Raw diet for dogs

All the best for 2018 to all my readers and blogging pals!

I haven't written anything for a while, but Penny has been getting on with life much in her usual way, albeit more slowly now that she is a senior citizen.

We've moved Penny onto a raw diet, after much consideration, and so far she seems well. Her coat is glossy and she is interested in life.

We're giving a limited range of muscle meats. We started with kangaroo, which has the reputation of being the idea meat for dogs, but I'm concerned that my neighbour told me this industry is not regulated well and the babies are often left to die after hunters kill the kangaroos. I'll have to research this more. It's hard to find meat that is ethically sourced.

We had stopped with the kangaroo anyway, because of the dark, runny poos that Penny was doing. Lots of sites on the internet say that this can be expected with a change to kangaroo, but it was still scary, as I couldn't distinguish definitely that Penny was not bleeding somewhere in the upper digestive system.

We moved to veal (yes, another ethically  problematic meat!) and beef, which has led to better bowel motions. We're lucky that a shop has opened in our neighbourhood, providing a huge selection of meats, some with ground bone, some with organ meat, and some with shredded vegetables.

We also give Digestavite, Vitamin C, turmeric, antibiobotanical, home-juiced vegetables and omega oil. We added goat kefir for a few weeks, but I think that doesn't suit her digestive system, so we've stopped that one. For most of her life we've been giving her Glyde for her joints.

Today we've started her on rabbit as a muscle meat, and the naturopath who runs the pet supply shop says this is a very good meat for Penny, because it contains organ meat and bone.

So far so good. The aim is to have a couple of meals a week that consist of a meaty bone, but she tends to simply bury any bone we give her. She then goes back for it a few days later, when it smells delightful to her - but disgusting to us. So bone-eating is still a work-in-progress.

Penny chased her first rabbit

Walking in a fresh spot today, I was enjoying the newly-mown grass, and Penny was enjoying the longer patches that had been left to grow.

She was munching on some long leaves and smelling the smells, and didn't notice a rabbit sitting right near her, ignoring us. Fortunately, before Penny realised what was going on, the rabbit leaped into the long grass and hid.

 I won't be letting Penny into long grass in couple of weeks, because as soon as the weather warms up, the snakes will be out.

Because I'd already seen the rabbit, I wasn't too surprised when Penny dashed off from me in pursuit of another one - her first rabbit! I'm super pleased to report that when I called a sharp 'come!', she left the rabbit and headed back to me for her well-deserved reward.

feeding dogs bones

I didn't succeed with setting up a tooth-cleaning routine for Penny, even though I'd bought the toothpaste and the finger-toothbrush. I think I just wasn't prepared to put the work in. (I've still got all the equipment, though, so I can always try again another time.)

So, today I remembered I'd better buy Penny some meaty meals that would get her teeth working. I bought a few brisket bones, because a friend told me they are softer than most bones, and my butcher had confirmed this (sort of). I also bought a rabbit - fresh, not frozen - and the butcher cut it into six pieces.

She had a look at the rabbit in her bowl and decided it wasn't too appetising, but she took the brisket bone and ate it up in twenty-five minutes of hard chewing. So I guess that was successful as a tooth-cleaning exercise. Not all that successful as a meal, in my opinion, because it did look fatty and there wasn't much meat on it.

But the rabbit was still waiting on the eating mat, where Penny had dropped it. And she wasn't interested in it.

Until I picked up a plastic bag. Who says dogs don't have good memories? Months ago, if not years ago, when Penny left a piece of rabbit on her mat, I picked it up with my hand in a plastic bag and popped it back into the fridge to keep cool (in her special drawer in the fridge, away from our food).  So this time, when she heard the rattle of the plastic, she leapt to grab her unwanted rabbit and hurried out through the doggy door to bury it.

Of course she buried it right under a precious plant. Doesn't she always? Let's hope that if she forgets it, the thornless blackberry likes a bit of meat around its roots.

The dirt or the rabbit must have tasted okay, because she was licking her soil-encrusted mouth as she hurried back inside to check whether something tastier might have appeared in her bowl. (It hadn't.)

PS. I researching this article, I came across an interesting post about feeding bones to dogs. The writer says that we should take out the thin bone in chicken thighs, because it is very sharp. I had already come to the conclusion that the thigh is the only part of the chicken carcass that I don't think is safe for Penny to eat.