Dog Community

Not doing so well on raw

Posted : 11/7/2008 9:15:10 PM

I have 3 small dogs. They were on California Natural kibbles but a couple days ago i started them on NV Raw food. I made the switch cold turkey cause i read on several sites that raw doesnt digest the same as kibble and not to feed together. I was then reading about PMR and have given them raw chicken breast to start them on, so in the mornings i give them nv raw and for dinner i give them raw chicken. I also homecooked for them twice and fed with the raw chicken to settle their stomachs. This has only been for about 4 days. Anyway 1 of the girls has been doing fine on the raw, she hasn't thrown up, she loves it, she has normal small poo. But the other 2 have been throwing up, diarrhea, all of that gross stuff. I heard Kibble is really not that good for them and i want to do the best for them, what should i do? The littlest one is 2.8 lbs, she has no health problems as far as i know. She will eat the raw but then get sick later on in the night..

jessies_mom

Posted : 11/7/2008 9:47:25 PM

Hi and welcome to the forum; Big Smile You can feed kibble and raw together; I've done it and so have many others without a problem. It's always better to transition slowly to a new food; taking at least a week to change them over. One thing you may want to consider is feeding a kibble for one meal (Nature's Variety makes some nice ones) and the NV raw for another meal.

mizzwanned
have given them raw chicken breast to start them on

Giving them any raw or cooked meat by itself is not a balanced diet, and you also need to add calcium to balance the phosphorus in the meat.

jennie_c_d

Posted : 11/7/2008 10:40:06 PM

A tiny dog like that NEEDS to have some food in her belly. Dogs that small are prone to hypoglycemia.

Kibble is not horrible for dogs, and raw is not the only diet for them. I have one dog on raw, and one on kibble. My puppy could not keep her weight up on raw, so I put her on good kibble, with canned food and random scraps. She's doing great! My older dog eats raw and looks incredible. Dogs are individuals, and there's no "one size fits all" diet for all families.

When the little dog gets sick, what is she vomiting? Is it food? Bile? What kind of diarrhea are they having? Have you seen any blood?

jdata

Posted : 11/7/2008 11:09:59 PM

jennie_c_d
A tiny dog like that NEEDS to have some food in her belly. Dogs that small are prone to hypoglycemia.

Kibble is not horrible for dogs, and raw is not the only diet for them. I have one dog on raw, and one on kibble. My puppy could not keep her weight up on raw, so I put her on good kibble, with canned food and random scraps. She's doing great! My older dog eats raw and looks incredible. Dogs are individuals, and there's no "one size fits all" diet for all families.

When the little dog gets sick, what is she vomiting? Is it food? Bile? What kind of diarrhea are they having? Have you seen any blood?

Going OT here.. Jennie, Just curious, what was the fat content of the raw diet you were using? I have noticed with my JRTs that have been on raw since last February started on mOrigins which fat content is 17%. Too variety, I have implemented HPP raw food however, the fat content is 7.36% for beef. I started rotating their beef in using the same serving and they were losing weight. I talked to my distributor about it and she told me to either supplement fish oil, mackerel, raw egg or green tripe. So this time around I started to implement green tripe and also purchased 4 more beef stix of HPP and 1 stick of HPP chicken (14% fat) and hare today beef gullet. I'll rotate back to mOriginas for the next couple of months and probably back to HPP again...

brookcove

Posted : 11/8/2008 12:03:33 PM

Just off the top of my head, I'm getting the impression that you are adding a lot of new things at once. You are doing fine (do some research on balancing the boneless meat for your wee dog), just be patient and give your dogs a couple weeks to adjust to each new thing, each change you make.

I'd encourage you to check out K9 Kitchen - they have a great archive there where you can get information on putting together a home-prepared diet.

mizzwanned

Posted : 11/9/2008 12:25:34 AM

Thanks Jessiesmom! I dont know how to quote what you wrote.. What can i add for calcium? The reason i only gave chicken breast is cause someone told me to do that and slowly introduce other meats. Should i give veggies? Today i fed kibble and raw together to get them adjusted and they seem do be doing better that way. They haven't thrown up or had diarrhea

buttonbutt

Posted : 11/9/2008 4:07:34 PM

I have heard that some dogs go through a "detox" period at the beginning and will throw up occasionally on raw diet. My 4 y.o. rat terrier did for about a month and then it stopped. But to put that in perspective, she has always had a sensitive stomach in the A.M. due to it being empty too long (bile), so I wasn't at all surprised. My 2 y.o. rescue rattie had no problem at all with the same diet, as she had been stray as young as 5 mos. of age and was used to eating bugs, lizards or whatever she could find.

As to the diarrhea, internal organs, particularly liver, can do that. What I did to thwart that was mix liver with other organs (green tripe, beef lung, sweetbreads, or whatever I can get a good deal on), so they didn't get too much liver in one meal. That worked for my girls.

As has already been said, each dog is different. Just be sure to introduce each protein source one at a time. In the beginning, I stuck with one muscle meat protein for a month before moving to a new one. That way, if they had a problem (rash or allergic issues), I'd know which was the culprit. My girls have been on raw since January and both are doing quite well. They get their organ meats, eggs, green tripe, mackeral or salmon in the mornings. They get their muscle meat/meaty bones chicken, pork, beef, duck, venaison (when I can get any) in the evenings. Seems to be working for me and them. Wink

jessies_mom

Posted : 11/9/2008 7:42:54 PM

mizzwanned
What can i add for calcium?

I use NOW brand calcium carbonate; you can also use calcium citrate. Health food stores carry it and you add 250 mg for every three and a half ounces of meat. The label on the bottle has the amount of calcium per teaspoon. If you feed raw meaty bones, you don't need to add calcium because of the calcium in the bone.