Easy Steps: Switching Your Dog To Raw

Addicted to Kibble?

Having trouble transitioning your cat from dry/tinned food to a raw diet?

This is a flowchart I put together when I owned True Carnivores the raw food store for cats and dogs. Hope it helps.

Two Teeth Pulled at Age Eighteen

My sweet 18 year old baby girl had two teeth pulled. No anaesthetic. She did very well. I'm a wreck.

I first noticed that something was 'wrong' when she started 'clacking' her teeth together, after chewing and swallowing her raw chicken necks. Upon further inspection I saw a loose tooth - half in and half out, hanging from her gums. Same situation the other side of her mouth. Ugh.

These two loose teeth were the same ones that I'd had capped many years ago, shortly after I rescued her. She was a puppy, and I was a new puppy owner. And at that time I still fed dry kibble and let her chew on 'nylabones' to keep her, and her teeth, happy and out of mischief. Unfortunately, she managed to 'slab-fracture' her teeth while chewing on these things.

I took her to the 'tooth vet'. He said I had two options: pull 'em, or have them capped.

I chose to have her teeth capped for a number of reasons, but mainly because I knew that dogs get a lot of pleasure from chewing and crunching on bones. Plus, I'd recently switched her to a raw diet, and raw meaty bones were keeping her teeth clean.

These 'bionic teeth' served her for many years, but it was decision time again. Should I pull them, or replace them. As the picture shows, the answer was: pull.

She's still enjoying her chicken necks.

What Goes In...Must Come Out. What Are You Feeding?

We are what we eat. And that goes for our dogs, too. These samples of 'output' are from my own dogs. One is temporarily on a 'quality/high grade' kibble. The other is on her regular raw prey diet. Which one would you rather pick up and dispose of? Silly question, right?

Dr. Tom Lonsdale, a raw feeding proponent, and author of Raw Meaty Bones, calls it 'chalky white poo', and says: "Natural dog poo is mostly white powdered bone about one third the volume of the artificial stuff." And his thought on kibble? He says: "The foul excrement on the soles of our shoes is indigestible cereal and bacteria, the end product of unnatural feeding."

The evidence demands a verdict. What are you feeding your pet tonight?

dakota

Response to FDA Pet Food Video - Please watch - for your pets' sake.

Raw Food Rocks!
Confessions of a Raw Feeder

In 1996, my partner and I founded True Carnivores, the raw food store for cats and dogs. I've been feeding a raw prey diet to my dogs for almost 2 decades now. Raised on raw, my Jill Russell Terrorist is now 18, and my Nova Scotia Duck Toller is 15. My cat was shifted to raw at age 18 and lived til 21 years. We saw so many benefits for all.

Benefits

• fresher breath
• cleaner teeth
• shinier coat
• no itchies
• not hotspots
• no fleas!
• and perhaps the biggest bonus for me, the human, was LESS POOP. The animals were not having to 'pump out' those undigested grains/carbs.

Well, I just recently decided to 'pass the torch' on to a new owner for True Carnivores (the store), but I haven't stopped talking about the value of feeding a raw diet to your cats and dogs. So, if any of you 'out there' have questions, or, need some encouragement on making the transition to raw...maybe I can help. And if you are in the Greater Vancouver area, always stop in and talk with the knowledgeable staff at True Carnivores. Your dogs and cats will LOVE you for it.!