Help! - Health and homemade dog food

[Piratish]

Help!

I have a male shih tzu who just turned 7 and he has been having some bizarre health problems - dry/flaky itchy skin, patches of fur missing, lethargy, weight gain, and some weird (what would appear to be pus-filled) boils on his inner thigh. We've gotten blood tests (he is not hypothyroidic, has no apparent problems) and he's been put on various medications with no results. My mom thinks he has a parasite, but after doing research on what's really in the commercial dog food we feed him, I wonder if that is a contributing factor.

Today, we were out of dog food, so I looked up some homemade dog food recipes and in the process discovered that what we've been feeding him doesn't give him the nutrients he needs! Right now he's on Pedigree (which gets 1 star out of 6 on dogfoodanalysis.com) puppy formula, despite being middle-aged. Unfortunately, I did not have sufficient ingredients and decided to just improvise: I cut up and microwaved a vegetarian hot dog and put it in his bowl with some diced raw baby carrots and dumped a little vegetable broth on top. He ate all of it and seemed to enjoy it.

For his second meal (he generally gets about 4-6 oz. per meal, twice a day, which is roughly equivalent to 2-3% of his total body weight), I gave him more of the same, along with a mixture of cooked and raw boneless chicken breast and some unsalted chicken broth. I figured I had covered both protein and vegetables, but was this ill-advised?

I am worried that the change from dry dog food to people-food was way too sudden and that he is going to start barfing carrots all over the house. Also, I was terrified to give him the raw chicken so I microwaved it for a few seconds, but apparently some dog owners keep their dogs on an all-raw diet - is this a good idea?

Does anybody have any recipes (keeping in mind that I am a domestically challenged teenager) or advice for me? Thanks!

[tiffers]

First off....Pedigree is at the bottom of the commercial dog food list in my opinion. There are so many BETTER commercial choices than Pedigree. Secondly, this guy needs to be eating a 'senior' formula. Not puppy. He's 7...that makes him 50 human years old.

Have you tried high quality dog foods? Have you told your vet that you feed him Pedigree? That alone can be the problem.

[Kkye]

I am worried that the change from dry dog food to people-food was way too sudden and that he is going to start barfing carrots all over the house. Also, I was terrified to give him the raw chicken so I microwaved it for a few seconds, but apparently some dog owners keep their dogs on an all-raw diet - is this a good idea?

I just started feeding my dogs a raw diet a few days ago, after a couple months of researching and getting comfortable with it. There are a few other people on this site who do as well, and swear by it. I know I'll never, ever go back to kibble, ever. We get so caught up in commercial dog food, and it's really not the greatest.

Dogs don't need any types of grains, they don't need flax and wheat and oats and rice..and alot of these things are what makes up most of the bulk of commercial dog food. I forget how exactly it works, but their digestive systems basically cannot extract any benefit whatsoever from all this grain matter..they can't digest it because they don't eat it naturally. And I have come to find that alot of allergies and skin issues arise from being allergic to these unneeded grains in kibble.

A dog will get everything they need from a raw diet, nutrient-wise, and there are benefits associated with it. I've read that because of all the additives and addicting factors in the dog food (along with it being sprayed with rendered fat or something, for flavour so the dog would actually eat that junk) that they can even act different after being on raw for awhile, cuz they're not buzzing off what would be similar to a "sugar buzz" in a kid.

A general ratio to follow is 80% muscle, 10% bone and 10% organ. You want the nutritional value of the bone, otherwise your dog will just degenerate because muscle meat alone is not enough to nutritionally sustain them. When I first heard I could feed my dog chicken bones, I was like "omg, no way, she'll die" but no, not when they're raw. Never feed bones if they are cooked, it changes the structure of them and that's when they get dangerous. Raw chicken bones are so soft, the dogs crunch through them no problem.

Basically, there are two types of "raw" feeding. One is BARF (Bones And Raw Food) which basically consists of ground meat along with the bones and whatever amount of organ, plus a binding material, and it calls for all sorts of supplements and raw veggies and all that...none of that is necessary. It's basically to make people "feel better about feeding raw". The other type is called prey-model raw, where you "model" their natural "prey" by feeding "raw". This consists of the muscle, bone and organ I wrote about earlier. That's what I feed my girls, raw chicken backs and legs/quarters and necks, and then I can graduate to other kinds of meats. I get chickens from the poultry plant with just the breasts removed, and I hack 'em all up and bag them in proportions for my girls. The general guidline is to feed 3-4% of total body weight to puppies, 2-3% for adults, just as you said.

Hopefully that (whole bunch) of information is helpful! I should add though, that if you do decide in the end to switch your dog to raw (and he will eternally thank you), make sure you stick with it because you could kinda bugger up his insides switching back and forth, because kibble takes at least twice as long to digest as kibble.

And, what I was told was that most owners switch dogs to raw "cold turkey", and give them their "last supper", basically to feed the last meal of kibble at night, and make sure they have a nice big poo in the morning before jumping straight into the raw, because you don't want all that good stuff to get lodged in behind the kibble.

It's Monday now, and I switched my girls Saturday morning, and already their poops are smaller (cuz they use most of what they get from the meat and bone) and the ones that they've popped out have already started to disintegrate in the rain.

Like I said, I'd never go back! It's a little more work, but I actually enjoy cutting these chickens up and the girls are in complete ecstasy gnawing the meat and crunching through the bones.

[Kkye]

Oh, and cooking meat for them takes out all the nutritional value. I may add bits here and there, if you're interested. I'm totally into this raw thing..if you have any questions I'll try my best to answer them, but I'm still new at this.

:)

[Kkye]

http://www.rawfed.com/myths/feedraw.html

I found this to be a very helpful and easy to read website in regards to raw feeding, and comparing it to a BARF diet, if you're interested.

[PetGuru]

I couldn't agree more with the posts on this thread. I own a chain of natural pet supply stores in the Pacific Northwest (Nature's Pet (http://www.naturespetfranchise.com)) and we highly recommend feeding raw. If you are comfortable with the idea of feeding a raw diet, go for it!! You will be amazed at the results. Northwest Naturals Original Raw Diet has a great page on their website explaining some of the benefits of feeding raw. I've included their content below:
-------------------------------------------------------------
BENEFITS OF RAW
A series of positive changes will occur in your dog in response to being fed NW Naturals™ dog food. These changes may occur almost immediately, while others appear as prolonged quality of life.

In the first several days, your dog may experience:
~ Decreased anxiety level between meals
~ Decreased hyperactivity
~ Increased energy level
~ Increased food drive
~ Normalization of stools

In the first several weeks, your dog may have:
~ A more attentive disposition
~ An improvement in/or disappearance of skin allergies, disorders and irritation
~ An improvement in colon health
~ Brighter and clearer eyes

In the first several months, you may notice:
~ Your dog has a healthier, shinier, softer coat
~ Your dog completely digests dog food
~ Your dog has more stamina
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Quoted From (http://www.rawnaturalpetfood.com/h_n.html)

[Kkye]

I just have to say, today is the 4th day my girls have been on raw, and they have increased energy (believe it or not, lol) and are much less hyper-active already. I notice it the most in my collie/lab mix, who is always bouncing off the walls.

Yesterday, she was content to lay in the grass. She never does that.

[Piratish]

Thanks for the help yall :O) Today is Quiz's second day on raw.

I had a question about eggs though - I see a lot of people like to feed raw eggs, shell and all. Is this dangerous? What if I just cracked it and dumped the contents in a bowl for him?