What are you feeding now, and how do you like it?

Boo is eating Avoderm - she was eating that at the shelter, and since she was doing fine on it, we haven't switched.

She looks good to me! We haven't tried any other foods yet to compare it to, but her coat is shiny and usually pretty odor free (until she goes and rolls in something!). She has energy (I say as my dog is sleeping next to the chair... hmmm) and she likes it. Until I can find a really good food that wont break the bank, I think we'll stick with Avoderm. It's a decent food and Boo does well on it. As they say, dont fix what's not broken.

Well what my dogs get now has changed since I first started coming here to chaz. They get half raw and half kibble. First had some problems but they are working out now.

I feed my dog the usual dog food,with a mixture of meat saw dust.It seems he like it.Unlike before which is plain dog food.

He knows what the good stuff is!

I'm going to start using Pinnacle soon, I'll let you know how it goes.

Buster's been on 100% raw for the last few weeks, since i cut out the last of his raw (was only getting a small amount every few days) and started taking more notice of what else I'm putting in his bowl he has started LOVING food, I used to just feed whatever meat mum picked up on the way home, but I have a bit more money I can throw around atm so I've been able to find and buy more things he's interested in.

Athena -- NV Raw (warmed), a little Rice cooked (She just love rice), Plain Non-Fat yogurt.

Sal -- NV Raw (warmed), Green Beans (No Salt add french cut), Non-Fat yogurt, and a little Candiae until it is gone.


Both are doing really well. Athena's appetite is much better since I switched her to raw and overall health seems great (Coat, Stools etc...)

Nat Recipe Venison and somethin. Canned and dry.

Everyone loves it and everyone's looking pretty good.

SAW DUST?!

I think he means the stuff left over when you use a meat saw...its not dust but I bet it is very tasty to a dog. It would be a mixture of bone and flesh.

Millie and Lucy are two very different types of dog, but seem to have simliar results compared to eachother no matter which brand. My dogs primarily eat EVO, but sometimes the feed store is cleared out of their EVO stock (like today), so I get Taste of the Wild at those times. They basically are rotated between EVO and ToTW, with the occasional RMBs and marrow bones, as well as raw eggs with their kibble a couple times a week.
They do fabulously on both foods. Bright clear eyes, beautiful coats (I notice that expecially with Millie), great energy levels, everything.

Bailey gets Orijen for puppies dry and Wellness for Puppies and Eagle Pack Holistic wet varieties. I often mix cut up Natural Balance rolls in with his kibble to stuff his Kongs for his time in the crate. I like the foods, and he seems to be doing pretty well on them.

My cats are also on Orijen dry and Wellness and Eagle Pack Holistic wet (grain free, no fish varieties) and have been for a long time. They're doing really well, too.

Just be careful with raw chicken and eggs!

Have you tried feeding your dogs some of the more natural foods? They also have similar benefits to raw diets, but without running the risk of salmonella and E. coli.

Thanks Shadow945. I never heard of raw until I came to this site. I was very skeptical but thought theres a lot of hype here and these people know dogs and it proves to be o.k. for them so maybe I will give it a try. First week and two days I was doing it all wrong with only organ meat and my dogs were getting sick.

The people here helped point me to the right direction. So since I have been doing what they suggested with chicken and hen and sometimes ground beef. My dogs are getting sick once a week with throwing up and sometimes diarrhea. No other symptoms and the sickness is not consistent and it started when I started the raw. I have never had problems with dogs in the past like this before.

My puppy is not growing and the dogs nails are not growing and I am giving them the bones as suggested. I made another thread today in the health section and I am seriously thinking about going back to kibble. I am sure a pet owner can see my frustration with this whole thing and would feel the same way in my shoes. Its been a month and a week and they should not be having problems with it any more.

That's why I haven't chosen the "raw" route. My dog seems to do well on his kibble food. Although he did have a severe diarrhea problem about 6 months ago, and the vet said to feed him boiled chicken. I think that actually may have made his problem worse. I've tried all sorts of kibble foods with my dog and there are a few that he does really well on, with Taste of the Wild being what he's currently on.

the only risk of salmonella or e.coli would be to the humans if there were unsafe meat handling practices. Kibble is certainly not free from salmonella/e.coli ~but again, the risk would be humans contracting it, not the dogs.
dogs digestive systems are not the same as humans, they are carnivores, designed to eat raw meat and bones.

I've tried SOOO many kibbles I can barely count them now... my dog would spill his guts on most of them, the other was fine except you can tell by her coat it wasn't for her. There were 2 or 3 the first one was ok with. I switched both dogs to raw a few months ago, the first month of raw was rough... but I expected that. With any natural process there are bacteria that the dog needs in his stomache to breakdown the raw meat correctly, and you have to wait for that to develop... kinda like cycling a fish tank... Since switching him I can't tell you the INCREDIBLE change in BOTH of them. And i'm not the only one who notices... everywhere I go, people ask me if I got a new(referring to Bailey) and they gush over Keeda's soft and shiney coat. My dogs will NEVER go back to kibble. As for the bacteria... there is a reason you freeze the meat for at least 24 hours prior to feeding it! The bacteria that lives on room temperature meat dies if the temp exceeds 180F that's why they tell you to cook it to that temp or if the temp goes below 31F. Humans also have the weakest digestive systems... most of the things we can't handle... any other animal can.

Is the way I keep the meat maybe causing a problem? I have a bag of chicken or whatever and its frozen rock solid. I put it in the sink over night to thaw it. When I wake up half of it is still frozen and the other half is still well chilled. I feed them out of the new package and put the rest in the refrigerator to be kept until eventually it is all eaten up and gone. Depending on the quantity it could be one day to five days of being kept in the refrigerator. Is this o.k. for storage?

yeah, I wouldn't let it sit that long. When I buy new meats, I put what I feed in a day in those gallon baggies and freeze those. this way, all I have to do is pull out one bag a day. I'm not sure how other people handle the way they freeze things.... but that works for me!

Dogs can eat some pretty gross stuff and not get sick....thawing something for a few days in the fridge isn't going to make it go 'off' in terms of dog food.
I wouldn't purposely let something rot to feed to the dogs, but standards I would have for human food aren't necessarily the same for the dogs food. I have been known to spoil my dogs with a cut of meat that I forgot about in the fridge and would have otherwise thrown out. Its pretty much the only time my dogs have ever had sirloin when their silly mama forgot it was in the fridge and it ended up behind the milk bags for a few days past the due date.