Merry Christmas!

Raw Meaty Bones = Dog Heaven

I was raised with a heightened awareness of nutrition and my entire family is dedicated to eating high-quality, organic, whole foods. I remember complaining in elementary school to my mom that I wanted white bread like the other kids, and that I didn't want to eat any more "toe-food" (tofu). Matt's been a wandering vegan for several years now and has given a lot of thought to his food choices. The consequences of a well-balanced and thoughtful diet have remained an important topic in our lives. Not surprisingly, we couldn't help but get into detailed discussions about what we were going to feed our first puppy.

We initially fed Okra the Kirkland brand kibble he was being fed when we got him as a puppy.  We changed to a higher quality kibble within a few weeks, but he didn't do very well on it an we reverted back to the Kirkland.  Okra wasn't really interested in eating his kibble from the onset.  As I started looking into raw food as an option for Okra I found that there are several schools of thought on the raw food diet. Some people think you should not feed dogs vegetables, ever; others think it is imperative to do so. Some folk think that if you go raw, you should never combine raw meat meals with kibble, even in separate meals, or on separate days. I even heard of one family who fed their dog an exclusive diet of Chinese food leftovers! Regardless of the dogma, I felt like it was important to provide a variety of foods to my dog to ensure he had an array of vitamins and minerals and amino acids and all that stuff.

The one thing that was consistent throughout all the literature and websites I read was to NEVER feed your dog cooked bones! I think a lot of people are turned off from the raw-meaty-bones diet because they're terrified of giving bones to their dogs.  There are plenty of horror stories out there about expensive surgeries needed to remove splintered bones from a dogs' throat, or even dogs dying after splintered bones pierced their intestines. These fears were evident when I attempted to purchase chicken backs at a local store, and the butcher steered me towards the beef marrow bones, explaining that it was very dangerous to feed my dog chicken bones and asking if I had ever had a dog before!

After deciding that it was important to us to pursue a raw diet for Okra, we needed a plan that was cheap, nutritious, and practical. The pre-packaged frozen meals are great, but at $5/pound it is cost-prohibitive. I read somewhere that if you can keep your dog's meat to less than $1/pound it's actually cheaper to feed raw than to feed your dog top-of-the-line kibble! I had heard that he should be eating a lot of bone, and that chicken wings are a great way to start your dog off on the raw food diet. Since whole chickens are 3x less expensive than purchasing wings-only, I've settled into a groove of just picking up some chickens for Okra when I head to the grocery store.  This way it's not even difficult to keep our freezer stocked with meals for the pup.

At this point, Okra’s eating 70% chicken carcasses (breasts removed), 10% raw egg and/or pork ribs, 20% miscellaneous cooked vegetables and raw organ meat (chicken organs ,pumpkin, yams, parsley, spinach, or other green veggies tossed in a food processor. Sometimes I add cottage cheese or yogurt). I’ve found that the chicken and raw eggs are convenient, and try to make an organ meal whenever I get a chance, but I probably don’t do it as much as I should. When we travel, or run out of food for him, we feed him high-quality kibble, and he likes that too.


The best parts? Okra doesn't stink anymore! His breath smells like it did when he was a tiny puppy and his gas and stool no longer smell. His stool is small and firm, and he no longer has to strain to go. His system appears to be functioning like it is supposed to, very well!  AND he loves loves loves food! All of it. I think the variety keeps things interesting for him. It’s also fun to watch him take a new cut of meat and figure out how to eat it. It takes time to eat, sometimes up to ten minutes for a particularly puzzling or bony meat. You can see his little brain working on it.