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 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!

A lesson in the importance of bone.

I learned a valuable lesson this week in the importance of bone-in meals.  Mona's main source of bone is chicken.  Specifically, leg quarter pieces that she eats about 3 days a week.  We were low on chicken but had lots of venison and pork, and since I was pretty busy this week I kept putting off buying more chicken.  This meant she ate a lot of venison and pork, probably 4 or 5 days straight.  So, Sunday she woke up at 4am (and again at 8am) with watery stools.  Immediately realizing my mistake, I gave her a bone-in chicken thigh that afternoon.  I'm not sure how long it takes for the bone to "kick in", but the watery mess continued ALL. DAY. LONG.  She was asking to go outside constantly, and even had an accident that evening.  I like to think that, since she couldn't hold it, she at least knew to aim for the linoleum and not the carpet.  :)  Again this morning, she woke up at 3am again at 6, with no improvement.  

Mona will eat another bony chicken meal today, probably tomorrow too, and hopefully that will help get us back on track.  And I will never again slack on buying chicken if it is time for a bony meal!!

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.

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.

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.  :)

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.

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.