RMB Bliss

Sundays at our house usually involve raw meaty bones. Ever since I hit the Deer Lottery over the winter, it's been mainly venison. Tonight, the pups got deer necks.

This is what they looked like before the dogs got a hold of them.



As you can see, they are quite large. We are having a violent thunderstorm here, so both dogs ate inside. Piper in the crate in the kitchen, and Blake in the x-pen in the family room.

Piper had no issues tackling her RMB.



Blake was equally as enthusiastic.




So, it turns out that after about 45 minutes, I realized that even though Blake has eaten many a deer neck (in their entirety), he was not making much progress with the bones in this particular neck. I didn't hear the crunching sounds that are the usual sound track to Sunday dinner. Instead, I heard his teeth scraping across the bones. So, I decided to trade him what was left of the neck. This is what I found. A rather cool neck/vertebrae that was mostly stripped of meat.



This serves as a reminder that even after 4 years of raw feeding, I must always supervise raw meals.

As for Piper, I have no idea what her's is going to look like when she is done. She is still upstairs gnawing away. Her puppy teeth and weaker puppy jaw muscles don't give her the same chance to get through the bone, so her experience is mainly consisting of a meat meal and a lot of hard work.

Piper Versus the Pig Foot

Piper experienced her first true Raw Meaty Bone today. It was a pig foot. She loved it. LOVED IT! I let her work on it for about an hour, and it was an hour of total bliss. She made hardly any progress with actually consuming the meal, so after an hour, I traded her the pig foot for a chicken wing, which she was able to actually eat. I will offer her the foot for the next several days for a great chew toy.

Piper meets the Piggie foot:



"Can I haz it, Mama?"



"I iz nommin' dis little piggie."

Raw for puppies

So, I've neglected my blog. Such a terrible, terrible thing to do. And so early in its development. I have no real good excuses, but the one excuse that I will offer is that we got a new puppy! Piper, a 12 week Golden Retriever, joined our family a couple weeks ago, and it is love. I'll go ahead and say that the whole family is rather smitten. Well, except for Blake. But, he's adjusting to sharing his throne.


Certainly you are not wondering what Piper is eating, because certainly you know that there is only one doggie diet in this house, and that's the raw diet. We picked Piper up on a Sunday afternoon, and she had her first raw meal that evening. Much to my surprise, she did not take to it immediately. The first thing I offered was several chicken gizzards. She simply did not know what to do with them. I suspect she had been eating a kibble mush of some sort, and she didn't know yet how to chew. So, I cut them up for her. No dice. She still didn't eat them. So, I offered some ground salmon and ground beef. Success!

For the first week, I kept her on a BARF-style pre-made, balanced raw diet as I offered her new, whole items one by one. My reason for this is because puppies have strict vitamin and mineral requirements for growth and development. I never worry about short term deficiencies in adult dogs who don't have a balanced diet during the switch, but this is not something I wanted to risk with my pup. So, I put her on an all life stages ground raw diet. I fed this for 2 meals per day, and for the third meal I fed whatever was on Blake's menu for the day. After her initial hesitation, she has eaten everything. So far, she has had:

chicken foot
chicken wing
chicken breast (bone in)
chicken gizzards and hearts
ground beef
boneless beef (not ground)
ground whole salmon (with bone)

Since this is my first puppy, it's somewhat of an experiment for me, as well. I have been feeding amounts based on her projected adult weight, so she and Blake have been eating about the same amount of food, only hers is split between 3 daily meals versus his one.

Some benefits I have noticed already:

1. Long mealtimes. Anyone else not know how to keep your puppy *constructively* occupied? Give her a chicken wing and let her go to town for half an hour!

2. Mental workouts. This girl has to think and consider and reposition herself time and time again as she chows down on a meal. She gets a mental workout trying to figure out how to attack each meal. There's simply no substitution for that.

3. Productive chewing. Why not give a puppy something they're allowed to chew and they want to chew 3x/day?!

Sadly, I do not just yet have any Piper raw feeding pictures (shame, shame, I know). But, I will make sure to snap some this weekend, and upload asap! After all, a picture is worth a thousand RMBs.

A week of food in photos

Once you understand the concept of feeding a raw diet, I know it's hard sometimes to actually visualize doing it. You may be wondering, "What does mealtime actually look like?" Well, here you go: here is a week of food in photos. This is a typical week of food for a pretty active, 6 year old, 70 lb Lab. Happy eating!

Monday: beef heart



Tuesday: chicken quarter, liver



Wednesday: boneless venison



Thursday: chicken quarter, liver



Friday: boneless beef



Saturday: boneless beef, ground salmon (bone in)



Sunday: deer neck

Venny ribs: round 2

Another Sunday, another rack of venison ribs. This meal was bigger than last week's- probably around 3 lbs, which is a good portion of Blake's weekly intake (11 lbs, give or take). There were no issues (ahem- digestive problems, if you know what I mean) from last week's meal, so I decided to go ahead and offer the entire half rack at once.

Here's the meal:



The reason I love, LOVE this meal so much is because it is a true RMB: bone(s) slathered with luscious, thick, glorious meat. Many people focus so much on the bone and not enough on the meat. Meat rules the diet and is the key to making bone safely edible.

And, here's a shot from the other side. There is a pretty big layer of fat here, but fat is important in every dog's diet, too. Some dogs cannot handle a fatty meal like this, but Blake has never had issues from that, so I decided to feed it as-is.



Blake has really learned how to manipulate a meal for the best nom-ing angle.



See how Blake uses his strong jaw muscles and his back teeth- not the front ones- for chomping and crushing the bone?



Once again, I overestimated the challenge level that a meal of venison ribs would provide. Blake had finished eating AND powerwashing the table cloth in under 20 lbs. Geez, this dog is an efficient eater! :)

I took a quick video. Notice the crunching sounds. I think they are so cool. My little carnivore handled the ribs easily, and the surrounding meat allow them to travel safely through his system.

A rack of venison ribs

This afternoon was Blake's first go at venny ribs. A couple weeks ago, I was able to score a huge load of venison (blog entry detailing this score forthcoming). So that weekend, I fed 2 consecutive meals of venison- a miscellaneous leg bone while I was cutting/bagging/dividing the venison, and a neck the next day. He didn't take to it right away; surprisingly he required a bit of cajoling to eat it. (And, this is a dog who eats anything not red hot or tied down!) But, once he got over the gaminess and figured out that it was, in fact food, he did pretty well. However, the venison gave him some loose stool. Not surprising, since he ate little of the bone either day AND it was a new protein for him. So, I took a break from the venny for a while and fed stuff that he is accustomed to.

So, this weekend was our second go at it. It's rainy and cool here today, so I had to feed him inside in his xpen on an outdoor table cloth. 99% of the time he eats outside, and I've been known to feed him in the rain, but I wanted to keep a close eye on him this afternoon, so inside it was!

Blake gets his first taste of venison ribs.



To my surprise, he dug right in!



To give you an idea, the meal was made up of about 4 ribs with all the meat attached. It was somewhere around 2-3 lbs total, and probably 6 inches long.



He had this finished in about 20 minutes- much, much less time that I expected.

And, after the ribs, all he wanted to do was sleep. Zzzzzzzz.

Let's talk poop

If you've talked about raw feeding in any great detail, the topic of poop has probably come up, and as unpleasant as that may be to you, it is not without good reason. Many raw feeders will say that small, infrequent poops are a benefit of feeding this way, and I agree. Most kibbles are chock full of carbohydrates and vegetables, which are not the easiest food items for a carnivore to digest. For this reason, kibble fed dogs often have large, frequent bowel movements. And by frequent, I mean 2-3 per day. Or more. (I won't go into what I mean by large!) If you really think about this logically, it should give you an indication of how inefficiently the body is using the food it is being offered.

On the other hand, raw fed dogs often only have a bowel movement once a day or less, and it is usually substantially smaller. That's because they are being offered species appropriate food in a bio-available form. The body can use it immediately without the pre-processing that is required of a kibble meal.

One thing to keep in mind with poop is that whatever comes out of the body should reflect what went into the body. So, if you are feeding kibble, your dog's stool should be very predictable. If the same thing goes in every single day, the same thing should come out every single day. And, with a kibble fed dog, a loose stool or diarrhea should not go without notice. I'm not saying that every loose stool deserves a trip to the vet, but it's certainly something to keep an eye on.

However, this is just not so with raw. Every meal is different- or can be different- and so every poop can be, too. The important question is: can the poop be explained? As I have mentioned before, the fiber and calcium in bone firms poops. On the other hand, organ meats, eggs and fat tend to loosen stool. So, if your dog produces a loose stool don't immediately freak out. Instead, ask yourself, "Have I fed something that can explain this poop?"

Other things that can cause lose stools:

rich organ meat, eggs and fat
a new protein
skin
not enough bone
chemicals or "salt solutions" that are added to some meats
too much food
stress
exercise
bully sticks/rawhides

So, if you are feeding a varied raw diet, you may have different poop every single day! A firm poop after a bone-heavy day, a soft poop after a boneless meal, a loose poop after a helping of organs. Which brings me to possibly the most important part of this entry. The definition of some very important terms.

Constipation: this is when the dog strains and strains to go poop and has a hard time producing. He may pace around the yard and try to go multiple times. Owner error: fed too much bone.

Chalky crumbly poop: common after a couple bone-in meals. Will probably turn white and crumble up and blow away within a couple days.

Formed poop: this is what I, personally, usually see from Blake. It's easy to pass, small and semi-firm.

Soft poop: still holds it's shape, but it's a bit softer than a formed poop. Also, very common- maybe after a boneless day.

Loose poop: also referred to as pudding poop, this has the consistency of pudding. It comes out easily and forms a puddle. This is not, however, very easy to remove from your neighbors' yards. This could be a result of a little too much organ meat or a new protein. Blake had pudding poop a couple weekends ago after his first go at venison. 2 days of venny meant a day or two of loose stool. I gave his system a rest (fed chicken), and he was good as new the next day.

Diarrhea: also known as OMG, GET ME TO THE BACK YARD AS SOON AS POSSIBLE OR I WILL BE DECORATING THE WALLS. Seriously, folks, diarrhea is not pretty. The dog has no control over where or when this comes out. He will soil the house, the crate, and anywhere else when this hits. This is not a normal symptom of feeding raw. Owner error can cause diarrhea as can illness, but a healthy dog on a proper raw diet does not suffer from diarrhea on a regular basis. Sometimes I think that there is a misconception that our dogs go around having diarrhea all the time.

Okay, so I hope that all this talk about poop has cleared some things up for some folks.

After my last entry, I told myself that I would not be making any new entries without relevant pictures. However, given the topic of this particular blog, I think I will hold off on the pictures until next time. :)