Anyone feed/fed Monica Segal's raw diet?

Sometimes we just crack me up. I'm sitting here soaking up every word (and being unendingly concerned for what my dogs eat) while also chomping on some salty chips and dip with unpronouncable ingredients.

 
[sm=lol.gif] - Ain't that the truth?  I'm eating Cheese Nips with some odd tasting taco seasoning on them that I bought from Big Lots and probably had a "sell by" date that expired a year ago. 

Oh yeah, I'm eating Hershey's kisses by the handful literally while I'm meticulously calculating every nutrient for Cherokee. [&o]

The latest newletter from Monica Segal says that the new NRC guidlines for her cooked food should be ready next month, I think.. New raw is ready now. So, Chelsea, you might want to order if you decide to go cooked.   But, it seems to me that cooked shouldn't vary too much from raw?????   How bad would it really be to take the raw reciepes and cook them?
 
I guess I'm going to go online and see if I can find the new NRC guidlines.  I would really like to know 1) what the new calc. & phos amounts are, and 2) how my multi-vitamin fits in the scheme.  Every since I got the email saying that they use more than you would get in kibble, anyway, I am wondering just how it stacks up.  They aren't exactly cheap - so if using 3/4 of one a day for one dog would be alright, then I'll do that.
 
Plus, once I start rotating foods, hopefully by then end of summer,  they will be getting nutrients from that as well. 
 
my dinner:  Chick-fil-a (yum) and,  gasp, chocolate covered oreos.  Eating the oreo's as I read Bunni's comment.

1) what the new calc. & phos amounts are

 
If you find that, please share. I found on the K9 Kitchen list Monica said the new NRC phosphorous amount is "100 mg per kg to the power of 0.75". I spent a long while trying to figure out how to raise something to the power of a decimal (or fraction), and think I may have figured out (actually, my friend figured that, but hey..LOL) that a 26 kg dog needs 1150 mg phosphorous, which is half the old amount of 2300 for 26 kgs. I can't find calcium, nor am I sure that's correct. But I refuse to spend $300 on the NRC's book. (Uh..that last bit was more to convince myself than any of you. [])

NEVERMIND! I found it! Sorry, I'm excited. Okay, so apparently for all the NRC's new guidelines, you have to raise the dog's weight in kilograms to the power of .75. I'm still lost on how to do that without a calculator, but hey, who needs to. Go to Google, type in your dog's weight in kgs ^.75. So I typed 26^.75 and got 11.5. Then, for phosphorous you multiply that by 100, and for calcium by 130 (no idea on other nutrients yet). So Cherokee needs 1150 mg phosphorous and 1500 mg calcium. Easy peasy!

I know I'm just replying to myself over and over..but oh well. This time I'm wondering if someone who has Monica Segal's K9 Kitchen book would mind looking something up for me. I just ordered the book, but I need to (or want to, whatever) know something now. I remember a post a while back where someone posted that the ercentages of calcium and phosphorous for some chicken parts and turkey necks are in that book, and am wondering if someone would mind looking up and telling me the percentages for chicken wings and turkey necks. Also, if there's any info on how much the bone weighs vs. the meat in a certain amount of those, I'd really appreciate that. I think I have an okay guess, but it would be nice to know. Thanks so much!

chicken wings 100 grams        turkey neck 100g
moisture %      60.48              68.94
protein%         16.57              17.70
calcium%         0.92               1.84
phosphorus%   0.55               1.0
ash%               3.53               7.52
fat%                19.63             3.75

Thank you much for looking that up and posting it for me! I really appreciate it. And after figuring that, it looks like the 60 lb diet does meet both the 2003 mineral and 2006 total NRC guidlines for calcium and phosphorous, though not the 1985 ones, which is what I was originally figuring it against. The calciumhosphorous ratio is 1.02:1, which is a little lower than I'd feed if planning the diet myself, but obviously within the recommendations of 1:1-2:1.
 
It's still, after analyzing and reanalyzing a few times, low in magnesium, manganese, thiamin, iron, and choline, according to all NRC guidelines I can find, and low in zinc and selenium, according to both the 2003 and 2006 guidelines, though fine according to the 1985 ones, which, IMO, are moot now.
 
In any case, Cherokee is not thrilled with this diet in the least. She's not a fan of raw poultry, and that's what it's based on. But I've been toughing it out anyway, hoping she'd like it after a few days, but now she's been throwing up (interestingly, she puked yesterday, about an hour after she ate, and all I could see was the veggie mix, looking exactly how it did going in. No sign of meat or the coarsely ground bone.). She's also ripping her feet apart, which leads me to believe she IS allergic to turkey like I thought for a while, but then I decided she wasn't. I can't think of anything else that would be causing her to shred her foot pads suddenly.
 
So, I won't be continuing with this diet. I might still buy the cooked recipes booklet, see if I can find one that'll work for Cherokee, or else I'll just plan it myself. Thanks for everyone's help and opinions in this matter.

Chelsea,
 
I just found this thread again.  WHY, WHY, WHY are they making this so complicated?   going to kg's is bad enough -- but what is this stuff about going to the power of .75?  GEESHH.
 
No, I hadn't had time yet to even look for the new NRC guidlines.  I HAD assumed that they would be in English, though.  Apparently not.  That is definately a foreing language!
 
 Which majorily ___________'s  for those of us that HAVE to do long term homecooking, and don't won't to or can't go by published reciepes.  YEECKK.
 
I've not got a clue about the following:  but I have *read somewhere* that a dog may react to a protein in one state/form and not another.  IE, a dog might not be able to handle cooked, but can handle raw.  IF this is true, then it might be the other way around as well.
 
I would take her off of that diet, give it a few weeks, add some probiotics for healing, and try the turkey individually.  Cooked this time.  Let her heal from this, give it a few weeks, and try the chicken.   Or try chicken first and then turkey.    It might be that she can do *ok* on one poulty source at a time, but not both together.  Now, that's a really strange suggestion, but it might be remotely possible.  And, worth finding out - after she gets this current episode out of her system.

I had finally become comfortable figuring it up the old way, when they threw the ole power of .75 into the mix. Made me want to scream. I was mathematically challenged in school, and it hasn't improved with age.It's disheartening to have to ask my 14 yr old for math help   

Oh god, I spent two hours the other day trying to even fathom what something to the power of a decimal meant. I never did figure it out. A friend of mine figured it out, but I still don't get it.
 
But I discovered Google has a calculator. You just go to the normal Google page and type in a math problem, and it tells you the answer. So first divide your dog's weight in pounds by 2.2 to get kgs. Then, let's say your dog weighs 10 kgs, you type "10^.75", hit search, and voila. You can also use the regular Windows calculator in scientific mode, but Google's easier.
 
I have all the numbers for the 2006 guidelines (that you multiply by the stupid ^.75 number). I suppose I could get sued for copyright infringement if I posted them though (I got them from the K9 Kitchen list, but they're strewn about, because Monica Segal was denied permission to reprint them on her site, though apparently she got permission to print them in her next book, which is supposed to come out in the Spring), so I won't, but..if you PM me...well, you get it.

a dog might not be able to handle cooked, but can handle raw. IF this is true, then it might be the other way around as well.

 
Yeah, I've heard that too. Allergies are so hard. It's really rather impossible to be sure of anything. Like, I fed Cherokee my sister's dog's Innova a couple times recently. But every time I did, it rained that night, so when Cherokee was itchy the next day, I couldn't be sure if it was the food, or something brought on by the rain. And now I've been feeding her turkey, but there's been NO humidity recently, and I'm itchy all over from that, plus my sister's dog has these weird bald spots suddenly, so Cherokee ripping her feet apart might have nothing to do with the food, or it might have everything to do with it. Who knows. It's so frustrating.

quote:

a dog might not be able to handle cooked, but can handle raw. IF this is true, then it might be the other way around as well.

Yeah, I've heard that too. Allergies are so hard

 
 
 
  I'm sorry Cherokee's chewing on her feet; do you know if she's allergic to dust mites or mold spores? Jessie's highly allergic to dust mites and before she started allergen immunotherapy she would chew her feet until they bled this time of year. When we have the milder temperatures in the winter, the mold spores bloom and that causes those allergic to them to suffer from allergy symptoms. Concerning whether or not a dog may be allergic to a protein in kibble but not be allergic to the same protein if fed raw, here's what Monica Segal has to say;  [linkhttp://www.monicasegal.com/newsletters/2005-11NL.php]http://www.monicasegal.com/newsletters/2005-11NL.php[/link];
The immune system has a memory like no other. Once a food has been deemed an enemy, the immune system will always react to it. The form of food makes absolutely no difference. You can cook it, feed it raw or extrude it into kibble but you can#%92t fool the immune system.

Jessies mom,
 
I am hoping that that would be one time Monica is wrong - that every "form" of a protein would set the dog's immune system off.  Now, what she says makes sense.  I agree with it - I'm just saying it would be nice if she weren't right about that. []  That would mean more opportunites to feed our dogs - especially those dogs that have issues with more than one protein source.  Bother!
 
She said, in that news article, that one of her dogs was allergic to the "form" of mineral supplements.  That is what I suspect happened to my girl. I think that is why she reacted so bad when we went off the kibble onto the diet and I wasn't supposed to give her a multi vit/ mineral for a period of 3 weeks.  She was "supposed" to have been alright for a 3 weeks, having a stored supply.  But, I don't think she had a stored supply.  I couldn't have even went 4 weeks out w/o supplementing with a multi b/c she lost sooo much weight - and her poops were gigantic - she wasn't absorbing any nutrients.    That would seem like it would be rare, but maybe it's more common that we think.    You know, we think of trying different foods, but the form of the supplement we don't think about.  And, I'm really suprised her dog couldn't handle the citrate form - that should be the easiest form of all to absorb. 
 
But, you know what else, in the recent WDJ, they talked about pica and one of the things they mentioned was using a particular mineral supplement.  Now, I would NOT just go and add this to regular kibble w/o in-depth talking to a vet nutritionalist since that could cause some serious problems with nutrient balance, but that makes me think again that maybe more dogs are out there eating dirt b/c their bodies aren't absorbing minerals (and dirt - like the oxide and carbonate forms are not easily absorbable to begin with).

do you know if she's allergic to dust mites or mold spores?

No, I don't know. I haven't had any allergy testing done. I've been doing pretty well controlling it myself, and immunotherapy scares me for some reason. People can tell me it's safe all they want, but my gut tells me otherwise. Not to say I blame you for doing it, I just can't see myself doing it.

And since I don't want to do immunotherapy, I feel like allergy testing would just make me feel helpless. The only thing I really can control is her food, but allergy testing doesn't do a great job of telling you about food allergies anyway, so what's the point? For example, we have bermuda grass in our yard, but we rent, and I can't be replacing the grass, so even if an allergy test came back positive for bermuda grass, I wouldn't be able to do much about it, and it would just make me feel guilty and helpless. Ignorance is bliss, I guess. But Cherokee's been doing quite well recently, before this recent paw chewing. And Benadryl actually seems to be helping very nicely this time, so we'll see. Thanks for the info.