Staranais

Oh just found a link for you through the uni library database. A study analysed the amount of Ca in lamb bones, found it to be 100g Ca per kg of bone (10,000mg per 100g of bone). Ca:P ratio of lamb bone was around 2.1:1. They say other studies have found cattle to have a similar amount of calcium in their bones to this, and have found sheep to have up to double this amount of Ca sometimes (20,000mg per 100g of bone). It's "Concentration of Ca, P, Mg, Na and K in muscle, fat and bone tissue of lambs of the breed German Merino Landsheep in the course of the growing period" by G. Bellof, E. Most and J. Pallauf, Journal of Animal Physiology and Animal Nutrition, 2006. So that puts the amount of Ca in chicken bone at probably about 3000 - 4500 mg/100g, and the amount of Ca in lamb or beef bone at probably 10,000 - 20,000 mg/100g. Hope that helps.

Hi Huski, I feed mostly lamb heart as my meat source, though will sometimes feed lean lamb or beef muscle instead if I can get it on special. As for amount, by weight, I'm feeding just over 35% chicken RMB, nearly 50% red meat, 4% liver, 4% kidney. And the remaining 5 - 10% is a mix of yoghurt, canned fish, porridge, veges, any other organs I can occasionally get my hands on, etc. Can't get roo over here. Not sure if that's what other more orthodox prey model feeders would do, I feed a kind of weird hybrid between a prey model/NRC values diet. Yellowgirl, I think that depends on the bone (density, degree of mineralisation, etc). The only data I have is for chicken necks and backs. Chicken necks, they are about 30% bone by weight, and contain about 1400mg/100g, putting the amount of Ca in 100g of actual bone at 4600mg. For chicken backs, these are about 40% bone, and have about 1200 mg/100g, putting the amount of Ca in 100g of actual bone at 3000mg. For other bones, I don't know sorry. Terrestrial mammals might be quite different to birds?

Yup that's my guess too. I don't think you can get rid of the encysted larvae, but I guess ask a vet would be the thing to do, they should know all the newest drugs?

Be aware though that when people say to feed 10% of the diet as bone, they don't mean to feed RMBs as 10% of the diet, as RMBs are generally only 1/3 to 1/2 actual bone. So for example, if you were wanting to feed 10% of your diet as bone, using chicken carcasses, you'd make 20 - 30% of the diet chicken carcass. Most prey animals contain around 10% actual bone, which is why this figure is recommended. I think a little higher is better for puppies - like I said, I aim for 40% RMB - and wouldn't really want to see anyone feeding under 25% of the diet as RMB to a puppy. JMO, as always (but one I will bully my clients with when I get into practice!) I should also say that I'm sure Yellowgirl knows the difference between bone and RMB, just wanted to clarify for others who may not.

When roundworm (toxocara) eggs are ingested by a female dog, the eggs hatch inside her then the worm larvae lie dormant (encyst) in her tissues until she becomes pregnant, when they activate again & pass through the placenta and milk to the pups. Encysted larvae in bitches aren't killed by normal wormers, hence most puppies are born with Toxocara, since most bitches have encysted larvae which aren't removed by regular worming. I don't know anything about the Heartguard product, but assume it only removes adult roundworms (not encysted larvae)?

I just feed lamb heart mostly since it's easiest for me to source and they're all about the same nutrition wise, but no reason you couldn't mix it up if you liked. The rest sounds like a good diet to me, as long as you're feeding appropriate quantities of each thing - as you can appreciate, it's quite possible to create a completely unbalanced diet even from good quality ingredients if you feed them in wildly inappropriate proportions!

I do that with my pup, most of her red meat is actually heart. The nutritional values are pretty comperable, except that heart is a little lower in calories/g and in zinc/g than most beef or lamb muscle meats. Lindadiosa, I'd recommend you what I do to most puppy owners who are new to raw feeding, which is to start off with a semi raw, semi commercial diet instead of jumping straight into all raw feeding. This gives you more leeway to make mistakes with the diet while you're learning without it affecting your pup, and also allows you to introduce each raw food to your pup more slowly so you can work out what agrees with her and what doesn't. You can gradually add more raw and less commercial as you research further. With a puppy the most crucial nutrient levels you need to consider are the absolute amount of Ca in the diet (determined mostly by RMB), the ratio between Ca and P (determined mostly by RMB), and the overall number of calories (too much = not great for growing joints). Pups also need more iron and zinc than you'd think (so should get a good amount of beef or lamb, not just white meats, in the diet) and also need approximately the right amount of vitamin A (so you need to feed at least some but not too much liver). So if I were you I'd have a read on (at least) those topics before you switch a little puppy over to all raw. It's not rocket science, but it is important to get it right. I hope we get puppy pictures! I love staffy babies. ;)

It's a good idea to join a club if you want to trial for all the reasons Poodlefan has explained (in fact, I think it's actually compulsory over here if you want to trial). But I'll never again go to a typical 1 hour long obedience group class! IMO they're totally counterproductive for trialling, as they bore the dog and actually encourage the dog to be flat and inattentive while you're training. I'm all for short, fun, obedience sessions with maximal excitement and reward. I will go to club to work around distractions though, or to do a class that allows us to work on our own thing 90% of the time.

Yeah, what Huski said. ;) Basically, though, I think we're all doing very similar things. You say: "Bring out a roll or orange bunting and they know exactly what is going on and will do everything with lightning speed. Ask them casually for something in the back yard and you'll get an in kind response. Either way I still expect a response. " I'm exactly the same, except that I don't want to have to show the dog the roll or bunting to get her to go into drive - I want it so I just have to give her the cue word. The drive cue means "you now have the opportunity to earn the roll/bunting" - so the cue gets exactly the same result as showing her the toy. But using a verbal cue instead is very useful when I want the dog in drive but don't have the toy on me to show her, or when I want complete focus immediately (not after I've dug the toy out of my jacket pocket). Both ways of triggering the dog into drive work OK. I used to just show my old dog the toy like you do before training and then get him to work for it, so I know that method works, but I found the drive cue added more flexibility & that's why I'm using it for my current puppy. To the OP, I don't think it matters what method you use to tell your dog it's time to work. But if you want to compete & want to do well, then I think having some way of signalling to your dog that it's time to work is pretty essential, even if that's just putting a special collar on her, or giving her a few bites of the tug before you take her into the ring.

I differentiate like Huski. I do expect my dog to listen to my requests and comply at all times. But I give the drive cue when I want her compete intense focus and undivided attention. When I give the drive cue, I want the dog trembling with anticipation to work! That level of excitement and focus is just not possible (or desirable) to maintain 24/7. But I do want it sometimes (competitions, working around distractions, etc), so when I want it, I ask her for it. So I give casual commands for round the house (which she's expected to comply with but I don't require her to be in a state of complete focus), and a drive cue to tell her that if she's precise and quick she'll get a drive reward (which gets her undivided attention for working or training).

Depends how much bone and how much meat is in the mince. I'm paranoid, so don't feed ground meat unless I know what's in it, especially not to a puppy, as there can be so much variation in what actually goes into it. At least with a RMB you can see what you're getting. If you want to get technical, your pup "should" have about 2500 - 3000mg Ca per 1000kcal of food he eats, and the Ca:P ratio of his diet "should" always be between 1:1 and 2:1. Chicken mince made from carcasses or necks has around 7000 - 8000 mg per 1000kcal so if that made up 1/3 to 1/2 of the diet you should be fine for Ca. The Ca:P ratio in most raw diets is determined mostly by the RMB, and the ratio in chicken mince made from backs or necks is pretty good. But all bets are off if there is other chicken bits ground in with the necks or carcasses, and I have no idea what kind of Ca level would be in the beef pet mince - once again, I may be paranoid, but I wouldn't feed the mince as a large component of the diet until you found out.

That's a cool video, Aiden!

Good post Brad, I hope you stick around and post more. It did come off as self promotion a little, but I accept it wasn't your intention to cause any problems. Welcome to the forum!

Without the Royal Canin, no it wouldn't be balanced. Without her eating the liver, there's not enough vit A or copper in the diet. I'd also personally like to see more variety in a raw diet - fish, kidney, yoghurt, veges or green tripe, etc. Chicken bones and beef mince alone probably don't contain everything she needs. But I think you'll get away with it since you're feeding the Royal Canin as well. Whether it would be a balanced diet also depends what proportion of the diet is chicken rmb, and which proportion is beef mince. Luckily, feeding an adult dog is far more flexible than feeding a puppy. For an adult dog I think it's best to aim for around 30 - 50% of the diet being rmb, around 30 - 40% red meat, 10% organs, the rest being fish/veges/yoghurt etc. Come join us in Yellowgirl's raw feeding thread if you like!

Persephone is right - for a little puppy, please just use a flat collar. If you train him right from the start, you may never need to use a correction collar, since he won't have established any bad habits that you need to correct. I'd do some googling on "clicker training", it's a popular style of training which is very well suited to little puppies, and also agree with Aidan's recommendation to find a good puppy class.

A lot of people prefer 'human grade', but I'm just as happy with minced frames etc from Lenards. Puppies seem to be doing fine on it as the base of their 'mince mix'. (They get bones/frames from roos, fish and chickens 3 out of every 4 days and then the vege/mince mix on the other day.) If human grade means no bones, though, I don't think that's ideal unless you're planning on including lots of other RMB in the diet for calcium & phosphorous. I personally feed very little boneless chicken, since I feel that chicken meat has no benefit over red meat, and some drawbacks compared to red meats (e.g low in iron and zinc which raw diets often seem to be lacking in). I do feed chicken carcasses, whole or minced they're a great source of calcium, phosphorous, and protein (plus some vitamin D, if you get the back skin included). Just not chicken meat by itself.

I too dislike the offleash stays we have over here, too much potential for things to go wrong. I wish we could do them as an honour down, as in schutzhund (a dog is on a long down stay while the next team are doing their exercises). Would need another ring, and a steward dedicated to watching the current down team, but would take less time so perhaps it would even out. And scrap the sit and stand stays all together, unlike the down stay, I just see no practical use for them. Over here in NZ you can talk to your dog more in earlier classes, which is good. However we have a competition system (only the dog that actually wins the class gets a "leg" towards passing to the next level, instead of everyone who achieves a certain point score getting a leg), and you can't get any titles till you're competing at the second highest level of competition, which few people ever reach (it's hard to win that many classes!) So I'd change it so that you got a title for graduating at all five levels of obedience. Irrelevant to most of you guys, though.

BANNED!!!!! Just kiddin :p Oh no! ;) But then I can't post on dry food threads either cos I'm a wacky part-raw feeder. I'll be homeless!

Remember that (depending on where you train) many of the trainers may just be unqualified, unpaid volunteers, Tambaqui.

Nice name change, I like it! Does that mean I can come out of the closet as a semi-raw semi-commercial feeder? :p

Oooh a puppy! Good luck with her! Can't advise you on the roadkill since your parasite issues are different to ours but hopefully an Aussie can help. I'd probably have reservations feeding raw roadkill myself, since you don't know the animal was "acting" healthy before it got bowled, and have no idea what it had recently eaten (any poison in the area?), but perhaps I'm paranoid. But failing better suggestions, I guess I'd suggest to do a basic post mortem to make sure none of the organs look unusual (make sure you know what normal looks like), and then freeze for a week or two at a minimum, since most wild animals have at least some fleas/lice/worms that you really don't want your dog to get. Fish can be great IMO as a component of the diet, my dogs have never had problems with the bones, though as with all RMB you should supervise the first few times at least. Again hopefully an Aussie will chime in with any local fish diseases you should know about. You can also ease your way in with half commercial, half raw food, if you're not sure which way to go. Others will disagree (this is the "no more dry food" thread, after all), but that's what I do, and think it works well: a) I love the convenience of a part commercial diet b) I can't afford to feed all raw (I'm on a student budget, and have an objection to my dog's food bill being higher than my own!) c) I believe you get most of the benefit of a raw food diet from feeding only half the calories as raw, as long as the commercial you feed is good quality stuff. Others will disagree, but that's been my experience. Welcome to the thread!

I guess technically a "qualified dog trainer" is just someone with a qualification in dog training, from any organisation. I think the real issue is that a qualified trainer isn't always a competent trainer. In my experience, qualifications don't always seem to bear much relationship to competence. So for me, qualifications from a respectable organisation are nice, and I guess they're good in that they indicate that the trainer probably had some familiarity with the conventions of mainstream dog training instead of just making up their own strange system after reading one book. But results, testimonials, and the vibe I get when talking to the trainer and seeing them interact with my dog, that's what really counts to me in the end.

Grains and starchy vegetables aren't needed by dogs, but I don't think they're necessarily just "filler" either. Feed your dog too much porridge or too much potato and he'll get fat, so he must be absorbing a reasonable proportion of the nutrients in it! Of course, green veges and fruit have carbs in as well, and even some animal products (like liver) have a reasonable amount of carbohydrate in them. So it would be pretty hard to design a dog diet with no carbs in at all. To the OP, I see nothing wrong with including a little weetbix or porridge with your pup's meal, as long as the emphasis is on raw meaty bones and meat. Though as Nehkbet says, he's probably already getting plenty of cereal in his kibble.

I still wouldn't call it 'defiance' though, even if I did correct I believe it's an emotion that dogs do not posess. How can we say that 'my dog doesn't pull down the washing on Mondays to spite me' to then say 'when my dog disobeys a sit he is being defiant'. I believe that's why pet owners are so confused as to what/ why their dog is behaving as such in particular instances (why is my dog barking at the back door, digging holes etc) No, I think true defiance in a dog is very rare, and I certainly wouldn't call that example defiance. I'd more describe it as the dog pushing the boundaries of what he can away with - just checking to see if the rules are still in force! Quite reasonable of him to do so from time to time, and equally reasonable of me to calmly insist on being obeyed. ;)

Some people would say still under rewarded, I'm guessing. I personally think that in situations like that there's nothing wrong with putting your foot down and using compulsion to make it clear to the (unconfused, well paid) dog that obedience isn't optional. I'm happy to reward with food or toys constantly when my dog is learning new behaviours, and also happy to reward with food or toys constantly when my dog is doing something particularly tricky or precise (commands under high distraction or tracking, obedience etc), but refuse to give anything except praise and attention or life rewards for routine behaviours in low distraction environments. If the dog doesn't do well known behaviours in a low distraction environment, I'd correct - as mildly as necessary to get the point across. I'm mean.