no I am not a writer, but I do read constantly. I LOVE digging and finding information.
The only writing I ever got paid for was writing papers for people who were in college. SHHH! Don't tell! My papers were "A" papers too.

Cathy
when she first came home

i would rather have people grind their raw food than feed kibble....some bulls do just great my charlies can handle any type of bone...my wilson becasue of a small trechea cannot or maybe i wont take the chance....
cathy wrote what she did in a fun way....and it was funny...i no alot of raw feeders and when i mentor someone who is starting...that is what i get....what cathy wrote....
i have friends who are die hard raw feeders....i respect them and they respect the way i have changed in feeding raw to my bulldogs....
always remember raw is better than kibble.....no matter how we do it...and raw feeders in my mind are some times way to hard on kibble feeders some times....
i hope you share your ideas with us here...becasue we can never stop learning....would love to know what you do and how you do it.....
as i tell everyone who trys raw have fun...enjoy feeding your dog its a time to bond....

because you've obviously missed something, or somehow read things that weren't there at all.

Cathy
when she first came home

I'm sorry you had a bad experience, I've fed my bulldog raw since we brought her home at 10 weeks old, never had any issues, never had to grind her food. I've never "preached" to anyone that doesn't feed raw, everyone has different dogs with different needs. I don't think you have the right to "slam" people who feed raw by saying that your dog lives in a house etc. so therefore should be what...fed kibble and the rest of us "raw feeders" have a distorted view on the common dogs anatomy and what the nutritional needs are. Yes, your bulldog didn't manage to chew the chicken and you ended up with a mess on your carpet, that obviously made you have negative perspective on raw feeding. What would your repsonse be if your dog did great with it and ate it without any issues, loved it and chewed the bones without any effort?

I think opinions are great...keeping in mind that they are just that, opinions.

Tammy

my dogs really love their raw food, Audrey just can't deal with big hunks of it. There really is a HUGE difference in the way my other 2 dogs eat compared to Audrey. They don't have any problems with it at all.

Cathy
when she first came home

here are a few good links - I really try hard not to over analyze what I'm doing - I figure anything I'm feeding my dog raw or cooked is better than processed kibble...I can already tell a difference in Twister's tear stains in just 2 weeks

this one has feeding co-ops

http://www.dogaware.com/dogfeeding.html#co-ops

and here is a new raw product - they are going to be at the show I'm going to this weekend, so I'm going to check them out

http://www.blueridgebeef.com/

We should help each other out with feeding raw.
I need all the help I can get.



Cathy
when she first came home

the "froth" to apreciate it! EEWWW!

It seems like there are a LOT of people starting to feed raw. That's exciting!

Cathy
when she first came home

I am not convinced that farm raised, grain fed meat animals have the same nutritional value to my dog as a wild, grass, nut, fruit, bug eating prey animal. Wolves are the basis for the prey model diet, and no wild wolf is going to eat farm raised chickens for the bulk of it's diet. The more I read the more questions I have instead of answers! Audery just looks too good on the Primal to convince me her nutrition is being compromised because it's ground and has veggies in it.

Cathy
when she first came home

You have been SUCH a tremendous help to me! I did join the raw feeding list on yahoo, but those people are SO RIGID and insist that there is only ONE way to feed every dog that ever lived. Bulldogs are NOT just like every other dog, they definitely have some unique physical characteristics that MUST be taken into consideration when you feed them. Even amongst bulldogs there is so much variation you can not make a blanket statement that would apply to ALL of them. Your attitude and flexibility is what encourages me to keep at it.

Thanks!

Cathy
when she first came home

you should sent that into The Bark or another dog magazine! Are you a writer??

standing ovation from me!


I don't rescue animals because I want to feel better about myself, or morally superior to anyone. The best part of my life with animals is the humility they teach and the humanity the foster.
Jon Katz "Soul of a Dog"

raw...with some meat on it and all...she looked at it....flipped it up in the air...looked at it, smelled it...flipped it again...then brought it over to me like "did you forget to cook this or what?". Last time for me giving raw boned meat too....Funny however...wish I had had a picture of her.


Lorraine
If only I was as good a person as my dogs seem to think I am!
Find us on:
www.karismakennels.com

eewww! I absolutely draw the line at dragging bodies home for my dogs to eat. It is one thing to get back to basics and quite another to try to live 2 centuries in the past.

And I totally agree, every dog is different and it's not realistic to think they will all thrive with the exact same feeding style.



Cathy
when she first came home

my rottweilers would of been horrified if i had ground their meat....they use to get whole chickens....for a meal...my danes were a bit more fussy and i cut it up for them...
now the bulldogs have been a whole new experience and a bit more work than my otheres were...
wilson has a hypolastic trechea so i dont want him bringing foam and stuff back up...in case of pneumonia...neither charlie or wilson like to get slimy and if their holding on to chicken breast,,,their feet and face get googy....they dont like that....
as for the raw feeding forum.....no i will not pick up dead deer from the side of the road....or dead animals from anyones yard.....(maybe my neighbors cat who pooped in my new flower bed) only kidding....
but their are good ideas their....and i respect that some people really like to get to the basics of feeding...
i can only picture charlie and wilson watching me drag a deer carcess to the car....i am sure one would try to drive off....
have fun....
what she got now????? are we going to have to eat it???

as i posted in a early note...the reason i grind my food is the slippery yucky mess....i may cut in 2 inch chunks but i prefer to grind to about 1 inch.....most raw feeders will teach their dogs to eat on large plastic sheets that they rinse off in a tub....
i myself do not like the slimy feeling of chicken..... i will once a week split a whole chicken and they will eat and grind that up...but in the kitchen...while i am cleaning house....
i feed lamb ribs that cleans their teeth....pigs feet has tendons and bones and that cleans their teeth nicely....
i feed my dogs with me on the bed at nite.....so i dont want googy food all over my bed sheets...
you need to adapt to your likeing...raw ground up food is still better than kibble.....

I keep hearing those wonderful words from Judy when I picked her brain over and over starting out "just have fun with it"!!

We started yesterday and Stella did the same thing.
I gave her a drumstick and she tried to eat it whole and puked the whole frothy mess back up all over my kitchen floor.
So my DH bought me a big butcher block cutting board and a hatchet to at least make the chunks more manageable for her and keep them in her bowl.
I hacked drumsticks up into 4 and that seems to work well for her little mouth.
I also hacked up an entire chicken!

DH is going to the butcher to get some necks for her.

I also gave her a boiled egg, which she LOVED!


and the cats get some tuna or salmon with raw garlic diced up in it so I gave her some of that and she LOVED it too!

so far so good!


Tiffany and Stella

Twister has been on raw for a little over 2 weeks now (and yes, we were fortunate enough to be part of the Nature's Variety recall - lucky us with a bag of the best if used by 11/10/10 at home and 4 patties missing) Thankfully he was fine...

I feed a combo of raw premade patty and my own raw...just this weekend I ground a huge pack of chicken necks for him...yeah, I probably could have handled him eating those, they are small and he has eaten cut up chicken wing before - but why stress Mom, I'm sure he still got the same benefit and so didn't not care...plus I also give him raw meaty bones and like audrey, he's a toy eating machine! LOL