Wednesday, October 3, 2007

I love feeding Ike raw!

So, I went to the EFP seminar last week after making the transition to feeding two raw meals. I received confirmation that I am not going to blow the boy up by feeding him raw, which I guess is what I needed. I bought some Bravo! elk, buffalo, and venison. Cutting up the Bravo! rolls this weekend, I couldn't get over how much more meat-like! they are than the "complete" raw diets. Interesting - they look like raw meat while the "complete" raw food is lightly-colored, finally ground, aesthetically pleasing "medallions." Hmmmm.....I sense an undercurrent here....

This weekend I went to the supermarket super-early on Sunday and Shaw's was having a GREAT sale on chicken wings. They also had beef marrow bones and oxtails. Now, I am not sure if I should be feeding beef marrow bones from the super market on a regular basis but I figured for the price I would grab them.

Sunday afternoon I gave Ike one of the beef marrow bones. He went over, sniffed it, walked away, and looked at me like, "what's going on?" I told him to go ahead and try it, he went back and started working on it. I am a dork, but it nearly made me CRY to see him so happily licking and gnawing away. He spent a couple of hours working on that bone and he didn't even get all the marrow out of it. He had a blast!

It's so warped to me what we have done to our dogs, taking away this really natural aspect of their dietary lives because we aren't comfortable with "it" and the possible germs. They survived for a very long time without us humans micro-managing their diets.

Monday after hiking I gave Ike a chicken wing. Well, he couldn't figure out what to do with it. He took it up on the futon and tried to bury it. Needless to say, John was distressed by that! I am going to try again with the chicken wing. I think maybe he was too tired after the hike? Or maybe he's a lazy eater!? Thoughts?

Oh, and I ordered a cheap-ish scale to make sure I don't accidentally feed Ike more than he should be getting!

5 comments:

Katrin said...

Oh boy, I remember the days of 'the scale'. Then I realized, this is ludicrus! My DOGS are telling me how much they need to eat! Just look at their weight, their coat, their skin etc.

On the chicken wing, bang it up with a mallet a bit, to crunch up some of the bones and get it all gross and meaty, they really like it then! And pretty soon he'll be eating them without the mallet crunch 1st.

Congrats on taking the plung!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Katrin said...

Oh yeah, the reason they look more meat like is because the meats you are feeding- buffalo, elk, venison are RED meats! Lamb, chicken, turkey are not. Hence the light appearance in the medalions.

Jules said...

Awesome idea about the mallet. I will try it.

I have been feeding Ike the beef,venison, and chicken "complete" frozen diets. These (red)meats are my first Bravo! purchases. The other stuff I have are from Primal and Nature's Variety.

No lamb, too fatty and no turkey, he's already laid back enough!

Jules said...

At least, I have so far (in my brief adventure)grouped lamb as too fatty since Ike is on a diet and schnazuers are prone to hyperlipidemia....

Katrin said...

I would agree about the lamb.

LOL- I never thought about the triptaphalene (sp?) in the turkey! You are sooo right!!!!!!