Smooth Collies, Border Collies, Danish-Swedish Farmdog

July 2006Monthly Archives

Raw Dog Update

Well, I guess I’m writing more about the dogs’ food than my own. Let’s see if today maybe I can do some of both. :)

I bought some rabbit from a local raiser last weekend, and tried feeding. Well, 3 of the 4 dogs think it’s icky. Levi thought it was grand, and promptly got sick afterwards. :) He didn’t eat for a day and a half, and had runny poops. But he’s back on track now so I’m not worried.

Of the other 3, Angel thought the ground was so-so and ate a little bit. Chase would roll it around in his mouth then spit it out. And Lucy wouldn’t even touch it. Lucy… who is my dog that will eat anything! Interesting stuff.

I’m off to a seminar this coming weekend so after I get back we’ll attempt some more rabbit. My freezer is just too full at the moment. :) I think I went a little buying happy.

The girls and boys will eat mostly ground this weekend while I’m gone. Aaron is not too keen yet about feeding raw. It is a bit gross, but it just has got to be better than extruded heated processed junk they have been getting. Even the high quality stuff is still processed. I don’t eat processed foods (much) why would I feed it to my dogs? Just dunno. So I don’t anymore.

They are back to eating chicken backs and some ground turkey. I think I maybe feeding them too much bone, but as long as they don’t get constipated I think they are okay. I’ll be looking for other sources of cheap meat. Chicken is easy to get and cheap. But they need more variety. I was hoping the rabbit would help but maybe not. :)

It’s amazing how many different types of ‘raw’ diets you can feed. There’s a ton of information, much of it different in view. But I think I’m finding out what works best for my family. I really hope this helps Chase’s allergies, and Lucy’s scratchy back, and Angel’s throwing up. Levi, he’s just fine. :)

Feeding Raw

I have decided to start feeding the four dogs a raw food diet.

This is digusting. :) Having been vegetarian for 15 years, I have not purchased meat directly for a long time. But I do know that I have been buying meat in the dog-food form for all those years. So what is the difference? It’s just being one more step away from the death process.

I completely dislike buying dead animal carcasses. One reason I didn’t like having a snake as a ‘pet’ was because of feeding them live food. So now I’m back there. But like I said, I was always feeding them meat, I just didn’t see it directly. Now I do.

But I’ve been eating so healthy myself, it doesn’t seem logical anymore to continue to feed my dogs preprocessed kibble. It’s heated to horribly high temperatures, and then extruded through high pressure machinery, and that has got to ruin all of the good things that were in it before.

I follow the Eat to Live plan. And I don’t eat processed foods anymore. So why would I feed it to my dogs? I don’t know. I couldn’t deny it any longer.

And so this is a new place for me. A new shift. We’ll see how it goes…