yellowgirl

Oh, poor Sweep :D . I hope he's okay. Please keep us updated

Staranais, looks like you're our 'go to' girl (cheers hun ), so I have a quick question :D . Do you know what the calcium content is for bones? How many mg of calcium would 100g of just bone contain? If you have a link that would be great, the USDA Nutrient Database obviously doesn't contain bone analysis and I'm not sure where to find the info.

Hi all! Nice to see some new people here ;) Neats, are you feeding the VAN 'complete mix'? If so, I'd say take that out of the diet, the high amount of grain might be contributing to Lucy's problems. I couldn't find Vitalife kibble, do you have a link to it? I can just imagine their faces when you gave them the yoghurt . Glad they liked it in the end. Lindadiosa, all the best with Esmeralda! The generally accepted amounts for raw feeding are 80% meat, 10% bone and 10% organs (5% of which is liver). I follow this fairly loosley and also include my other ingredients. The recommended feeding amount is 2-3% of the dog's ideal adult weight per day, for pups this would be per meal. Your pup should be on 3-4 meals until 6 months when you can reduce it to 2 meals per day. At 12 months you can reduce it to 1 meal or divide the amount into 2 meals. I prefer to give 2 meals per day. You are so right about all the conflicting information out there! In the end, all you can do is listen to the many and varied opinions, put it all together, shake it around a bit, and then just do what works best for you and your dog Avindie, yep mix it up a bit. Sounds like you've got a good plan going there Oonga, I saw beef lung and lambs fry at woolies yesterday. Butchers should have a bit of variety too. I've had no luck sourcing green tripe here. I've found an American company that does a tinned version but they don't sell here. They're looking for a distributor and I'm thinking about importing the product to Australia. I guess it really depends on how much demand there is for it. Apart from a few of us on DOL, I'm not sure what the demand is. Ziwipeak seems to be the closest thing available, although it's mixed with other meats as well. Mrmac, I'd maybe feed larger bones if they were frozen, not smaller bones like chicken or turkey though. Not sure why, I just think they'd be more likely to splinter. BTW, there are no silly questions in this thread, we're all here to learn WildatHeart, just use what you have access to. There's no need to feed every single organ especially if it's a pain trying to find them . I can't see myself ever dishing out a lump of brains for dinner :D With the amounts, based loosely on the 10% theory, if you're making up about a kilo of food, you'd be looking at around 50g liver and 50g of another organ. Heart can be used as an additional nutrient rich meat. :D It's getting hard to keep track of everyone here these days! Hope I haven't missed any questions. Hi to everyone! Great to see so much interest in our little thread

Glad to hear he's feeling better . Sounds like the treatment was worse than the illness

Hi FTP, I'm going to Lenoard's tomorrow to have a look at their chicken pet mince . I'm going to include it in my next batch while we're still sorting out bone amounts, types and frequency. I'll do 1kg of Lenoard's mince to 1kg of woolie's beef, lamb or pork mince (whichever is on special ) plus all my other regular ingredients. Just wondering if giving your guys bones Saturday and Sunday might be too much for them in one hit (just thinking constipation-wise ;) ) For worming, I heartworm mine every 5 weeks and all-wormer every 3-4 months. Personally, I don't like the over-kill of the yearly heartworm injections or monthly all-inclusive wormers. ... here's a handy tip for everyone, chicken wings don't get minced up if you put them through the blender. They just fly around the bowl and then get stuck

Awwww, what a couple of darlings!

Puppy?!? Puppy?!? Pics please!! btw, how much is the Lenard's pet mince?

Oh good, I'm not tragic after all! We have a really nice side by side fridge/freezer in the kitchen but for buying up on specials for the dogs it just didn't cut it cos I never had enough room. But now I have a whole freezer just for their food (and a few loaves of bread) and it's awesome cos I can buy as much as I want and know I can easily store it. A few months ago, I would have thought no, I'll just keep some dry on hand for emergencies but really, they have so little of it at the moment, and if I forget to defrost meat, I can always mix up a meal of tinned fish, eggs, cheese and grated veges for them. That take but a few minutes and it's nutritious and a change from their usual. Congrats on the chest freezer! Sounds like you've got everything sorted I've got a side by side too. My stuff gets crammed into the shelves in the door, the rest of the freezer belongs to the dogs! (and it's healthier than what's crammed into the door :D )

Well, I'm just pleased that you feel safe enough to finally come out to us :p ;) ..... as long as you're not feeding Pedigree, Homebrand or anything of equal disgustingness

Heehee, just keeping you on your toes :p

Hi BCPuppy, welcome to the forum and our little thread :p Basically... what Staranais said . Make sure you show us some pics when your litttle one comes home! Staranais, I've changed the name of the thread. The 'no more dry food' title was relevent to me and my own furkids, but now that others are joining in, I thought it would be bettter to change the title to something that represents the open minded advice and opinions that this thread offers ;) . One size doesn't fit all when it comes to feeding our dogs!

Please let us know what the test results say. Poor Grumpy . It's so awful to see them feeling bad.

Good news all round by the sounds of it! . Glad to hear that she's recovering well. Sounds like she's a bit prone to lumps and bumps.

My Sarge is 9 and he went under GA a couple of weeks ago for a much needed dental. Like JohnSmith and MTD, I was concerned about periodontal risks and it needed to be done for his health. He also had a warty, skin-tag type thing removed at the same time. I wouldn't have risked a GA just for the warty thing though. It took two months to convince me to put him under at all. Personal choice I think. Hope all goes well with your girl and she's back home bouncing around in no time. .... I really want to know what procedure she's having now!

I sure hope you find out what's wrong with poor Grumpy soon. How old is he?

Yes, they are fine for treats. As with other fruits, just feed in moderation

Hi Jettyjet, you're looking at a Purina (commercial) website and as most of their products are either grain based or contain a lot of grains as fillers, they are going to push the myth that lots of grains are good for dogs . I think their products contain way too much grain-based carbohydrates in amounts that are not natural or healthy for dogs (just my opinion ). I choose not to give those kind of products to my dogs at all. I think they get all the nutrients they need from a raw/natural diet.

If you do processed green veges along with some probiotics/natural yoghurt, IMO that's probably about as close as you're going to get to the real thing. Thanks Staranais . Huski your dogs' diet sounds great! I'm still working on some bone issues with my two. Madeline eats them beautifully, but I need to add more liver to her evening meal to keep constipation under control. Sarge still won't eat the whole bone, he likes to just pull all the meat off. He's not too bad with a chicken wing tip, but there's still more gulping than chewing They just had a some turkey bone each and of course Sarge left the actual bone, so I smashed it up a bit with the hammer to encourage him. Well, he scoffed the lot and choked on a larger piece! Darn near gave me a heart attack! Any suggestions on the bones people?

Nice of you to go searching huskyheaven, but we'll have to keep trying. That one is human grade white/bleached tripe. We want a lovely greeny, brownish, blackish colour ... I've never actually seen one though

Just got to ask yellowgirl - when you "ring around" do you speak to the vet or to the underpaid kid on the front desk? I think you might find that if you actually spoke to the vets in the practice you would get a whole different story than you get from the girl on the phone (I know I do!) ETA: Gotta wonder about the internet hoax thing though! The receptionist said that the vet had told her it was an internet hoax! :D It's very usual and accepted in the US now, so maybe it will just take a little time for our Aussie vets to catch up I did find a clinic that does do the tests, although the staff didn't know much about it and had to ask the vets there. It was super expensive though.

FTP, we've been doing totally raw for about a month now. Before that it was only products that had no artificial colours, flavours or preservatives. It took a little while to transition them as Madeline had a bit of a stressy tummy (pretty sure that was due to her nervousness and insecurites) and I don't think either of them had ever had bones before. We're still learning as we go along Trish, I think you're right. It's pretty hard to get hold of. I do know there's a company that sells it in cans but I've lost the link. Probably overseas though.

I think many of our Aussie vets are still way behind the times. A few weeks ago I rang around to find out about titre testing for dogs who aren't vaccinated yearly. Most of them hadn't even heard of it and couldn't believe that I didn't want to vaccinate yearly. One receptionist told me that she'd heard about it and said it was an internet hoax, and that there was actually no research about it! Sheeesh!

Hi FTP, welcome to our little club I had a look at the Artemis, it does look like a really good food, however the second ingredient is potatoes which would make it quite high in starch/carbohydrates. I'd be looking at reducing carbs for an allergic dog. It also contains dried skim milk which would be an unneccessary dairy. I've been trying to find green tripe and it's really hard to find! Human consumption tripe is pretty useless for dogs as all the nutrients have been washed or bleached out. I'll keep looking though I hope you find the right balance for Benson and he feels better soon! He's a beautiful boy

I just got them from woolies . Can you let us know how he goes? (he could be my theory experiment dog :D )

Dr Dodds 2009 report. As many of us suspected, yearly vaccs are just not neccessary. http://www.weim.net/emberweims/Vaccine.html