Christmas venison

Only a raw feeder would be excited about roadkill for Christmas...

A couple days, ago, I got a text from my sister's boyfriend, who had access to a deer that had just been hit by a car.  An hour and a half later, he arrived at my house with four huge deer legs and a heart for Mona!  I have no idea how much the legs weigh, but I'm guessing they must be at least 8 or 10 pounds each.  And the heart was probably a couple pounds too. All in all, a LOT of food.  Wahoo!

Then, for Christmas yesterday, my sister's boyfriend showed up with even MORE venison for me!  There are at least a dozen (probably more like two dozen) packages of deer steaks and several ziploc bags of deer burger.  And... a WHOLE squirrel!  I haven't sorted through everything yet, but with all the deer I've gotten this week, Mona has at least two months worth of food.  Needless to say, I'm THRILLED!

I took out a package of doe steak, maybe 6 ounces, and decided Christmas day would be the perfect time to introduce deer to Mona.  She loved it!  She didn't eat as much of it as I would have expected, but I think that is only because we were at my parents' house, and Mona was preoccupied with trying to play with their yorkie.  However, it looks like venison will be a hit!

(Side note:  Venison is unlike any other meat I've dealt with.  Not only does it have a completely different smell--a much stronger smell than the chicken, pork, or beef I'm used to--but it was much bloodier too.  I'm not sure if this is due to the way it was processed/packaged, or if this is typical of venison in general... Has anyone else noticed this?)

Mona's first meal away from home

This weekend my husband and I took a trip up to Michigan to visit my mother's family.  This is the first time we've had to worry about having someone else feed her.  We would be gone two full days, so my in-laws kept Mona and fed her two meals.  I should point out that I am thrilled to have someone as willing to take care of her as they are.  It's a real blessing.  They are crazy about Mona, and were more than happy to take care of her while we were gone.  However, they don't understand the raw diet at all, and I can tell they don't trust we're doing the right thing.

I decided the easiest meals would be some bone-in chicken, so I sent a thigh and a split breast half, each 10 ounces.  Around 2 o'clock on Sunday we got a call from my mother-in-law.  She was concerned that Mona was covering her food with a towel.  I explained that Mona buries her food when she isn't hungry, and that it was NOT a big deal.  I told her to just stick it back in the fridge and try again that evening.  We didn't hear back, so I assumed all went well.

When we picked her up tonight, I discovered that on Sunday night, concerned about Mona not eating, my mother-in-law took a butcher knife to the chicken thigh and hacked it into pieces!!  Thankfully, Mona ate the chopped pieces without incident... She is a gulper, and it's a miracle she didn't choke on anything.  Today's meal was eaten whole without a fuss, thank goodness.

Where I'm going with this is, when you leave your raw fed dog with people unfamiliar with raw feeding, don't be afraid to leave specific, detailed instructions.  I had let my husband to communicate with his parents about how to feed Mona her chicken, but his instructions were obviously quite vague and inadequate. To someone who knows the basics of raw, even if they don't feed raw themselves, instructions like "throw the chicken on the towel and she'll eat it" might be enough.  But when leaving your dog with someone with absolutely no understanding of raw, I'd like to make a few suggestions:

• Explain the importance of letting eat their meal whole.  I'm sure my husband explained that she could eat the chicken whole, but I doubt he explained WHY.  In the future, I will be sure to explain that cutting up the chicken would result in a dangerous choking hazard--both from sharp, cut bone edges and swallowable-sized chunks.
• Explain that it is perfectly okay if your dog doesn't eat.  My husband's family loves to eat.  Even their cat can't say no to a treat (and their cat gets FAR too many treats... she is quite overweight).  I know they simply can't imagine a dog that can turn down food.  They are probably not familiar with the idea that an animal could self-regulate with food.
• Explain that leaving meat out is perfectly fine for a raw fed dog.  My mother-in-law mentioned that she didn't want to leave the chicken out and make Mona sick.  I should have explained that the rules of raw meat humans are used to don't apply to dogs.  I have left raw meat out for over an hour, waiting for Mona to eat it.  And if she doesn't it is perfectly okay to put it back in the fridge and try again... Even several days later!
• Explain that raw fed dogs poop less!  My in-laws were also quite concerned that she didn't poop while she was over.  Of course, they are used to pets fed incredibly low-quality kibble that poop out almost as much as they consume.  I don't think they understand what a huge impact (proper) diet could have on a dog's digestive system.

Granted, everything went fine and Mona is great.  She is healthy and happy and has a full belly.  I suppose it doesn't really matter that I wasn't more thorough in explaining raw feeding.  But there were several errors that could have ended much less pleasantly, and I definitely don't plan to let those same errors happen again.  I keep thinking about how easily Mona could have choked on those cut chicken pieces!

Progress!

The other day I stopped by our small local meat shop just to see what they had.  After asking for beef liver, beef heart, chicken feet, kidneys, spleens, etc, the guy looked at me and said, "You're not really going to eat all that, are you?"  Ha!  I told him it was for my dog, who is on a special diet, and asked if there was any really cheap "junk" meat he could sell me.  About five minutes later, I'd paid $0.64 for a slice of beef liver and was walking out with a box of scrap meat he'd give me for free!

I should have taken pictures, because when people say they get scraps I always wonder what they mean.  Well, this box contained a big black trash bag full of trimmings and bones.  There was a lot of chunks of fat, a lot of connective tissue with small bits of meat attached, and a few chunks of ground meat.  I also got two meaty shoulder blade pieces that I figure I can give her as a treat... Let her work at the meat on it and then throw the bone away.  Unfortunately, the bottom of the bag was full of chili.  Of course, Mona can't eat that, so a lot of the meat on the bottom I didn't even bother going through because it was covered in chili.  I rinsed off a few pieces of fat that only had a little bit on them, and will hope that Mona handles it okay.

So, while a lot of the bag wasn't usable, I still managed to get at least a dozen meals out of it!  It will be interesting to see how she handles a meal that isn't one large chunk... These are mostly bite size chunks all thrown together to make a 10 ounce portion.  But because it was free, I'm sure not going to waste it!!

Also, remember that beef liver I mentioned?  Mona loves it!  Hooray!  It's been such a struggle to get her to eat chicken liver, and half the time the cat steals it and eats it because she ignores it.  I was really nervous that liver in general was going to be a struggle, but I fed her a piece beef liver today and it was gone in seconds.  Thank goodness!  The liver is a little more expensive than I'd wanted, $1.89 a pound, but since she needs so little of it I don't think it will really be a problem.

How do you "diagnose" separation anxiety?

This evening my husband and I pull into our apartment complex after a night out.  We'd driven separately, and I get out of my car while he's still maneuvering his car into the parking space.  I walk up the steps to our apartment door and hear a dog barking.  Surely it isn't my dog, right?  But I stop and listen, and after about a minute of silence I hear it again.  A dog--most definitely Mona--barking and carrying on like crazy for 15-20 seconds.  It sounds loud, frantic, and almost pained or scared.  Another 30 seconds or so of silence.  Then the barking, then silence.  By this point my husband walks up and listens too.  She barks again, and once she's been quiet for a bit we unlock the door and walk in.

I've been coming up with all the excuses I can think of: she got excited when she heard our cars pull in; she saw our headlights in the window; the cat had done something to antagonize her; she'd already spent a lot of time in her crate that day and had just had enough.  And maybe one of those is true.  But... I'm not so sure.  I recall one time, shortly after we adopted her, hearing her cry after I'd locked the door behind me.  It seemed to stop after a minute or two, so I left.  But what if it didn't stop?  What if she becomes so stressed while we're away that she carries on like this every time we leave her?  Has she been suffering from terrible separation anxiety this entire time and we never knew it?  The thought of it makes me feel terrible for her.  Not to mention her barking is loud, and I hate to think the neighbors have been suffering through it this whole time.

We have always crated Mona any time we are away.  We're working on leaving her out for short periods of time, but she likes to chew too much to be trusted out by herself for more than half an hour or so.  Our schedules vary daily, but I'd say she averages about 6 hours of crate time a day, five days a week (she is also crated at bedtime).  Usually, if we're going to be gone for over 6 hours, I am able to come let her out to potty at lunch. Today she was crated from about 8:30 to 4.  That's really the longest she's ever crated during the day.  I never thought it was an issue... She's never had any accidents in her crate, and she never appears stressed when I come home.  Well, I've never heard that barking before, anyway.

So, this barking has me really concerned... Are my concerns justified?  Or is it perfectly possible that this was an isolated incident, and she's usually just fine?  I suppose the best thing to do would be to stick around the apartment for a bit before I actually leave and listen in on her.  Likewise, when I come home after being gone, I should probably hang around outside the door before I unlock it and listen in then too.  And hopefully I won't hear anything.

...But if I do, what's the next step?  Ugh.

Smelly smelt.

While on the hunt for marked-down, low-sodium turkeys for Mona, I found some smelt marked down to $0.81 a package.  They're tiny little sardine-like fish, and they looked like they could be great snacks for Mona, so I bought a package.

First and foremost: If you've never bought them before, THEY SMELL.  I know fish smell, but I wasn't expecting these tiny little fish to smell every bit as much as a big fish does!  Anyway, I figured the easiest way to handle them would be to freeze them individually, so I could dole them out as needed.  Um, they're gross.

I gave one to Mona to try while I finished lining them up on the cookie sheet.  Mona's reaction?

"Is this a joke?"

CLEARLY UNAMUSED.  She's used to getting little tidbits when I'm portioning out some meat for her.  I'd already packaged up some ground turkey to freeze, and she had a little nibble of that.  But the next time, I slipped her a smelt, and she would not touch it.  I went ahead and put the sheet of them all in the freezer, and I'll bag them up once they're frozen.  However, I'm afraid I might have just wasted $0.81 on fish that will do nothing but stink up my freezer.  Lovely.

Country-style ribs.

A while back I'd gotten some pork country-style ribs.  Turns out it's just pork shoulder with bone, sawed into strips.  About half the pieces ended up being boneless, the other half had sawed slices of shoulder blade in them.  I'd weighed them, bagged them, and frozen them before I learned that the cut shoulder bones in several of the pieces were dangerous to feed.  I didn't really care to thaw it all out, cut out the bones, and re-freeze it all, so for a while I just picked out the boneless pieces and fed those.  The other night I finally thawed a chunk with some bone in it and cut the bone out before I fed it.

Today, though, I decided to see how Mona would do.  I'd read that cut pieces of bone could be a choking hazard, but also read from owners of more cautious eaters that they fed country-style ribs with no problem.  So I picked out the cut with the biggest piece of bone, and cautiously handed it to Mona.  I watched her like a hawk, but she did wonderfully!  She chomped up that bone into nice swallow-able pieces and didn't rush it at all.

What does this matter?  Well, I don't intend to feed Mona sliced bones very often.  I realize that regardless of how carefully she eats, it is something to feed with caution.  Most likely I will feed these last few pieces of "ribs" to her, carefully, and then cut out any sawed bones from future meals.  But it does really get me thinking that she would enjoy some larger meals... It took her a lot more work to eat that piece of shoulder, and it seems to me there must be some extra satisfaction in that.  So, I'll be keeping my eye out for larger meals that she can work on for several days!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Sadly, I have no fantastic Thanksgiving meal story to share.

Mona thew up a little bit this morning.  I'm not quite sure why.  I was in the kitchen this morning making food for our dinner later on, when I heard that unmistakable retching sound.  She ended up vomiting three times, only small amounts and nothing but foamy yellow bile.  I don't know if she was just hungry (did the smells coming from the kitchen make her hungry?), or if she was feeling a little under the weather.  Either way, she seemed just fine afterwards, and so after waiting about an hour to make sure she wouldn't throw up again, I went ahead and fed her her meal.

Today Mona had a 9 ounce piece of chicken leg quarter and some liver.  Nothing fancy.  I'd thought about getting something different for her, like a "pork picnic shoulder" I'd seen... Something to give her a really good workout.  But circumstances changed and that just didn't happen.  It'll come eventually.

Operator error.

Let me preface this by saying that I thoroughly believe 99% of pet behavior "problems" are our fault.  A dog usually misbehaves not because it is "bad", but because the owner has ignored what it has tried to tell us, misread its body language, or given the dog incorrect or conflicting information.

This is the case with Mona.  When we first brought her home, she had two accidents.  Both were because my husband and I failed to see the that she needed to go out.  By attaching bells to the back door, this is no longer an issue.  She now clearly communicates with us when she needs to go potty by nudging the bells with her nose.

Now that she is potty trained and knows some basics (watch me, touch, sit, down, stay, leave it, high five), I want to teach her to "smile".  Mona smiles constantly--any time she meets new people or gets excited, she scrunches her nose, pulls up her lips, and shows her front teeth.  It is in no way an aggressive behavior, but to people who don't know her, being greeting by a dog baring its teeth can be a little unnerving.  So being able to teach her to smile on cue would allow me to show people that she is not being mean, but simply doing a silly trick.  It would also be fun to be able to show people why she is named after the famous Mona Lisa.  :)

So, on the quest for the elusive "smile", which I have been unable to "catch" during training, a friend suggested clicker training.  It's something I've known of for a long time, and I always knew it could be a great training tool.  I just never had a reason to try it until now.  I have read quite a lot on clicker training, in particular, Karen Pryor's method of clicker traning.  I feel more than comfortable in my knowledge of clicker training.  Great, right?

Wrong.  This is where a classic case of Operator Error occured.  I had just brought the clicker home, and in my excitement to try it out, I made several mistakes.  First, I forgot that full dogs are not as treat-motivated as hungry dogs, and Mona had just eaten a very hefty 9 ounce meal only a couple hours previously.  She had little interest in the chicken gizzard pieces I was offering (Tomorrow, I will try again BEFORE she eats).  Second, I did not introduce the clicker correctly.  She had never seen or heard it before, so when I called her to me and clicked it fairly close to her, it startled her.  She became scared of the sound of the clicker and would not come near me.  So instead of getting anything useful accomplished today, I spent about 15 minutes attempting to desensitize her to the sound of the clicker.

So, is Mona un-clicker-trainable?  Of course not.  But I have set us back a few notches, and our progress on clicker training will probably be slower than I'd like.  I think this is pretty similar to raw feeding... When something goes wrong (vomiting, diarrhea, constipation, etc.) it is not because raw feeding isn't right.  It's because we have messed up somewhere--overfeeding, too much bone, too little bone, too much organs, etc. Here's hoping for less Operator Errors in the future.  :)

The power of the towel.

It's been one hell of a week, so just a quick tidbit for today.

My husband and I had to make an unexpected trip out of state, so Mona stayed with my husband's parents.  I fed her late Thursday morning, and then as soon as we came home on Friday. We ended up getting back later than expected, so I'm sure she was hungry.  I hurriedly thawed a 9 ounce chunk of boneless pork shoulder and gave it to her still semi-frozen.  Before she had gotten even one chunk of meat sheared off, we had a visitor.  I could immediately see the conflict in Mona's eyes... She very much wanted to run to the front door and greet this new person, but she was also hungry and didn't want to abandon her food.  So, knowing she was not allowed to take her meat off the towel, but also not wanting to leave her dinner, she chomped that meat MAYBE 6 or 8 times, and swallowed the entire thing whole!!!  Then, of course, she made a bee-line for the front door to greet her visitor.

It's a miracle she didn't choke.  But I was pretty impressed by her obvious understanding that she could take her food off that towel.  :)

Introducing: Pork!

Today was Mona's first non-chicken meal!  I'd read a lot of advice suggesting that pork was a good meat to add after starting with chicken.  And, as it happened, pork was also next most-affordable (and easiest) meat to get.  I  got country-style ribs for less than $1.50 per pound.  I'm hopeful to never have to pay more than $1.50 per pound for meat, but $2 will be my absolute cut off.  I'm confident that's a reasonable and completely feasible price point to stay under.

So, the pork.  Today was a boneless 8 ounce chunk of country-style ribs, which I learned is actually part of the shoulder.  Mona loved it!  She had completely devoured it in less than 5 minutes!  Actually, I think I might leave it partially frozen next time just so it takes her a little more work.  When I watch her eat, I notice that she often swallows most of the meat, then horks part of it back up to work on it some more.  I'm wondering if this a sign of a gulper, overly-eager eater.  It was my hope that I could have one of those very polite, self-regulating dogs who ate slowly and carefully and was therefor able to eat most any cut of meat.  However, after watching her eat this chunk of pork, I'm starting to think I might have a slightly more greedy eater.  Oh well, I can't complain.  For a 20 pound dog, I think it should be easy enough to find challenging meals that aren't so easy to gulp down.

And now, pictures!

Eight ounces of boneless pork... Yum!

Mona quickly developed a routine when eating... Take the larger chunk of meat and place it off to the side.  Then check the bowl for smaller bits (sometimes there are gizzards or chunks of skin/fat in there!) and lick up all the juices.  Only then will she eat the "main course"!

Almost gone...

Just kidding.  A larger piece needed some more work to make sure it went down easier.

Is she hungry?

How can you tell if your dog is hungry?  I want to be sure I know the signs, because the thought of Mona being hungry bothers me.

When we started raw two weeks ago, we fed 2.5% of her body weight, or 8 ounces.  About a week into it, I thought Mona was looking thinner, although the scales said she hadn't lost any weight.  To be on the safe side, I bumped her meals up to at least 10 ounces, sometimes more like 12.  A week later, and the scales still read 20 pounds.  So far, she doesn't appear to be losing weight.

However, her behavior is causing me to rethink how much she should be eating.  She has had several pig ears since we got her.  In these past few months, she has not paid much attention to them.  In fact, I'm not sure she'd ever chewed on a single one.  She's just not a chewer.  But last night, she ate an entire pig ear over the course of about 15 minutes.  An impressive feat, considering I've never seen her chew on any one chew toy for more than two or three minutes.  I thought it was a little unusual, but brushed it off.  Tonight, she's eating another one.  She's already eaten about half of it, and I expect the other half will be gone in a few minutes.

As a side note:  I realize that, being raw fed now, Mona probably shouldn't have these pig ears.  I suppose it's because she never chewed on them, but I just never thought about getting rid of them.  And seeing how much she's enjoying them now, it makes me wonder... Is it really that bad to let her have a pig ear every now and again?

Anyway, she's gone from hardly ever chewing anything to demolishing two pig ears in as many days.  Is this because she's desperate for something to eat?  So this entire post is mostly just to say... What are signs that your dog is not getting enough to eat?  Aside from the dog losing weight, or I suppose even hearing her stomach growl, what other signs of hunger should I look for?

Preparing pork.

One thing I wished I'd seen more of when considering the switch to raw was information about preparing the food.  Specifically, I wanted pictures.  Perhaps the reason there aren't many photos of raw food prep is because it's pretty self-explantatory.  You take some meat, you cut it up, you bag it, you stick it in the freezer.  Simple.  But I still wanted pictures.  I think mostly I wanted to see what kind of a mess I was getting myself into.  I imagined a kitchen covered in raw meat.  Raw meat juices all over the place.  I pictured a salmonella breeding ground.  I was wrong.

Preparing and portioning meals isn't nearly the mess I expected.  For example, today my mom found some great pork on sale for $0.99 per pound.  This is how simple it is to turn it into dog food:

I wipe down the counters.  I like something with bleach in it.  Nothing smells clean like bleach!  I get everything ready.  Quick tip: Get all your zip top bags out and OPEN THEM before you begin.  Otherwise, you're fumbling with greasy, slimy meat fingers and can't get them open.  And ignore the wimpy knife.  I don't know what I was thinking.  I ended up using a much bigger knife.  Which reminds me... I should learn what my knives are.  All I know are "big knives" and little knives".

Anyway, the label calls these "pork shoulder blade country style ribs".  I have no clue what part of a pig that is, but it looks good.  I expect Mona will love it.  Then again, I also expected Mona would like liver...

The package had 6 cuts of meat, each weighing 12 - 16 ounces.  I cut the ends off to make 6 hearty portions, roughly 8 or 9 ounces.  Are you looking at this, though?  No giant mess.  No blood all over the counters.  No meat on the walls.  Just some juice on the cutting board.  Totally doable, right?

Ta da!  This go round, I wrote the weight on each bag.  I find that with the leg quarters I'm currently feeding, I'm weighing them all before I serve them, just to be sure they weigh what I think they weigh.  So for this go round, I wrote the weight on each bag.  I stuck them in the freezer, put the knives and cutting board in the sink, and wiped down the counter again with cleaner.  That's it!

Honestly, I think my kitchen is cleaner since switching to raw.  :)

Introducing: Liver!

Cue the Sad Trombone.  That sums up our first experience with liver.

Today's meal consisted of a drumstick, a couple gizzards, some extra skin, and her very first chicken liver.  I served it all up in a bowl, and she went straight for the skin the second I put the bowl down.  Next came the gizzards, then the drumstick.  Then she examined the bowl, still containing the liver, very closely.  She licked all around the bowl, even licked in the bowl, but would not touch the liver.  After a couple minutes of licking around it, she left it.  Over the course of half an hour, she kept going back to the liver, but would not eat it.  At one point, the cat even snuck up to it and enjoyed a little nibble, but even that didn't entice her to eat it!  After 30 minutes I gave up and put it back in the fridge.  We rested for about 45 minutes, then went to the dog park.

Back from the dog park, round two: The liver reappears.  I set it back out, and she did the same licking/circling/revisiting routine.  After probably another 20 minutes and no progress, I picked up the liver and tried to coax her to eat it.  After much hesitation, she eventually, ever so slowly, took the liver from my hand and ate it.  Ugh.  All that for a piece of liver no more than half an ounce!

Tomorrow I think I'll try a different approach.  I'll feed the liver first, and only serve her "main course" once the liver has been eaten.  Fingers crossed!

Otherwise, Mona's been doing great!  I've bumped up her meals from 8 ounces to about 10, and have been giving 3-4 ounce "snacks" if her meals are going to be particularly far apart.  She seems to be happy, and hasn't shown me any signs of being hungry at all.  All seems well to me!

Adding to meals.

Raw feeding is going great!  Mona's been eating 8 ounce meals approximately once a day, although sometimes those meals are more like 18 hours apart instead of 24.  I'm wondering though if it just isn't quite enough.  She seems to weigh the same as when we started last week (using the good old "hold your dog and stand on a scale" method), but she feels slightly thinner to me.  Which leads me to the easy way I've found to add an ounce or two to her meals...

Remember when I mentioned that my mom had snagged me a couple packages of chicken gizzards, hearts, and livers that were marked down?  I didn't know how to use them at first, since I couldn't keep an entire package in the fridge and use it up quickly enough, but I didn't want it frozen either.  So, I spread them out on cookie sheets and froze them all individually, so now I have bags with ready-to-go individual organs!  It's super easy to pull out one or two and thaw them in some warm water in just a few minutes.  The fat and skin didn't want to lay on the cookie sheet very well, so I came up with this:

An ice cube tray!  This worked perfectly.  Once they were frozen, I popped them out and bagged them up.  It's been very convenient.  For the last couple of meals I've fed an 8 ounce meat portion, plus a gizzard or two and some skin (roughly 2 ounces worth).  I also plan to use these as "snacks" on days when her regular meals will be a little farther apart.  A couple "cubes" of skin/fat, 3 or 4 gizzards, and a liver works out to about 4 ounces, so that seems like a good in-between meal.  We'll see how this works!

Why I needed a dog.

"There is no psychiatrist in the world like a puppy licking your face."
- Bernard Williams

I am incredibly fortunate to be able to say that I am 24 years old, and I have never experienced the loss of a close family member.  But it's possible that I might not be able to say that for much longer, and it's breaking my heart.  Yesterday was extremely rough for me, as my Papaw is not doing well.  I tried to keep my mind off things while I worked, but at one point I simply had to take a break, so I came home to let Mona out.  I sat down on the couch and, unable to hold it in any longer, burst into tears.  Mona came to sit quietly next to me, and she gently licked all the tears from my cheeks as I cried.  And I felt better.

This is something that I have never been able to fully articulate, but there is something magically therapeutic about a dog.  Bernard Williams must know what I'm talking about.  Dogs are great, and they offer something that you simply cannot get anywhere else (even from my amazing husband, whose patience and understanding I could not live without).  Personally, I'd like to see doctors prescribe pets the way they prescribe antidepressants.  Their companionship is like some kind of healing power.  And that incredible, unconditional love I get from Mona is part of what drives this raw adventure.  For all the companionship she gives me, I want to be sure I'm giving her the best I can as well.

Let's talk about poop.

Now is when you squeamish folk should stop reading and go watch The Price is Right instead.

********************

Face it, if you're a raw feeder, or even thinking about it, poop is an inevitable subject.  I'm learning that, as a raw feeder, you become a veritable Poop Expert.  I've always given some thought to my pets' poop, as I do feel like it can tell you a lot about their health.  Nine times out of ten, Normal Poop = Healthy Pet.

Day Three.

Day number three!  Today it was two smaller drumsticks.  Mona is definitely getting the hang of it now.  She only licked it for a couple of minutes before she really started to tuck in.  It took her about 25 minutes to finish off both of them.  She tried twice to bring it up on the couch this time, though!  I'd like to give her at least a week, if not more, to get the hang of eating on a towel, but I suppose if she continues to bring things to the couch, we can switch to feeding her in her crate.

Day Two.

Today Mona had an 8 ounce chicken thigh.  It was pretty much the same routine as yesterday.  She spent the first 30 minutes making little progress--simply licking and nibbling at little pieces of the skin.  After that half hour mark, though, she got some good crunches in and had it finished off in 10 minutes.

Once again, she tried to bring it up onto the couch.  I set it back on her towel and she stayed there for the rest of the meal.  I think she might be getting the hang of this towel already!  I also had better luck with my camera tonight.

Notice that Mona is using the "no-hands" approach.  I'm interested to see if she becomes one of the prissy raw eaters that refuses to use her paws.  Personally, I'd love to see her get her paws dirty and grab on tight!

It has begun!

We have officially been raw feeders for one whole day!  For Mona's first meal, I started her off with a decent sized chicken drumstick, weighing right under 8 ounces.  She licked it for a while, moved it around a lot, had no idea what to do with it for quite a while.  After over half an hour, I finally started hearing some good crunching noises.  After that, she really got going, and had finished it off in about ten minutes. She's now sitting contentedly on our bench at the front window, watching passersby.

I served her meal in her old stainless steel bowl on top of an old bath towel.  She'd pulled the drumstick out of the bowl within the first minute, so I don't think I'll continue with that.  No point in dirtying up a bowl if the food won't even stay in it!  The towel, however, I'm hoping to keep.  She carried the chicken off the towel onto the carpet a couple of times (at one point, she even attempted to bring it up on the couch), but each time I picked it back up, set it back on the towel, saying "towel".  She's a smart girl, so hopefully she catches on pretty quickly.

Unfortunately, the battery on my camera doesn't want to hold a charge anymore.  I snapped one quick photo of the chicken in her bowl, after which my camera shut itself off and refused to come back on.  I'm going to attempt to charge it again tonight in hopes of getting raw eating pictures tomorrow!

The last day of kibble.

This afternoon I took the kibble container, turned it upside down, and shook the last few pieces into Mona's stainless steel bowl.  Mona munched on it throughout the evening, and finished it about an hour ago.  Maybe it's because the metal reflects light so well, but when I walk past that bowl on my way to the kitchen, I notice how empty it is.  The kibble is gone.


It sounds silly, but the big change we're making has really hit me.  No more conveniently and absentmindedly dumping kibble in a bowl.  I'll now be making a conscious choice every day as to what Mona eats.  And, of course, I'm anxious to see the results of this change we're making.


So... here's to a healthy dog!

Educate yourself.

I really don't intend to do much in the way of defending the raw diet to those who don't approve of it.  I've done my research, I really do feel it's the healthiest food for Mona, and it's the right choice for me, period.  But I do feel the need to speak up when someone has no good reason to back their disapproval.  If you're going to tell me you don't agree with something, you better have something to back it up with.

What it all comes down to is DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH.  Do not let any one person make up your mind on anything, particularly when your pet's health is in question.  Even if your vet tells you what to feed, do some research.  I'm finding that very few veterinarians know much in regards to pet nutrition.  I realize there are exceptions to this, but for the most part, vets aren't required to take many--if any--courses on nutrition.  As a result, their main means of "education" comes from the pet food representatives, whose views are biased and whose information is often incomplete or incorrect.  Read the ingredients.  Learn what those ingredients mean, and what their role is in your pet's diet.  Compare labels.  Check it ALL out.  Then and only then can you decide what is truly best for your pet.

I bought my first meat!

I took the plunge and bought my first actual raw food!  We're getting down to the last bit of kibble, so the switch is imminent.  Tonight I bought a 10 pound bag of chicken leg quarters--unenhanced, 75mg sodium.  I spent about an hour working on the contents of the bag and dividing it into meal-sized portions.

Let me preface by saying that the only meat I've ever worked with prior to tonight was the kind that has already been cut up and cleaned so that it's ready to throw in a skillet.  Chicken leg quarters are nothing like the nicely packaged boneless, skinless chicken breasts I'm used to!  Not only are the much messier, but they're much bigger than I was expecting.  Most weighed in at over a pound each!

I know that in the future, once Mona is able to handle all the extra skin and fat, preparation time will be much less.  But after much reading, I've decided to start her for the first two weeks with as little skin and fat as possible to avoid digestive upset.  So I spent well over an hour hacking away at these legs, first pulling off as much of the skin and fat as possible.  I cut each leg at the joint, and broke/cut it into drumstick and thigh pieces.  The thigh pieces were almost all a perfect 8 ounce portion.  Since the drumstick pieces were usually more like 5 or 6 ounces, I grabbed a couple frozen breasts from the freezer, cut them into thirds, and used those pieces to top off the bags.  All in all, my $6 bag of chicken leg quarters (plus a couple extra chicken breasts thrown in), I ended up with 19 bags in the freezer, each with 8 ounces of chicken leg.  I also saved all the fat and skin and stuck it in a bag as well... Surely there's a use for that?

On another note, I've enlisted my mother, Queen of Bargain Shopping, to help keep an eye out for good deals on clearanced meat.  Already, she snagged me a couple packages of chicken livers and gizzards for dirt cheap.  In a couple weeks, these livers and gizzards will be perfect to start adding to her chicken legs when I introduce organs to the diet.

Meet Mona.

Mona is our mutt.  She has been a part of our family since we adopted her on August 24th.

We'd been looking for a dog for a while.  I'd visited several shelters numerous times but never found the right dog.  On a whim, I stopped by our local shelter one day before work.  I passed by a cage with a little black dog baring its teeth at me.  I looked at several others, passed by the black dog again, and doubled back.  Was she really baring her teeth at me?  Her tail beating wildly against the sides of the cage.  I'd never seen a dog growl and wag its tail at the same time.  Maybe she wasn't growling.  I asked about her, but the volunteer knew little about her as she'd just come in.  I asked to see her, and she was incredibly sweet and friendly.  I went to the shelter office to ask a little more about her, and before I knew it, I was driving home with a smiling dog in my back seat.  Three days later, we signed the official paperwork, and the little shelter dog tagged "Marley" was ours.

She smiles.  I've yet to get it on camera or train her to do it on command, but she scrunches up her little snub nose and smiles.  It makes her look so ridiculous you can't help but laugh.  She LOVES people, and smiles at everyone she meets.  Unfortunately, her smile greatly resembles a sign of aggression, so it's slightly alarming at first if you don't know her.  And since the only famous smile we could think of was Leonardo da Vinci's painting, we named her Mona.

Mona is a hodgepodge mix off who-knows-what.  She runs like a herding dog, swooping out wide, circling back in, and turning on a dime.  Our best guess is a Cavalier / Border collie mix.  I wouldn't be surprised if there was a little bit of gazelle in there too.  She's got the affectionate, outgoing, eager attitude of a Cavalier, with the smarts and stamina of a border collie.  She's mostly a quiet girl in the house, but the second you mention the park, a switch goes off and she becomes a bouncy, energetic nutcase desperate for another dog to chase her.

She's amazing.  She's nothing like what I thought I wanted (I thought I wanted a big dog; she's only 20 pounds).  But she's sweet and smart and everything I needed in a dog.  I want only the best for her.  And I think that best is raw.

Hello, all!

I'm beginning this blog with the intention of closely documenting my adventures in living a raw lifestyle.  I have decided to take the plunge and feed my dog, Mona, a completely raw diet, specifically a whole prey model diet.

I do not hate kibble, nor do I judge those who choose to feed it.  It is all I've ever known, and I actually make a living selling premium dog foods at our local pet store.  I have no complaints about the kibble I've fed.  I've spent the last couple years learning everything I possibly can about commerical dog food, and I feel incredibly confident in my ability to explain the differences between a high-quality food like Evo or Wellness and the crap you get at the grocery store like Ol' Roy.  It has become my passion to educate people about the vast differences in pet foods.  I have converted many unknowing customers from a junky grocery store food to a premium brand, and have enjoyed hearing about the great changes it has made to their pets' health and wellbeing.

I'm finding that a lot of raw feeders are incredibly anti-kibble.  I get the feeling they think all commercial pet foods are bad.  However, I'm pretty passionate about the importance of a high-quality kibble (versus something full of fillers and by-products).  It will be hard, if not impossible, for me to completely abandon my support of kibble.  Perhaps raw feeding really IS that much better, but the fact of the matter is that many people do not care to deal with the "hassles" of raw--locating reliable and affordable meat sources, learning about the proper ratios of meat/bone/organs, storing large quantities of large meat, and dealing with thawing and freezing that meat.  Let's face it, kibble is convenient!  And for those who do not wish to live a raw lifestyle, I will still be able to show them the best kibbles out there.

However, as good as I  feel the best grain-free/holistic/organic/high-meat-content kibble out there might be, I'm thoroughly convinced that raw feeding is even better.  At least for my family.  In particular, I'm anxious to experience the benefits raw feeding will have on Mona's skin, coat, teeth, and energy level.  And of course, the poop.  I've learned raw feeders love to talk about poop.  So, lucky you, you'll get to hear about poop from me too.

And, as my thoughts are typically all over the place, I'm sure some of my blog entries will be too.