet when they choke...Man, I'm 13 and I left my vet speechless when she was preaching me on how I'll make my dog die! She was telling me if we ate all that meat raw we would die from salmonella or trich (ummm, isn't that just certain types of pork?) and thats whats goin to happen with Joy. I told her that dogs have special digestive enzymes that we don't, they have shorter digestive traks and yaddah yaddah and thats when she stopped gabbing and left for our vet bill[]

Hi. I'm new here.
My two 9 and 10 lb dachshunds have been eating RAW for over six months. As you mentioned dahchsunds were known to have dental and gum problems, in fact our first dachshund lost 1/2 of his teeth by age 13 in spite of dental cleaning and seeing the specialist.

For samller dogs I recommend starting with chicken and turkey necks since dogs need to practice chewing raw bones. Necks have lots of cartilages so they are easier to chew. Then add chicken and turkey backs. After they learn to chew better then try different kinds of bones. I still hold bones for them as they chew since they are not exparts on chewing yet and I am still an over protective mom....

Chewing raw bones really works !! Sperkling white teeth and fresh breath make us happy too.[]

I've heard too many stories of dogs choking on bird necks to recommend starting with them.  Raw chicken wings seem to be the "safest" starter chew bone, never heard of anything going wrong- they are shaped funny so the dog can't just try to swallow them like a bird neck, has to actually chomp on them. And the bones in the wings are very soft in the young birds they butcher nowadays for consumption.

I agree with mudpuppy on the necks. I wish they were the best because they cost a fraction of what wings cost (which is a consideration with 15 dogs eating them) but safety is better than money. I'll stick to the wings.