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!

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.

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.  :)