What can I add to Maze's kibble?

Liesje

You can get big 10lb bags of them from Walmart for like $4.

Where would I look for this at Walmart (I feel really dumb asking, but oh well)  I've never seen it but I'm probably in the totally wrong area.  Is it frozen?  That's the only thing I've seen in a bag.  Or do I just go up to the butcher and ask for it?  Sorry I'm clueless, I just don't buy meat very often.

oranges81

Unfortunetly where I live, I can't buy the pre-made raw diet and we don't have a Walmart (Yes my town is SAD) But I am on friendly terms with the butcher so maybe I can talk to him.

 I had no idea you could feed a dog eggs.. I always thought it gave them gas. Or is that only cooked eggs?

Why not liver oil? (Just curious! ) Can you get the fish oil at a drug store like Shoppers Drug Mart? Or would I have to go a health food store?

Would this also help with her eye boogies?  

I am envious that you are on friendly terms with the butcher...lol.  Nowadays, I would drive about 20 miles one way to go to an asian market that have beef bones.... the great thing about it is I can select the beef bones I want and then they will then cut them up according to my specification for my lab's recreational chewing needs.  He loves the marrows and I love the price at $0.59 per pound!!  I think you can get a better deal with your butcher. 

I get Fish Oil (1000 mg per gelcap) and Vitamin E (200 iu per gel cap) also for Niko, my 1 year old lab.  I get the human version at either Walmart or Costco so my hubby and I don't accidentally feed us the doggie ones....This way, it is easier and everyone take the same things.  My 70 lbs labs get about 2000 mg of fish oil (which contain a total of 600 mg of dha/eha..something) and 400 iu of vitamin e daily.  I have noticed tremendous improvements with his coat....very shiny and soft (he gets Nature's Logic and Canidae kibbles with home cooked food).  If you give your dog fish oil, make sure you also give him vitamin e (because fish oil oxidize very quickly).

 Just a quick note.  I've been giving my dogs 1 raw egg a day, for 3 days and the shine on their coats is insane.  In fact I may cut back on Onyx for days when I also add sardines as I did today.  Her coat was almost... I dunno, I don't want to say greasy, but almost.  Her coat is very fine, thick but fine hairs.  And despite what her breed is supposed to have, her coat is pretty silky.  Crusher looks amazing though and I've never felt a softer coat on him.  Even his guard hairs don't look dry at all.

TheDogHouseBCMPD

Liesje

You can get big 10lb bags of them from Walmart for like $4.

Where would I look for this at Walmart (I feel really dumb asking, but oh well)  I've never seen it but I'm probably in the totally wrong area.  Is it frozen?  That's the only thing I've seen in a bag.  Or do I just go up to the butcher and ask for it?  Sorry I'm clueless, I just don't buy meat very often.

I'm not sure b/c we don't go to Walmart (there isn't one really close, we have another big chain that actually started here, Meijer, so we go there).  I was asking Kenya's breeder how to put weight on her and she suggested using the chicken and mentioned Walmart.  DH and I do get 10lb bags of chicken thighs (they are boneless and skinless, I imagine something with skin and bone intact will be cheaper and actually healthier for the dog).  We find them in the frozen foods area of the grocery store.  They are these, lol, they are on sale so there's an ad online (and that's a good deal so I'm going to get some tomorrow!):

I think they are a little cheaper at Walmart. 

I shop at Walmart at times......but, I prefer Sam's club....much better deals when one purchases in bulk.......also, one of my dogs turnes his nose up at sardines....he hates them.....lol....he prefers salmon......

I sat down and thought about it the other night. Maze eats 10 times better then I do.. *Munches on a potato chip*  Lol.

I put an egg on her dinner tonight and she loved it! Licked her bowl clean, which she hardly does. And I gave her a chicken leg tonight to see if she'd eat it. And she looked like I had put an alien in her dish! I ended up having to cut it to chunks and give her a piece of meat then she realized it was food. I think my dog is weird....

 Na... thats normal.  My big dog took to chicken fast, but my little one... well I had to hold it for her and she licked it forever!  But once she got the idea to try chewing on it... well she never looked back.

I think lots of dogs go throught that... quite often with each consecutive new type of meat... they catch on quicker after that though...

I have a question.  I read that raw eggs are a food to avoid because it interferes with a dog's absorbtion of nutrients, especially the B vitamins.  Is this true?  I don't mind cooking them, but Sophie LOVES them raw and when I add it to her kibble she eats it all up, where as normally she's not a big kibble eater at all.  I don't want to ask the vet, I know what he'll say, a big no and that I should switch to Science Diet lol!

The first time I gave my guys a raw chicken wing they both just sat there and stared at it for about 15 minutes, periodically nudging them or licking them. But once they figured it out, they really figured it out. Now I give a wing and it's *crunch crunch crunch* and they're dispatched in a couple of minutes (and here I thought I'd give them wings as something fun to spend time working on! nope!). 

To those of you living in places with Whole Foods or other natural/organic markets....I really like their marrow bones way more than the conventional kind. They're much thicker. Smaller in size, but thicker. For my guys who aren't interested in cracking the bones, but who do like to scrape all the bits off them, this is much better than those behemoth bones that have such thin walls that just the scraping and tearing that the dogs do to them causes them to crack and break apart.

Sardines have also been a huge hit here. The dogs almost did backflips the day that I mixed sardines (and some NB lamb food roll) into their kibble and yogurt in their frozen Kongs. And their coats are looking fantastic. 

I'm slowly but surely ambling my way towards home prepared and raw. Now, if I could just save the money for a chest freezer, I'd be all set!  

 I've never heard anything about that.  The only thing I've heard is the whole salmonella thing, which doesn't effect dogs anyway.  If you are worried about it though, just add them to one meal and not the next.  Dogs metabolize much faster than us due to a  shorter digestive tract so by the next meal whatever would cause that would be gone.  I'll do some research on it though. 

TheDogHouseBCMPD

Where would I look for this at Walmart (I feel really dumb asking, but oh well)  I've never seen it but I'm probably in the totally wrong area.  Is it frozen?  That's the only thing I've seen in a bag.  Or do I just go up to the butcher and ask for it?  Sorry I'm clueless, I just don't buy meat very often.

She means cut-up chicken parts. Wings, legs, thighs, backs. They would be in the meat section. Sometimes they are sold in big bags, sometimes on a styrofoam tray wrapped in plastic. 

 I have had lots of luck in the meat departments of ethnic grocery stores like Asian, Indian, or Hispanic grocery stores or meat markets. Regular chain grocery stores are less likely to carry ox tails and pork neck bones and beef heart. Plus, they are less likely to have cooperative butchers.
 

 Blargh!!!! I WANT AN ASIAN MEAT MARKET!!!!

LillianD

I have a question.  I read that raw eggs are a food to avoid because it interferes with a dog's absorbtion of nutrients, especially the B vitamins.  Is this true?  I don't mind cooking them, but Sophie LOVES them raw and when I add it to her kibble she eats it all up, where as normally she's not a big kibble eater at all.  I don't want to ask the vet, I know what he'll say, a big no and that I should switch to Science Diet lol!

I **think** - not at all sure, so don't take my word for it - that there is something in raw egg *whites* that is somehow detrimental to digestion (I forget why) but that it is counter-balanced by something in the yolks. Therefore, if you're going to feed raw eggs, you want to feed the whole egg. Another option is to like soft-boil it. Again I'm not sure on this so I recommend doing your own research or checking with someone more knowledgeable!

Raw egg whites have an enzyme called avidin that inhibits biotin absorption. There's a good amount of biotin in the yolk, but there's argument about whether it's enough to counteract what the avidin inhibits. If your dog has skin problems, you may want to lightly cook the eggs to be sure they get the benefit from the biotin (problem is biotin gets destroyed by too much heat..so basically you want to cook the white and leave the yolk raw...soft-boiling works, or separating and cooking the white..or just really lightly frying..whatever). Otherwise..I wouldn't worry about it too much.

I have several methods now of heating up the whites (I feed eggs to eight dogs, though not every night):

1. Lightly pan fry the eggs - the whites cook way faster than the yolks - if you do it until just when the white is opaque, there will be enough avidin neutralized to allow the biotin to benefit your dog (and not bind any other biotin in the diet).
2. Soft boil - VERY soft boil - about five to seven minutes - then throw in the blender, shell and all, with some liquid of choice  The advantage of this method is that you can do a whole bunch up ahead of time and even travel with them if you don't do the blender part (just convenient because they are something of a pain to peel/deshell when they are this soft).
   
3. Add to hot food like rice, oatmeal, or potatoes.  By the time the food is cool, the white will be cooked, but the yolk won't cook at all.
   
4. My recent favorite - poaching - I can do a bunch very quickly this way and it's the least messy if I don't happen to be cooking up something for them.  Poaching means simmering in a shallow bath of boiling water - just until the whites turn opaque again - and it happens extremely quickly when poaching, basically in the water and out again.  Presto!
   

Salmonella is actually a serious concern with raw eggs - dogs CAN get salmonella, they are just much, much, much less likely to do so because the bad bugs run through them so much faster than us.  All else being equal, a dog will almost [/i]never[/i] get something like e. coli or salmonella (ie, become ill).  However, as we increase exposure, we are also increasing risk, because it's a game of Russian roullette.  Raw meat is fine, because contamination levels are relatively low.  Poultry is getting up there.  The contamination levels of commercial eggs are through the roof, so while an egg every week or every few days is still keeping exposure within acceptable levels for me, I'm too scared to feed raw commerical eggs every single day - at that point the risks outweigh the possible benefits.  I'll revisit that when I get a good source of eggs from locally grown open air raised hens.

Control freak?  Me?  Nah . . .