One of the things that seems to put people off switching to a home made diet of raw meaty bones is that it is more complicated to have to decide what to feed your dog when you do this rather than read the instructions on a packet and pour into a bowl.
In some ways it is, you have to plan where to get the food (butcher, supermarket, local hunter etc) and what to get. But this soon becomes second nature, and fits into your shopping plans for your own food, as does making sure that your dog gets variety in it’s diet over time and the right amounts of offal, fish etc. In fact before you know it you’re at the local farmer’s market and saying, “Ooooo, look Poppy, pig’s feet, I wonder what you’ll make of these”.
I do spend a few minutes each week chopping up chicken, rabbits and the like into suitable portions for Ted so that I can freeze them. If I had a bigger dog I wouldn’t even have to do this, a rabbit would already be the right size! And we travel about quite a lot so I do have to spend a few minutes thinking about what I need to throw into the freezer box I keep in the back of my car rather than just picking up a bag of kibble.
But to be honest the extra time is minimal once you have been feeding raw meaty bones for a few weeks. And I liken it to feeding myself, it takes me longer to cook something than it would to pour boiling water into a Pot Noodle but it is far more satisfying both nutritionally and emotionally to be in control of your family’s food.
Yesterday I changed my mind about all of this, totally and utterly. It is, in my humble opinion, much much easier to feed a diet of raw meaty bones. I’ve been following Mollie Morrissette’s blog “Poisoned Pets” and watching the Diamond Pet Food recalls story unfold. In fact it’s still unfolding it seems but here is an update from Mollie http://poisonedpets.com/2012/05/05/your-complete-guide-to-the-diamond-pet-food-recalls/.
Reading it not only made me sad for those impacted but it also made my head hurt thinking about how you keep your family (in which I include your pets) safe from this sort of thing if you feed commercial pet food. Most of the pet food companies seem to have a multitude of brands, just as Diamond Pet Foods do, so it’s not always straight forward to work out what is being made, by whom, and where.
I then tried to understand some of the standards regarding not only what is allowed to go into pet food but also how that is monitored (as it’s all very well all these companies have internal quality assurance programmes but I’m not a fan of relying on self certification). My head hurt some more so being selfish as it doesn’t impact me, and there being excellent sites like Mollies that can be turned to if it does impact you, I gave up. If you feed a commerical food I really would recommend taking a look at Mollie’s site.
I can honestly say that if I had to feed a commercial food I wouldn’t know where to even start to select one given the dubious ingredients in many and the problems with recalls due to contamination etc. I am thankful every single day (especially when I can hear Ted chomping away on his raw meaty bones) that I found this way of feeding him and to me it is really no trouble at all.
I’ve grown my dog from this:
To this:
on a diet of raw meaty bones and I intend to continue keeping him healthy this way.
tinkerwolf 
had a nice complement from a friend yesterday about Jack. “Boy his teeth are clean”. yes they are, extremely clean for a 5 year old dog. That, plus the Diamond recalls…I am once again SOOOOO glad I got of the commercial food “train”.
And teeth cleaned naturally means so nasty anesthetic so Jack’s pearly whites can be cleaned by the vet, yay!
I have a few up my sleeve already but I would love it if you would write me a guest blog post at some point Matthew as I think Jack’s diet change is an inspiring raw story 🙂
OMG! I can totally relate!
The lady at the farmers market is hip to me now – before I got an odd look when I told her I was a vegan but my cats loved her lamb!
I get the hearts, the livers, and all that good awful offal. I did draw the line at tongues though, only because I could not handle the idea of slicing it up. Eeek!
I also go to the local bison ranch (yes! it’s true! real buffalo!) and load up on everything. The cats are INSANE for ground buffalo.
Trouble is, getting all the offal – in the US, the slaughter houses divert it all the oddball offal that Americans won’t eat to the animal protein rendering industry (GROSS!).
People are amazed that I would feed “perfectly good” prime cuts to my cats. They don’t understand — my cats are my babies! If I had children (human, that is), I would no more feed them junk food than I would feed my fur babies crap cat food.
Keep up the good work! And I absolutely LOVE your dog! It is the cutest lil tiny ting!
Once you get comfortable with this way of feeding the idea of throwing your pet a pigs foot or a rabbit leg seems totally normal, which it is of course, well natural anyway. Ted pretty much loves all the various meats that I give him but he salivates when the offal comes out.
I made pate yesterday (from chicken livers at £1.10 a tub … bargain!) and I practically had a kitchen helper just in case I dropped something. I pretty much cook all our meals from scratch so it makes sense to feed furry family members the same way and because we eat meat I can sometimes feed him for free (chicken breast on the bone becomes chicken curry for us and a meal for Ted 🙂
Our butcher has got over his initial shock and now asks if I want any bits of chicken carcass … so more “free” meals.
And thank you for your kind words about Ted, I LOVE him too, he is literally the best thing ever 🙂
In the US getting chicken carcasses and rabbit bits and bobs from butchers is next to impossible (unless you happen to live in a town with a local butcher, but those are practically non-existent in the US today). Best bet for small town folk like me, is the farmers market. But if I was rich, I could have all that good stuff shipped frozen from the East coast or the Midwest. But as it is, I must rely on local distribution channels. The shipping on dehydrated raw foods is affordable though. What country are you in?
I’m in the UK where there are still butchers around (although the supermarkets are slowing killing them off 😦 ). We have a farmers market too which we use. If I had freezer space and a larger dog I know of various hunters I could call on a get a good supply of rabbits which is an excellent meat to feed and could easily comprise a large part of the diet. But I know raw feeders in the US say that rabbit is just too expensive, crazy really when you think of all the wild rabbits out there that need their numbers controlling! So you can make it affordable over here, you just need to be a little creative 🙂