A long overdue update.

It's been quite a while since I've posted! I have a terrible memory, so I have idea on timing, but some time after my last post, I decided to stop the raw diet and go back to kibble. We were dealing with vomiting 2-3 times per week. I tried my best and never could figure out why. Sometimes she'd produce only bile, which I attributed to "hunger pukes" and learned to adapt her schedule to prevent that from happening. Still, she would sometimes vomit her meal 2-3 hours after eating. This frequently happened as we were either getting ready for bed or already in bed. My husband was not thrilled with this, and I'll admit I wasn't either. I tried varying her diet, and I tried to figure out which foods were most likely to cause upset. I never could figure it out.

In addition to that, my job was becoming more demanding, and making the time to prepare raw meals was becoming a hassle. Call me lazy, but I missed the convenience of kibble. Granted, that was not my reason for stopping the raw diet, but it was an influencing factor. Raw feeding takes a lot more work, and I didn't have enough time to make sure it was done properly. In order to make raw feeding economical, it requires buying larger pieces and portioning/prepping them yourself, and that was getting harder to do. I also found myself forgetting to thaw things in time, so I was sometimes stuck running out at the last minute to buy meat, or feeding her half frozen meals.

So, Mona has been on kibble for probably two years now at least. She does well. We have no vomiting to speak of. I rotate her food with the purchase of each new bag. I stick with a few preferred (grain-free) brands that I trust, but never buy the same bag twice in a row. Most frequently Mona is eating Earthborn Holistic, Nutri-Source, Merrick, or Natural Balance. Were she the kind of sensitive dog who became itchy or had other reactions to commercial dog food, I probably would have worked harder to make raw feeding work. As it is, though, Mona does wonderfully with regular dog food, and the time it saves me convinces me it's worth staying with for now.

For now, I'm trying to focus more on documenting day-to-day life. You can read more about that at my other blog, ourholmestead.blogger.com.

Choking.

Tonight Mona had a semi-serious but very scary choking incident.  She'd just wolfed down a 9 ounce chunk of pork in rapid time (she was incredibly hungry), and hobbled away from her feeding towel in a very unusual posture, with her sides sucked in, her back arched, and her neck stiff.  She sounded like she was going to puke, so I interpreted her odd behavior as the reaction of her eating too quickly and guided her back to the towel (to save my carpet, of course!).  But she didn't puke, and stayed hunched over in that stiff position, quiet as can be.  I rubbed her back and noticed her throat was bulging... Feeling her throat, I could feel the giant chunk of pork lodged there, and realized what was actually happening.  And I was helpless.  I watched her strain, and thankfully she eventually horked it back up.  She shook it off and was fine.

But the guilt I feel is something I can't shake off.  I feel like a failure as a [raw feeding] pet owner.  My dog was choking, yet I couldn't identify the symptoms.  I imagined choking would involve loud horking noises, violent wretching, etc.  Maybe that's what a more serious choking incident would looks/sounds like.  But I realize now it might not always be so dramatic.  When I finally realized what was happening, I didn't know what to do.  I feel terrible about it.  I've done all this research on feeding my dog the best possible diet for her, yet I don't know basic pet safety tips.  Obviously, I'll be researching what to do when a dog chokes, to be better prepared should this happen again.

...For the record, I believe this accident was probably my fault.  I knew Mona was really hungry, and I'd forgotten to thaw her food.  In a rush, I served her pork half-frozen.  Well, my incredibly hungry dog was too hungry to take the time to work on a half-frozen piece of pork.  So she swallowed it whole.  While she has eaten half-frozen food before, the pieces have been larger, and she has not been quite so hungry.  It was a poor choice of food to give her tonight, I think.

Mona's first squirrel!

Guess what this is?

A squirrel!  My sister's boyfriend shot this critter was was gracious enough to wrap it up and save it for me!  I left in the freezer for about a month, just to kill off any possible parasites, and decided it was finally time to give Mona her first taste of squirrel.

I'd never skinned a squirrel, and only remembered vaguely about another raw feeder's explanation of skinning a feeder guinea pig, so when it came to skinning it, I just had to wing it.  Turns out, there are much easier ways than what I did, but I managed!

I left the tail on simply so I had something to pick it up by.  Plus I was curious to see what Mona would think. :)

This was our first actual whole prey meal, and I was excited to see what Mona thought of it.  It took her quite a while before she decided to really get going on it.  Once she did, though, she seemed to really like it!  She went for a head-first approach, and ate the whole head off in about 15 minutes.  At first, it appeared as if she'd eaten the ENTIRE head.  However, once I got a closer look, I found that she'd carefully spit out all 4 of the large front incisors and attached molars.  Not sure how she managed that, but I was impressed!

When she'd finished with the head, she did as she always does and buried the rest of her food:

Couldn't help but laugh at the tail sticking out.  :)

She ate on that squirrel for 4 days... The head one day, front limbs/chest the next, then the midsection, and finally the back legs.  I think in the future she'll eat it a little more quickly, now that she's figured out what she's doing.  Hopefully I'll be able to get more squirrels in the future.  I've also been making friends with a rabbit breeder who said he'd bring me a rabbit to try (already skinned, thankfully!).  I'm really looking forward to more whole prey meals!

Bok bok bok! (A Raw Update)

I think I'm overdue for a raw update.  Raw feeding has been going swimmingly, and I finally feel confident about my ability to judge portions and meat/bone/organ ratios.  This is probably in large part due to the fact that I've finally found a source of organ meat.  Since picky Mona won't each the super-cheap and widely available chicken liver, I'd been struggling to find beef liver.  I went the first couple months with only meat and bone before I found some beef liver (albeit more costly than I wanted).  I made do with this for a couple more months, but I knew I needed to fill the other half of alloted 10% organ with something that was NOT liver.  Thankfully, a friend turned me on to My Pet Carnivore.  Their prices were reasonable, and I was able to split the order with another raw feeding friend (err, my only raw feeding friend!) which made the delivery fee a non-issue.  I'm thoroughly please with my purchase, and I now have enough organ meat (spleen, kidney, pancreas, and beef liver too!) to las be SEVERAL months.  Success!

While my main reason for ordering from MPC was for the elusive organ meat, I also bought a few "extras" just for variety's--and curiosity's--sakes.  :)  I got one bag each of chicken heads, chicken feet, and turkey feet.  While I'm not completely new to such body parts (I'll have to share our squirrel experience in the next post), seeing whole chicken heads was a new experience for me.

In the bag, they were obviously chicken heads, but being stuck together made them seem more like one hunk of meat.  However...

When you take them out, the reality that they were at once a living, breathing bird becomes a little too real.  Um, ew?!  Thankfully I'm not super squeamish, but they're still kind of gross, to say the least.  But they're food for my dog, and if I'm going to feed a raw diet, I know I need to accept ALL parts of that diet.  So bring on the chicken heads!

Turns out, Mona LOVES them.  I gave her one this evening as an after-dinner treat, fully expecting her to take a while before she figured it out.  But in true carnivore style, she had that thing chomped up in a few quick crunches, and the entire head was gone in less than 3 minutes!  She absolutely loved it.  It appears chicken heads are the doggy equivalent of candy.  :)  I'm thrilled to see her trying new things so readily, and the fact that she loves them is even better.  I'm also thoroughly pleased with my organ haul, and will definitely order from MPC again.  They were very nice and made it easy to organize a delivery.  If anyone was waiting on a recommendation before ordering from them, here's mine!

I'll have to share our adventures with the chicken feet and turkey feet in the future.  Hopefully they take Mona a little longer than the chicken heads.  At the very least, I expect the turkey leg (which is almost as long as she is) to last a little while!

It's Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day to all the raw feeders out there.  In celebration of the holiday, have a heart!

A perfectly round bite.

A few weeks ago, I learned that one of my husband's cousins was moving and getting rid of her fish, a piranha.  She told me I could have the tank, and I agreed to come catch her piranha and pick up the tank.  I'd been wanting to upgrade the current 20 gallon tank I had, so I was thrilled at the thought of a free aquarium!  I knew she was not very dedicated to this tank, but little did I know what I was in for...

I prepared myself for a decent sized piranha in a 55 gallon tank like she'd told me.  Knowing it wouldn't be an easy task to move, I recruited my sister to help me.  I borrowed the heavy-duty gravel vacuum/siphon from the pet store I work at, along with some buckets, fish bags, and nets.  Once we walked in the door, I immediately realized the tank was not a 55 gallon at all, but a 30 gallon cube in horrendous condition.  And hiding in a corner behind a tacky decoration was a 6-7" red bellied piranha, named Jaws (original, I know).

We doubled up (or was it tripled?) some good sized fish bags and filled it with water.  My sister held the bags as I netted Jaws.  No problem.  He didn't swim away, so it was a pretty easy scoop.  He flopped around a bit in the net as I raised him out of the tank toward the bags.  I carefully dropped him into the waiting bags, and for a brief moment, all was well.  Hooray, we'd done it!  We'd netted and bagged a supposedly ferocious carnivorous fish!  As I reached around to get the rubberbands to close the bags, we sighed with relief that all had gone smoothly.

HA!

The next thing we know, water started gushing of holes on both sides of the bag.  My sister stood there, dumbstruck, as water sprayed everywhere in surprising large amounts, while Jaws could be seen/heard thrashing around inside the bag.  After a moment of total paralytic shock, my sister jumped to action and dumped the bag back into the aquarium.  We were soaked, the carpet was soaked, and those reinforced plastic fish bags were covered in perfectly round, nickel-sized holes.  My husband's cousin, who had been watching from a distance on the couch, found the entire event hilarious, although she brought us towels to help soak up the mess.

After regaining our composure, we came up with a different strategy, and opted to put Jaws in a large plastic bucket.  We used a second bucket turned upside down as a lid.  Never before have I driven as carefully as I did while driving Jaws to the pet store, my sister riding shotgun and holding his bucket in between her feet.  We made it successfully to the pet store, where we released Jaws into a tank of his own.

There is now a special note on Jaws' tank at the pet store that says, "Do NOT bag this fish!  Send home in a bucket."  I decided it was better to warn everyone, although the idea of letting them find out about the bags on their own was tempting.

A raw update.

I realize the flaw in the concept of a raw feeding blog... Lack of material.  Perhaps I'm not creative enough to to see the blog-worthy moments of day to day feeding.  But I don't have much else new to write about.

Raw feeding is going great.  I've gotten a lot more free meat, and should be set for a while.  Mona had a slight upset last week and, to be on the safe side, I took her to the vet.  He ran some tests but couldn't find anything out of the ordinary.  He ran a stool sample and couldn't find any bad bacteria in it whatsoever (take that, anti-raw germophobes!!).  Most likely, she ate something she shouldn't have, probably from outside.  We now watch her much more closely when we let her outside!

I am planning to scout out some ethnic grocery stores this weekend in hopes of finding sources for organs, which is my only hang-up right now.  Mona gets liver, but I have yet to find any other organs.  I'd also love to find some beef heart, which I've yet to try.  I'll try to post pictures of whatever goodies I might find (assuming I locate my camera, which is MIA!).

In the mean time, I think I'll expand this blog to include more of my pets.  Between the rest of the critters in my house, I doubt I'll be short on material!