Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Raw, baby.

Crystal here.

Nothing super-snazzy new to report. The only big change in our pup's lives right now is their diet. We have gone 100% full-time RAW.

Yep, raw.

As in, naked, uncooked, bone-in, meat. Oh, and organs. And eggs. And fish. Yummy.

Without getting into too much detail, as you know we did a fair bit of research on dog food/nutrition this year. Frankly we ended up pretty much horrified by what we've been taught to feed our dogs, via clever marketing and misinformation. This led to a switch from common commercial kibbles (prescription vet diets, Iams, Purina, etc. etc.) to grain-free, meat-based holistic kibble. We settled on Orijen, an absolutely marvelous Canadian product. The dogs did really well. This was a good first step. More research ensued, leading us to dip our toes in the waters of raw.

Lo and behold, Jaida ate her food. Not only wilingly, but RAVENOUSLY. Like she ENJOYED eating. This is the same dog we've been more or less bribing to eat since day one. This was a pretty good indication that there was something to this "raw" business. More research, some diet planning, some seeking out resources like local butchers, fish markets and neighbours with unwanted food in their freezers, more diet tweaking, and voila. Full-time raw.

The girls had chicken thighs, chunks of pork, some liver, some whitefish and some green tripe for breakfast this morning. Nummy.

Anyhoo, they're thriving on this food. I'll probably post more on the diet later, as we're starting to learn about some implications of kibble-feeding (high carbohydrates) for carnivores on gut and overall health. It's an interesting subject, and deserves some discussion.

In the meantime, please enjoy some wintry pics of the lovely ladies in question....


1 comment:

Mashel said...

HI, I saw your post on a dog site, and was reading about you making a dog wheelchair for Jaida. I was wondering if you ever made one or not. I see that your vet said that her hips are ok, so maybe you never made one. I have a 9 year old German Shepard, Naselle, who has developed hip dysplasia and I was just trying to find some plans to build her a wheelchair. Thanks.