This is my long haired German Shepherd Dog Boaz. I haven’t seen him look this beautiful in a long time.
I used to think we fed our dogs pretty well. We used to feed Boaz and his sister Zoe the dog food below.
At $45 a bag, we thought we were doing our best. However, nine years ago, I didn’t know anything about our industrial food system and being a newlywed at 25 years old, this was my first experience tending to live animals. My first time of having the responsibility of nourishing a pet, my babies.
I always noticed Zoe and Boaz had constant runny stools but I didn’t think twice about why.
About a few years ago I started seeing lawsuits against this company for causing cancer and other illnesses in dogs. Now being educated in our food system, the wheels started to turn.
I started reading about symptoms other dogs were experiencing and it clicked. I’ve been poisoning my dogs for about 6 years.
I was furious and switched their dried dog food right away. Immediately, I started to see a difference in the dogs. There stools were firmer, they weren’t gagging like they used to, and their energy levels increased.
It was about this time that I started to read about the raw food, BARF, diet for dogs. Biologically Appropriate Raw Food.
BARF is about feeding pets responsibly and properly to maximize health, longevity and reduce allergies and vet bills. The diet is based on human grade whole foods including raw meat, finely ground bones, offal and other healthy ingredients such as fruit and vegetables.
I was very interested but at the time, scared that I wouldn’t be able to offer them all the nutrients they would need. I didn’t want to think about doing something extremely damaging to my dogs. So we continued with dried kibble.
Degenerative Myelopathy
During the summer of last year we started to notice Zoe’s back end swaying. At first, slightly.
She didn’t seem to have the control of her back end. Towards the end of the summer the problem started to progress.
Once we took Zoe in to the vet, we were told it was Degenerative Myelopathy that effects mostly German Shepherd Dogs and that unfortunately, there was no treatment and that the disease would only progress. The only positive side was that it’s not a painful disease so we were to give her the best quality of life until we knew it was time.
You know, when you get your first puppies, you never really think about them aging.
How it’s so incredibly important to keep them healthy during the early years to avoid disease and cancer that plagues so many dogs in their old age. It wasn’t until I started to educate myself on our industrial food system that I began to understand the dangers in most dried dog food.
Cancer
After recognizing that Zoe wouldn’t have that much more time with us we were dealt another blow.
In the Fall of last year I noticed Boaz had a limp in his front leg. When I would touch his leg in the elbow area, he would yelp. It was painful.
All I could think of was, “No, not Boaz.”
I immediately took him into the vet and after an x-ray was explained that he either has a bone infection or it could be bone cancer. We didn’t have the money to have a biopsy done so we were sent with a round of antibiotics and pain killers and told to just wait it out and keep him as comfortable as we can.
I left crying. This was my gentle giant. My bubba that just adores being around people and allows the children to pull him in every other direction.
At the same time, he protects our family and children always noting if there are any strangers around and gives them a “don’t even think about getting close” look.
He shepherds.
We put him on the meds and he seemed to get better for awhile but like most medication, once he went through them, the symptoms returned.
Now what? Wait for him to get worse and die? We couldn’t afford surgery of any kind.
Time For a Diet Change
With both dogs ill, I knew it was time to change their diet. They needed real food that would nourish them, heal them inside.
With sick older dogs, the vet was telling me that it wasn’t the time to play with their diet as things could get worse.
Worse? Worse than what? Death?
I prayed about it and asked God for wisdom and with Gabe on board I changed their diet pretty much overnight. Well, after countless hours of research and just plain common sense.
When I started to really think about animals and their diets, I started to think, “Why do we feed dogs dried, processed food?”
I go out of my way to make sure my chickens have a special mixed feed constantly giving them fresh veggies and scraps all year long to ensure optimal health. Why on Earth am I giving my dogs, mammals, processed kibble?
What would happen if humans ate one variety of dried food day in and day out? Would we be healthy?
History of Dried Dog Food
It wasn’t until the 1930’s that the first commercial dried dog food was sold by the Gaines Food Co. By the time WWII ended, pet food sales had reached $200 million. In the 1950s Spratt’s became part of General Mills. For companies such as Nabisco, Quaker Oats, and General Foods, pet food represented an opportunity to market by-products as a profitable source of income.
Does this sound familiar to our own problems in the food system. Marketing processed food for money regardless of health consequences.
So how did dogs survive before dried dog food?
Grains, meats, table scraps, and homemade food from their owners. Sounds too easy, huh?
When you search around the internet and look up feeding your dog raw and real foods, there’s always a warning that you should think about this because you could do more harm than good.
Really? What about us as humans? We don’t come with pre-made bagged food instructions because we are too complicated to feed. Warnings that we may mess the health up of our families and children.
No, we learn. We learn from tradition what has kept us healthy for generations. I don’t trust the FDA and I don’t trust our industrial food system. I trust tradition. Eating real food.
When I started to make sense of all of this, I knew right away, my dogs need real food.
Raw Food / Real Food
This past January we had to put Zoe down. It was the hardest thing to do for our family and big brother took it pretty hard. He loves his dogs and Zoe was his girl.
With her death, we were most afraid for Boaz and how he would handle it. They were together every single day since we brought him home nearly eight years ago. Praise the Lord, he’s been doing well as we’ve been pampering him and feeding him real/raw food.
He’s been on real food now for 5 months and we can’t believe how he’s changed in that short amount of time.
His coat is amazing, his breath doesn’t smell, his eyes sparkle and his limp is nearly gone.
He doesn’t yelp when I touch his leg and has more energy than I’ve seen from him in such a long time.
I don’t really know how he’ll progress from here but we’re just praying for a full recovery and that we’ll have him for more years to come.
Part 2: Boaz’s Diet
Now that I feel a bit more confident in what we feed him I’m going to share a post next week on Boaz’s raw food/ real food diet and what I feed him raw and cooked on a weekly basis. I’ve been taking pictures to share with you for a couple of weeks now and it includes raw meats, organ meats, nourishing broth, vegetables, fermented dairy, cod liver oil and flax seed oil.
I’m also going to share my tips on how to do this cost effectively. I can say it’s so much easier now that we’re only feeding one giant dog versus two.
Now this isn’t the diet for every dog. It’s what’s working for us and my giant German Shepherd canine. He can mow through bones like no other. But my hopes is that it will give you an idea of what a raw/real food diet looks like to wipe away any fear in feeding your dog real food in order to prevent disease and illness in later stages of life.
Do you feed your dogs real/raw food? Please share in the comments below 🙂
Three and a half years ago, our barn kitty, Fitch, started to loose weight, he was 12 or 13 years old at the time. Trip to the vet for a checkup, nothing wrong other than cruddy teeth. Had bloodwork done, everything came back normal so had his teeth cleaned. His weight did not improve, he became more frail. We brought him home in October to live in the house before winter set in, thinking he only had a few months to live. Meanwhile I started on a whole foods journey which led to me starting him on a whole/raw foods diet. He’s still with us today, thriving at 16ish! Still a bit thin, but plenty of energy and fresh breathe. All critters in this household from now on will be on a whole food diet appropriate for their species!
I used to feed my cats and dogs raw. Lack of freezer space and laziness got the best of me though and this is a good reminder that now that we have a larger freezer we really should get back to raw food. Actually, since we raise our own meat animals now, it might be a good time to consider raising some of their food as well – especially rabbits.
Raw really is the way to go. If you set aside time, it’s easy to portion out a month’s worth of food at a time. Of course, you have to have room to freeze it, but it’s still doable. Glad to hear how well your pup is doing now!
What beautiful doggies. Hearing you had to send Zoe to the Rainbow Bridge early brought tears to my eyes. Dogs are such important members of the family. I am sorry for your loss.
We haven’t officially changed to a non-kibble diet, but our dog gets so much people-food that her kibble is half her diet. It is funny that when I cook something, I sometimes ask myself, “Will this be safe for the dog?” and leave out onions and other things that aren’t good for her. Switching to a DELIBERATE diet plan is a good idea.
I love this! I have been experiencing the same thing in my almost 5 year old dog. When my last dog died of cancer at 8 years old, it really got me thinking. It was probably one the turning points that led me to a real foods diet. I fed him the “best” dried kibble too. With our current dog, Danny, I started out doing homemade real food, but was buying Costco ground beef, and it just didn’t feel right. Shortly after Danny came into our lives, my first baby was born. He was extremely high need and with waking up every hour or two (seriously) for the first 8 months, Danny’s diet just fell by the wayside. My son is now 4 and I have learned a great deal about food for our family since then. Over the last month or so, I started feeding Danny using the same WAPF principles. It really was no longer an option feeding him kibble. He had chronic ear infection on one side, dry, itchy skin and he couldn’t keep weight on. So I knew he wasn’t properly absorbing the nutrients in his kibble no matter which kind we fed. Now I soak a big batch of rice and cook it weekly. He gets cod liver oil, sardines, kefir, chicken stock, raw egg yolks from our pastured ducks, cooked egg whites and raw meat and organ meat. I also add cooked veggies from our dinner or sometimes lettuce chopped really finely. He is thriving! As long as I keep his Omega 3s up, the itching is gone. The ear has healed itself and he has probably gained 10-15 lbs! I just wish I hadn’t been so concerned with finding the right balance of nutrients for the last 3 years. I, like you, had an epiphany and thought “If I feed my family by feeling it out and seeing how our bodies respond, why couldn’t I do the same for my dog?” I am so impressed with how he is responding. Thanks for this post!
Thanks for sharing this Megan! I only wish I would have realized this so many years ago.
I am super excited to read this!! We feed our outside animals scraps, but also dry food. I never feel good about it and am so curious about what they SHOULD be eating! Thank-you for this series and I can’t wait to read the next one!!!
After seeing how well Boaz is doing, I’m looking forward to seeing how you’ve approached a real food diet for dogs! We have an 8-year-old GSD female, Tucker, whom we rescued in 2009 from a no-kill shelter in the next county. They told us her history was largely unknown, but that they thought she may have been a police K9 that had been retired because of her dental issues. Her skin and coat were in poor condition; she had horrible gums, a broken tooth and a rotten tooth; and she was under 65 pounds. She was the most pitiful thing.
Three years later she is 85 pounds, with much-improved dental and coat health. Luckily for us, we have seen no signs of hip dysplasia (aka degenerative myelopathy) or neuropathy that is so common in the breed. She is my shadow and has appointed herself my personal protection dog during pregnancy – I don’t go more than 5 feet from her at any time. I’ve been interested in feeding real food for some time, especially as she has aged and we want her to be around for our child as long as possible, but the cost of feeding such a diet for her (and for our lab-mix, 6yo, and blue heeler, 5 yo) has always been preventative. I’m anxiously awaiting your next post. 🙂
Thanks for sharing Kate. When we had two dogs, we were going through 2 40lb bags of dried dog food a month. Total that cost us anywhere from $60 – $80 per month. With cheaper food that could cost around $40 a month. So, I think it really is doable to feed them whole real foods at around $50 – $60 dollars a month. If you’re dogs don’t have many health issues, you could also make them rice which is definitely cost efficient. Thanks again for stopping by!
I am a professional dog trainer, specializing in Military/Law Enforcement Dogs and have been for 20+ years. Since around 11 yrs old or so as its a family thing. I’ve fed raw and table scraps forever and always tell people about the benefits.
I love it. It’s not expensive if you do it right. Takes me 1/2 a day a month to prepare 30 days of food. Every city has large butcher shops basically (not the little one around the corner, too expensive) that provide restaurants their fresh meats. They also sell leftovers from butchering that they sell to make stocks/soup bases. I buy these as they are good for nothing else and are inexpensive. For instance, chicken necks or chicken carcasses I buy for around $20 for 40 lbs.
My journey to feeding real food to our dogs came much the way yours did, Diana. First I started wondering why so many friend’s dogs were getting cancer. Everywhere I turned someone was talking about their sick dogs. I couldn’t believe it! What the heck was going on?
So I started doing some research. First I found out that commercial foods that contain fish meal have been sprayed with a cancer causing chemical as a preservative. However, you won’t find the name of the preservative on the bag, because the dog food maker doesn’t have to list it. They only have to list things that they added. Because the fish meal is sprayed before it arrives to their factory, they don’t have to tell us about it. It made me wonder what the heck else is in it that they haven’t told us about???
About this time I was starting my family’s adventure with WAPF. We were all eating fats and feeling great, so when I read that putting dogs on a lowfat diet is stupid, I had a total “DUH!” moment. Of course they need fat too! I also read that wild dogs when taking down their kill will eat all the organs first and often leave the meat. Organs are full of fat! Another light bulb moment!
So against my husband’s wishes, I started making our dog’s food. He was worried about the cost, but we agreed to try it for 45 days. At his point, we had a puppy that was 11 months old. We had had him since he was 4 months and we had noticed how quickly during that time his teeth had already become gross and his breath stunk.
Within 10 days my husband said to me he couldn’t believe the difference in our dog’s coats. Within 30 days he noticed that the puppy’s teeth were getting whiter, within 45 days, my husband was a believer and we never went back to kibble. Yes, it costs more than kibble, but once you make the switch, the changes are so obvious that there is no going back!
I recently was talking to a woman at my health food store as I bought grass-fed liver. She told me her Rottweiler is 17 years old and she believes he has made it that long because he never ate kibble. And I believe her, because I’ve never heard of a big dog like a Rott living to 17 and still be playful!
What a great story Susan. Thanks so much for sharing!
Susan Did you ever find out what the name of the Preservative that is being sprayed on the Fish Meal? I would like to know so I can check my dachshunds treats. I feed her a Raw/dehydrated grain free food Called (All Natural Whole Food EASY RAW) by Only Natural Pet. I also feed her only natural grain free treats as well but I will still check her food cause you never know. I am so glad my daughter sent me this link. I still may just switch her to this diet.
Loved reading this, Diana… We have had trouble with our yellow lab having issues with both of her knees, as well as “allergies” that our vet hasn’t really been able to explain. We had started with Nutro and switched her food years ago to a better variety (or so we think) of all natural (at least, the ingredient list looks good to me) sweet potato and trout dog food. But, this really has me wondering about whether or not it’s really better. Looking forward to hearing more about the raw diet you feed your dog!
Thanks for stopping by Jen! Really, I think you’ll find that a raw/real food diet may help in a lot of these situations. I’d at least try it for a month or so and see how your lab does. I am just completely amazed at how my dog has turned so quickly 😀
Hi Diana,
Thanks for writing about your experience. I too have an older dog, a yellow lab that will be 8 in July. I feel guilty saying this, but prior to the past few weeks, I have never really given any thought about what we feed him. I can honestly say we don’t even feed him the “best” kibble. While he is very energetic, I have noticed that his fur is very dull looking and his teeth are icky and he stinks! 😉 His eyes even look kind of dull & his stools are loose too, and because he is a happy dog, I never really thought about the way we have been feeding him until recently, which is why it is so interesting to me that you posted this at this time! I as well do not trust the industrial food system for my family, as well as the FDA, so I don’t know why it is just now dawning on me to think about what we are feeding our family dog. Do you have any advice on where to start with a whole food diet for dogs? Ours is a LARGE yellow lab so I know he will be going through alot of food as well-I am hoping we can fit it in our budget :)Any advice you could give me on what you do and where to start would be wonderful.
Thank you!!
Hi Steph, I just wrote my newest post on what I feed my dog which should give you some good ideas on how to start and what I spend a week. I like you was so unaware until my dogs were much older. The quicker you can change their diet the healthier they’ll be 😉
Just minutes before I read your latest post, I was online ordering what I thought was excellent dog food; at least it was light years above grocery store stuff. But several months of it has not helped my overweight, gimpy-hip Aussie shepherd mix lose even a pound. I was trying to keep her off grains and carbs,and nothing I could find on the label (and I am an eagle-eyed, highly skeptical label reader)led me to believe this wasn’t a good choice. Then I just discovered this site: dogfoodadvisor.com. FANTASTIC. Go there immediately and see how your dog’s food stacks up. Three graphic representations of protein, fat and carb percentages are really helpful.
Go there now, but be aware you’ll want to bookmark the site because you’ll probably be there for hours and hours of education and enlightenment. From, a lifelong, loving dog owner who’s still learning 70 years later.
I’ll enjoy checking back into this comment string to see what others think of it.
Oh! I am so looking forward to your future posts on how to feed my dogs a whole food diet. I have four of them and they are not that great. Yes; it just recently dawned on me too that grains are probably not a good thing for them and that they are eating dead dry dog food that is not nourishing their gut at all. We started adding clabber (leftover raw milk that we didnt’ drink) to their food and they just love it. I’ve also added in beef bones leftover from homemade stock and they seem slightly calmer. But I really want to get rid of the kibble and see about a whole foods diet for them. I’m anxious to see just how to do that because like you I believed all the hype about not being able to provide the proper nourishment. Thanks for the great post!!
Thanks for stopping by Krisha! One thing, it’s never good to feed your dogs cooked bones. It’s these bones that can splinter and cause intestinal problems. Only raw 😉
Great post! I will be pinning this for sure!
Sorry, I get distracted yesterday and sent my comment off without adding that I have no connection to this website. He appears to be doing it as a labor of love — accepts no advertising or corporate donations. The latter is very evident in how (appropriately) low he ranks the big corporate products — the ones I’d suspect would jump the highest and fastest to influence his ratings.
I love this post mamma.
I’d love to do this with our Ragdoll cats but have noooo idea where to start… I’ve offered them raw liver but they wouldn’t eat it.
I am so sorry to hear of Zoe’s passing and Boaz’s ill health. I pray that Boaz continues to improve. Thank you for this blog. It is most serendipitous in that I started transitioning my German Shepherd to the BARF diet just this evening. (I found your blog looking for rendering lard this evening.) I am anxious on the transition as the propaganda has me concerned. I picked up 10 lbs of freezer burned meat cheap. Should I be worried about feeding bone-in pork chop?
Did you see the Dr. Wahls Ted Talk about curing MS and fueling the Mitochondria? The symptoms and causes of MS sound similar to Degenerative myelopathy and Muscular Dystrophy and I once had to a pet rabbit that was afflicted with the same symptoms as that described DM as well. Also of interest is the field of epigenetics, where agents cause the expression of genes; a genetic disease is not carved in stone.
Your Boaz looks so much like my Ghia! We got her near Lucas, IA and their coloring/markings are uncanny!
Jenny, we got Boaz near Lucas as well! Gorden Farms… http://gordenfarms.com/index.html
I was sad to see they are no longer breeding 🙁 Our Boaz is so precious and gentle I would have loved to get another GSD through them in the future. I would love to see pictures of your Ghia! Feel free to post any on my facebook page 😀
Can anyone please help me!!! I need my dog to GAIN some weight. And I want his coat to be better. Please. Email me!!! [email protected]. Thank you.
Francisco, have you been feeding your dog raw? If you want your dog to gain weight, you’ll have to increase his food. I’ve currently changed up Boaz’s diet from the post above. I make sure he has 2lbs of food per day. So, he’s getting 1.5 lbs of chicken organ meats, I’ve cut down the meat I make in a broth to two day instead of 3, and added an additional day of raw chicken legs with thighs. You’ll have to research how much your dog weighs and how many pounds of food he needs per day to stay healthy.
When I initially commented I clicked the “Notify me when new comments are added” checkbox and now each time a comment is added I get three e-mails with the same
comment. Is there any way you can remove people from that
service? Thanks a lot!
Hi my name is emely :-)… my husband and i got a puppy 2days agom, nd i dont know what to feed him ,when we got him she gave us some dry food for him and told us to feed him 2 a day , which it doesnt seem right to me , please tell me whats good for him tomeat pls:-):-):-):-)??? he is 8 weeks
my 11 month GS stopped eating, I wonder what we had done and what I must do. This answer more or so of what I’ve been looking for and what I’m about to do. Thank you for your post and am deff looking forward to your next story and the updates.
I have been feeding my 11 month old German Shepherd BARF since she was 5 months old. I haven’t had any issues till now. The past week or so she started picking certain things out and leaving whole pieces of chicken; as of the last two days she won’t eat any of it. I’m not sure what’s going on. She appears healthy and active and is trying to steal food from the counter so I know she’s hungry. She gets a variety of RMB, organ, muscle along with raw eggs, cottage cheese, yogurt. I’m about ready to switch back to dog food.
Maybe she’s bored with her protein sources? If she’s eating certain foods and leaving others behind, you may need to adjust what you’re giving her.
I am crying as I write this. My black German Shepherd, Malachi, died in October at 10 yrs of age. My grief is unbearable at times. His hip and back problems started after giving him Wagon Train chicken jerky treats for a few months. I stopped when I realized I was poisoning him, but at his age, he didn’t last but a year. He was happy, still chased my llamas, but paid the price for it at night. He died in my arms on October 10, 2013. In February, I am getting a GS puppy. Please let me know your complete dog diet. I want to start this one out the right way. I will do whatever it takes to keep my next dog healthy.
Hi Diana, I’ve also had wonderful results after putting my GSD (also named Zoe!) on a raw/cooked diet. She was always so itchy and we couldn’t figure out why. It turns out that she was allergic to seafood byproducts, including the fish oils which are commonly added to kibble as a source of Omega-3 and protein.
We got sick of having to spend $55/bag on Nature’s Balance kibble, so I switched her to raw meaty bones & cooked vegetables cold turkey. She loved it. Huge improvement in her condition!
But we got lazy, and then we got poor. Back to kibble (seafood-free). Her skin and coat have deteriorated to such as extent that her back end and legs are scabby from constantly chewing. The fleas are voracious and seem to love her more than our mutt, probably because her skin is in such bad shape. Internal and topical flea meds barely make a dent in the constant barrage of biting, and treating the yard and carpet is like trying to empty the ocean with a spoon.
So she’s been back on raw for 4 days now, getting one large meal of 1650kcal comprised of chicken backs, liver, cooked oats, steamed mixed veg, pumpkin puree, raw eggs, and some full-fat yogurt. The itching seems to have abated some, but in the shape she’s in it could take a month or two for her to heal and be able to fight off the fleas. Her average meal macro at the moment is 20% carbs/20% protein/60% fat. Her energy levels have certainly improved! She’s such an active girl that she burns through calories like crazy–most kibble is geared towards lazy indoor dogs.
Do you have any suggestions as to what else I can do for her? Giving flea baths helps for a short while but in no time the buggers are back on her and driving her mad. Boric acid has been swept into the fibers of our carpet, their dog beds are filled with red cedar shavings, the yard is sprayed every two weeks to stay on top of the flea cycles.
Hi I have a beautiful german shepherd who is a bit overweight I think I would like to start cooking for her instead of buying shop bought food. Please could you give me some ideas for a diet. I’d really appreciate it! Thank you regards Sue
Like it. Thank a lot for doing such a good job. I’ll check here to see what’s new and tell my acquaintenances about it.
My 3 year old German Shepherd dog Trent eats;
cooked quinoa , rice. lentils. beans, split green peas, fish etc…
added to his meals he eats some spaices good for anti-inflammatory or anti-bacterial , anti-fungal properties as; orégano because is anti-bacterial and turmeric anti-inflammatory, etc….
Very regulary he loves to eat oatmeal with cinnamon and flax seeds or keifir with cinammon and suflower seeds or pumpkin seeds , or
almonds , sunflower seeds , sesame seeds , flax seeds ,pumpkin seeds
added to his meals he has i teaspoon of
flax seed oil or fish oil or , walnut oil or coconut oil or olive oil
He eats different kinds of fruits and vegetables except Onions and Grapes, he even eats radishes!!!!
He has with evry meal A table spoon of Apple Cider Vinegar and homede milk kefir (from a bacteria culture) once a day
I never have feed him dog food because I think it is not healthy.
He is very healthy and full of energy , and his coat is brilliant shinny, his weight is perfect according to the vet doctor
I have to agree with some of the comments. Commercial dogs food is only good composting, not for dogs.
I have a Black German Shepherd and I only feed her raw meats etc. She is fast alert and a hunter. Loves rabbits and she catches them, while hunting and eats them on the spot. She loves spirulina and chlorella, fish oils and sardines…
Try not to cook for them. Give it (raw) raw eggs, raw chicken with bones, cottage cheese and other raw vegs. Mine goes to the garden and eats the artichokes leaves, watermelon leaves and others. She loves her salmon oils and hemp oils.
hi i have a 6yrs female german shepherd at present feeding her monetego classic from birth want to know what other food from local supermarkets i can feed her and want is the best food for her age i can feed her.
i have an a german shepherd dog whose name is sultan .
The problem i found with him is he does nit bark loudly and dont listen my orders…….
but he was so dashing about his work like playing with me and running…..
n he was of only 2 months
n what is correct food for him…?
How do you feed raw? My husband’s worried about bacteria making our two GSDs sick. We have seven and nine year old. We lost our four year old unexpectedly. Doc thinks heart attack. Very active, giant boy, healthy coat, no known medical issues. We want do best for two we have. years of feeding dry food from chain store, corn based unfortunately we didn’t know better. Recently gone grain free, but not sure if best route.
Hello,
I have a white German shepherd and she’s been getting sick a lot. She’s only one year old. I would feed her puppy chow and changed it to dog chow but she wouldn’t eat it. I’m looking for a raw food recipe for her. If you are able to help me, please email me at [email protected] I would really appreciate it!
I’m getting a German Shepherd puppy the end of July and he will be on a raw diet as well. I have 3 dogs now that are all rescues, all mixed breeds, and I just switched them over to a raw diet a few days ago. My concern is the level of antibiotics and steroids in the meat you buy at the grocery stores? Does that concern anyone? Organic meat is way too expensive but I figure, a raw diet has to be better for our canine friends than kibble. I was feeding Blue Buffalo basic, grain free, to my dogs but the bags seem to be getting smaller and the price higher each time I go to buy dog food. It was 53.99 for 28lbs last week, which prompted me to go raw.
I have just got max who is ten weeks old German Shepard and I need to get hie diet right as we live in Zimbabwe and there are all kinds of nastiness about with bugs and parasites
Hi Des, I used to live in Zimbabwe too. We had two Jack russells there fed on raw beef. Now I have a GSD,( my second one) and both have been fed on raw tripe and chicken since weaning. As puppies they got 1 pound of raw minced tripe twice a day plus one raw chicken wing. It’s a bit scary feeding the chicken wing at first, but they soon get the hang of it. When he was old enough my present GSD, Timber, got raw tripe in chunks plus the chicken wings. He still gets the 1 pound tripe plus a wing morning and evening, and a handful of biscuits as a treat at bedtime. He’s 3 years old now and is looking great. Hope this helps. Judy
Ive recently got a pariah dog last month and she’s nearing 8 wks old. I feed her twice a day with fish or chicken soups and twice a day with mixed fruit or vegetable salads. She doesnt have a sip of water. Is this food advisable. Sometimes I feed her rice or 1/4 chappaty.
Abt her potty training, find it a lot irkesome. Could u give me some tips.
Thanks and best regards
Jess
Hi,
I’ve read this post over and over not just because I’d been researching RMB meals but every paragraph hit a common nerve in me with my own dogs. When my girl was diagnosed with DM, I couldn’t find anything on how this disease could be cured. But I did find out it starts with genetics, the environment, and the food. We just need to be more conscience and more aware of how we care for our furry family members. Thank you for posting this! I’m sure others will find valuable information here as did I.
Thanks for sharing, Tammy!
According to my experience raw food is best for dogs but we should give them this food in limit.Another thing is that homemade food is the best food for our pets.If we chose dry food for our dog it is so important to chose food according to them because many pets have allergies, ear infections, digestive problems and another health issues.
Great input, Jay. Thanks for sharing.
I have a 45+ days germen shepherd. Her name is KUTTUS. Last sunday I went to a VET and asked for a Diet chart but I was so surprised to hear that not to give meat or egg to my puppy. He suggested to feed only rice and other vegitables we usually eat. I TRIED TO FEED IT Kuttus but she is not showing any interest eating it. she wants to eat meat only. What should I do? I am really very confused. She is my first puppy ever so I donnt have any idea……
Nil, this article was to share what I did with my German shepherd dog. I might try looking for some raw food diet forums to get more information.