Postings by Maxwell's Family

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Maxwell I'm triple- superior MAD- now!     Barked: Tue May 21, '13 6:15pm PST  Currently Max has a bag of Real Meat jerky treats. Any empty boxes get cleaned of plastic and pieces of paper wrapped around a small piece of the jerky get stuffed in the box and delivered to him. I can break them up and put into treat balls too. If you want to use plain treats then lamb/beef lung fillets work or make your own dried meat or liver. Just keep the treat a dry one so the paper isn't so smelly it gets eaten. I wouldn't trust this to work with something like the Manners Minder but most treat balls should handle this stuff. If meals have been especially boring lately I might stuff a kong with raw hamburger and possibly top with a chicken foot and freeze it. A natural food puzzle would be something enormous and hard to eat. Pork foot, pork/beef/lamb neck - something jointed with lots of nooks and crannies. For outside a head is great if hard to watch get eaten. my posts | my page | msg me | my family's posts | gift me | become pals [notify]

Maxwell I'm triple- superior MAD- now!     Barked: Tue May 21, '13 2:59pm PST  I feed prey model style raw. ~80% meat on 10% bone with 10% organ, half is liver and the other half other organ. Max only eats chicken bone, that is fine. He gets to chew and pull the soft stuff off lamb, pork, beef, llama bones at least once a week though. Usually he gets enough bone off to firm up the stool but I throw away a lot of that bone so this is a more expensive type of meal. Chicken isn't okay as the main part of the diet as the fatty acid balance is off and it is low in a number of vitamins and mineral compared to red meats. Try feeding chicken feet as a smaller bony bit or feed bone like that drumstick every other day and offer red meat like beef, lamb, pork for at least half the weight of the entire diet. If she is fine on all that liver then she probably would be fine eating less bone and more meat now anyway. You are feeding a lot of liver. Only half of 10% needs to be liver. The other half needs to be some other organ like kidney, spleen, sweetbread, brain, eye. If you cannot find it then feed boneless meat to fill in, not more liver. If you have boneless meat on hand try offering her about 1/2 ounce of liver plus boneless meat for the morning meal and the drumstick at night until you can find smaller bits of chicken for her so she doesn't eat quite so much chicken. I wipe the floor down with a vinegar and water soaked rag after Max eats inside. Cuts any fatty smears and I like the smell. Price isn't bad either! Good luck getting the weight off. Max came to raw really fat. Table top back and his skin felt like he was a stuffed sausage! I got half the weight off by restricting the diet and thought I got the other half off as the bony bits were finally easily felt but it turned out he had gained muscle rather than losing the rest of the weight. Since that happened I strongly urge you to put your hands on the dog rather than go by the scale! my posts | my page | msg me | my family's posts | gift me | become pals [notify]

Raw Food Diet > A crazy theory?...

Maxwell I'm triple- superior MAD- now!     Barked: Tue May 21, '13 11:17am PST  Max eats less in that he isn't as interested in gnawing on beef ribs, otherwise he polishes off his dish just fine. Unless your dogs get skinny they are fine eating less. I have done things like offer new proteins that are really bony like rabbit and llama head as meals on their own and Max has been fine with it. I suspect after the dog's gut is fine on chicken, turkey, pork and beef it gets used to new proteins very quickly. At this point I would be fine offering Max something new as half a meal but being sure there is also bone and not a lot of fat in the meal. my posts | my page | msg me | my family's posts | gift me | become pals [notify]

Raw Food Diet > Starting in the Raw

Maxwell I'm triple- superior MAD- now!     Barked: Tue May 21, '13 11:10am PST  Bone is bone, doesn't matter if it is ground or beef or chicken or goose. It is better if not ground for teeth cleaning and the only way you can adjust the diet is to feed more or less which may or may not help. Loose stool is caused by too much fat, not enough bone or too much organ and if you feed grinds you cannot compensate by pulling off skin, trimming fat, using a bonier bit and such. Contact the supplier to find out how much of what is in the grinds. I like those prices too and would want to use the company's products. I would not buy the lamb with bone chunks. Ground is safe and big is safe but chunks are not safe! my posts | my page | msg me | my family's posts | gift me | become pals [notify]

Food & Nutrition > What do you think about Non-fat yogurt mixed with dry food instead of wet food?

Maxwell I'm triple- superior MAD- now!     Barked: Sun May 19, '13 5:33pm PST  Try a tiny bit mixed with water and see if it agrees with your dog. Many dogs lose the ability to manufacture the enzyme needed to digest dairy and it disagrees with them. Around here yogurt is as expensive as canned dog food though. Guess you would use less of it? This site has a lot of other ideas for fresh food mix ins. http://www.dogaware.com/diet/freshfoods.html my posts | my page | msg me | my family's posts | gift me | become pals [notify]

Maxwell I'm triple- superior MAD- now!     Barked: Sun May 19, '13 5:28pm PST  Try for more boneless meats although heart counts as one. The goal is 10% bone and a chicken is 30% over all and a turkey is about the same so the maximum chicken and turkey should be is half the diet. Definitely enough to start with as we try to start with bony chicken. You don't have a set time for feeding that, feed until the poop becomes regular and firm then start on the next protein, guessing that would be turkey for you. A particular meat might take a few days to weeks to get used to. Don't get all excited by the poop after the first raw meal, that is still kibble poop. It might take a couple days to see if raw is going to be a simple or a complicated transition. Sure hope this diet helps. It helped Max and I thought he was fine and dandy on kibble! A lot of dogs do just fine on bony chicken, beef heart and a couple different livers and kidneys. You have turkey as well, I am sure it will be fine. my posts | my page | msg me | my family's posts | gift me | become pals [notify]

Raw Food Diet > What Parts Of A Rabbit Can She Have?

Maxwell I'm triple- superior MAD- now!     Barked: Sun May 19, '13 5:20pm PST  They can eat any part you offer up. I probably wouldn't offer the skin as that is a lot of fur, perhaps strips with a lot of other stuff? You probably don't want the stomach and intestines but the rest is good stuff if they will eat it. Max was a bit iffy on rabbit heads and I had to play with it for a bit before he grabbed it and started chomping. Just add more meat if it is a really bony part like the head or back and it is all good stuff! Of course be sure it is a safe size for your dog and cat. my posts | my page | msg me | my family's posts | gift me | become pals [notify]

Raw Food Diet > One myth and one question

Maxwell I'm triple- superior MAD- now!     Barked: Sat May 18, '13 5:11pm PST  My *opinion* on this is a healthy dog is less attractive to pests. Dogs, like most mammals secrete protective oils to limit water loss. Too much harsh shampoo can remove too much oil but it should be easily replaced. Usually not rinsing enough will damage the skin more than removing that oil. Sassy had flea allergy and was the one that collected ticks as well. Her skin was a bit dry and on kibble it stunk. The usual doggy smell it was. That went away on home cooked food and apparently that stink was mostly caused by anal sac secretions that stopped being a bother on fresh food. Max is not attractive to fleas or ticks. Two exceptions. Two summers ago he was having serious ear goo and he did have several fleas killed during a bath so he got flea drops. It turned out sardines were a problem and off sardines no fleas and no ear goo - no more flea drops either. We did have a huge tick issue last summer, had to be 500 adult ticks after a hike. None attached but they sure itched and even after removing most of them we still had to get up in the middle of the night to find more. I don't think dog skin oil is stinky as Max doesn't and never did stink. His fur seems to have plenty of oil in it as it now takes a bit of work to get it wet during baths. Sassy's coat always was far more water repellent, stayed so on home cooked food and still smelled less. No opinion on kibble plus raw other than watch your dogs. If they are handling it then it is fine. my posts | my page | msg me | my family's posts | gift me | become pals [notify]

Home Prepared Food & Recipes > Grain free recipies?

Maxwell I'm triple- superior MAD- now!     Barked: Sat May 18, '13 7:23am PST  Hope the raw diet goes better this time. Lots of Dal owners feed raw, not sure what changes they make other than mostly feeding chicken, eggs and pulverized veggies though. It sure would be nice if you had a number to shoot for rather than "purines are bad and liver is high in purines". Phosphorus was bad for Sassy but I had a number and could work a small amount of liver into the amount of phosphorus she was allowed. my posts | my page | msg me | my family's posts | gift me | become pals [notify]

Maxwell I'm triple- superior MAD- now!     Barked: Fri May 17, '13 6:47pm PST  Max doesn't get ticks and fleas as a rule so I would choose a collar I could remove rather than using a spot on. Since they are really powerful I don't know if they would work for him. As a young dog he had a few seizures triggered by stress and not very dangerous chemicals but I would still try it as he is okay with spot on flea drops. Here is Gil's page on tick disease. https://sites.google.com/site/tickbornediseaseindogs/ my posts | my page | msg me | my family's posts | gift me | become pals [notify]

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