New to Raw for my dogs

[Gentle Giant]

Just so you know, not all dogs can tolerate raw food. I am friends with a naturopathic vet who supports both raw and fresh dog food and the bottom line is, the reasons why one dog can't tolerate raw food is not always understood. With that said, you should never combine raw dog food with cooked food unless your dog has a concrete stomach. From what I've read in this thread, that's exactly what you've been doing and it does not surprise me that he continues to have diarrhea. You might want to bite the bullet and change him over cold turkey to raw food using RABBIT and just whole rabbit (nothing else/Carnivora makes whole rabbit patties). Try him on this for at least 2 to 3 weeks and see how things unfold. Rabbit is expensive and is just a temporary food that you can use to get over the initial hump of raw food conversion. It is the ideal food for canines and has consistently solved many problems for exasperated owners.

[MerlinsHope]

Just so you know, not all dogs can tolerate raw food.

Actually what you're saying is exceedingly rare. The dogs who cannot tolerate raw are simply dogs who's stomachs have stopped producing the appropriate enzymes to digest raw meat. I sure agree with you about switching cold turkey. Despite what people think, there is no "detox", there is only wellness. there is no reason to wean your dog onto a raw diet. It's not at all the same like switching kibbles.

The work around for this is to feed the dog at DIFFERENT times outside of what the dog has become conditioned to. If a newbie attempts to feed raw to a dog who's traditionally used to be fed each day around the same time, the stomach becomes loaded to kibble enzymes, anticipating a load of kibble .....

In changing the feeding times, the stomach will be less primed with unwanted enzymes and have an easier time producing new enzymes needed to digest raw food. This is often why people who switch over experience dogs vomiting or having gross bouts of diarreaha.

Also, it appears that this person is feeding a commercially prepared raw "nugget'. so.. the food could be off, contain unwanted additives ( they usually do) and to all the people who said not to combine raw with other foods.. THANK YOU!

Kibble especially, is coated with rendered fats to enhance the taste. These fats are sprayed onto the kibble during production and are rather volatile.
When kibble comes into contact with any moisture, be it raw meat, blood or water, the fat almost immediately starts to grow bacteria, so please never mix the two, ( not to mention you're trying to get your dog to digest foods that are digestible in 4 hours and 8 hours) the two just don't mix.

Best of luck
MM

[cassiek]

Raw is the only type of diet I have found that I can successfully feed to three dogs of different ages (ranging from 2 to 9), health issues, weights, breeds etc. largely in part I think because you can tailor the diet to each individual dog's needs (i.e. I have a dog with serious food allergies so I use all novel protein sources in his diet).

I had the best of luck switching my dogs cold turkey. No kibble, no cooked food, just straight switched to raw. I had some runny stools at 1st, but was able to adjust the diet accordingly to get perfect stools. Something else I found that helped was introducing new proteins very, very gradually. Being new I was excited and eager to try everything at once... bad idea! Much better to gradually introduce the dogs system to one protein at a time.

The beauty of raw is that it allows you great flexibility. It may take some time to figure out what works best for your dog, but I guarantee it will be worth it in the end! My one gal does awesome on chicken backs/necks, quarters, livers/hearts etc. straight out of the grocery store/butcher/farmer etc. whereas my other two do much better with the patties. It takes some time, but well worth it in the end!