Is this a good combination?

euser1984

I have tried every recommendation on dry food and tried load of brands including expensive ones....my last attempt to switch her over happened recently and she lost 4kg which I was really shocked to discover! I did know she had lost some weight.

At the moment I am giving her raw mince which is mixed in with mashed boiled potatoes which a small bit of butter.

It's being mixed with either pork or beef mince since I started a few days ago. As the special offers come along I can add more variation in types of meat.

I have no doubt that after 3 days (she is fed twice a day) she will soon, turn her nose towards the potatoes as she gets sick of eating them all the time. I'm not sure yet what to swap it with - maybe boiled rice?

The main worry is the potatoes because I honestly have not caught her in the act of going to the toilet once since!

peasant

I have no idea about barfing or what you are trying to achive.

I would however stop feeding raw pork immediately, it is not a safe food for dogs, it may contain the aujeszky virus

http://www.petplace.com/dogs/pseudorabies-aujeszky-s-disease-in-dogs/page1.aspx

tk123

peasant wrote: »

I have no idea about barfing or what you are trying to achive.

I would however stop feeding raw pork immediately, it is not a safe food for dogs, it may contain the aujeszky virus

http://www.petplace.com/dogs/pseudorabies-aujeszky-s-disease-in-dogs/page1.aspx

Feeding raw pork is fine as is cooking it medium rare, The OP is feeding human grade pork from the supermarket not a rotten carcase found in a field?

OP if you were otherwise happy with the food she lost weight on would you not just increase the amount you were feeding? Or did she lose weight from not eating it? You can mix mince/raw and dry food too btw - its a myth that you can't..

euser1984

tk123 wrote: »

OP if you were otherwise happy with the food she lost weight on would you not just increase the amount you were feeding? Or did she lose weight from not eating it? You can mix mince/raw and dry food too btw - its a myth that you can't..

That's a relief. Problem was she would never eat the nuts and I always had to put in different kind of mixers, which she would get bored with rather quickly - it was too much labour and trouble to keep doing it. Like planning meals for a child.

In the last attempt she would only lick the mixer off due to it being a lower grade than "Royal Canin" of all brands. She was on that long enough + all the extra work involved.

I didn't think about adding mixers to the protein source (at the moment it's beef, not pork) to make a good meal without too much meat needing to be added.

Potatoes it is for now anyway....there seems to be conflicting advice out there regarding the skins of the potatoes. I thought the skins were the best part for humans in regards to nutrients and minerals....

DBB

You'll need to feed more variety than just meat and spuds or rice OP. That's not a particularly balanced diet, so unless you do a lot of research on balancing the raw/fresh diet, you're as well of to continue with the good quality dry with meat mixed in... my dogs (also GSDs) prefer their dry food steeped a while in hot water, with meat thrown in. I think I'd avoid the butter though OP, there's plenty of fat already in the meat.

TK, did you hear officially somewhere that it's ok to mix meat with dry? It's a point I always thought held no water, it doesn't make a huge amount of sense really, and I've always ignored it

peasant

tk123 wrote: »

Feeding raw pork is fine as is cooking it medium rare, The OP is feeding human grade pork from the supermarket not a rotten carcase found in a field?

Let's just remember the human grade horse flesh Lasagna

Raw pork is a risk I'm not ready to expose my dogs to. The Aujeszky virus is harmless to humans and might easily slip through QC (accidentally or on purpose)

DBB

peasant wrote: »

Let's just remember the human grade horse flesh Lasagna

Raw pork is a risk I'm not ready to expose my dogs to. The Aujeszky virus is harmless to humans and might easily slip through QC (accidentally or on purpose)

I wouldn't feed raw human-grade pork, simply because humans are expected to cook it, which presumably negates a lot of the risks. I *think* it's hard to digest too.. or did I dream that?:o

tk123

DBB wrote: »

TK, did you hear officially somewhere that it's ok to mix meat with dry? It's a point I always thought held no water, it doesn't make a huge amount of sense really, and I've always ignored it

I can't remember if I read it on a forum or in an article shared on FB?! But it makes no sense - different foods digest at different times right? Its not like there's a queue where everything else is held up because one thing takes longer to digest than the other? A raw meaty bone would take one time to digest the meat and one to digest the bone - the meat doesn't sit "fermenting" because the bone is still processing.

For porky pig I don't give the dogs that much because I tend to cook lean cuts of it for ourselves on the bbq (yes I bbw all year round :cool:) so wouldn't have much scraps for them. When I cook something like pork belly I always get it bones in and feed them the bones and grizzle without any probs. I actually had loads of ribs saved for Bailey for when he could have bones again because the ribs are so soft lol!

And peasant - have you never been to Switzerland - nothing wrong with bit of horse meat! :pac:

chefward

euser1984 wrote: »

That's a relief. Problem was she would never eat the nuts and I always had to put in different kind of mixers, which she would get bored with rather quickly - it was too much labour and trouble to keep doing it. Like planning meals for a child.

In the last attempt she would only lick the mixer off due to it being a lower grade than "Royal Canin" of all brands. She was on that long enough + all the extra work involved.

I didn't think about adding mixers to the protein source (at the moment it's beef, not pork) to make a good meal without too much meat needing to be added.

Potatoes it is for now anyway....there seems to be conflicting advice out there regarding the skins of the potatoes. I thought the skins were the best part for humans in regards to nutrients and minerals....

Dry food... With a little warm water. Leave it down for half hour... Then remove it... Replace at end of the day, again for half hour... She will get hungry and eat... Dogs eat by smell so keep bag sealed.... Even a fussy dog will when hungry.

tk123

OP have you tried wet food - there's some good quality ones on zooplus that are also reasonably priced e.g. Rocco, Rinti, Lukullus etc

euser1984

DBB wrote: »

You'll need to feed more variety than just meat and spuds or rice OP. That's not a particularly balanced diet, so unless you do a lot of research on balancing the raw/fresh diet, you're as well of to continue with the good quality dry with meat mixed in... my dogs (also GSDs) prefer their dry food steeped a while in hot water, with meat thrown in. I think I'd avoid the butter though OP, there's plenty of fat already in the meat.

TK, did you hear officially somewhere that it's ok to mix meat with dry? It's a point I always thought held no water, it doesn't make a huge amount of sense really, and I've always ignored it

Thanks for that, What dry food are you using?

DBB

Hi Euser,
I've been feeding Taste of the Wild for some time, but it's really only as a supplement to a mainly raw or fresh diet.
I'm in the process of changing everyone onto James Wellbeloved cereal-free as my elderly dog is on this by necessity (it's low fat, she has a dodgy pancreas), and to be quite honest I got a pain in my butt having to order, store and feed two different brands!
I've also found that all 3 of them are crazy about the JWB cereal free.... They like it so much I can use it for training treats!

euser1984

DBB wrote: »

Hi Euser,
I've been feeding Taste of the Wild for some time, but it's really only as a supplement to a mainly raw or fresh diet.
I'm in the process of changing everyone onto James Wellbeloved cereal-free as my elderly dog is on this by necessity (it's low fat, she has a dodgy pancreas), and to be quite honest I got a pain in my butt having to order, store and feed two different brands!
I've also found that all 3 of them are crazy about the JWB cereal free.... They like it so much I can use it for training treats!

Cheers DBB,
I haven't seen that one for sale - is it reasonable compared to the likes of the premium brands? I had her on Royal Canin and some other one & burns.

Now that I have a foster dog in care I need to give 2 dogs what they need but for a lower cost.

DBB

It's up around the price of the other good brands, but the cereal-free is more expensive than the regular JWB varieties. It also seems to be harder to get in shops, although the non cereal-free varieties are pretty widely available in bricks-and-mortar shops.

Edited to add: actually, on zooplus.ie at least, the non cereal-free variety is a whopping €1.10 per kg cheaper than the cereal-free with their bulk-buy deal. That deal has the regular varieties at €3.50/kg, which is pretty good compared to other good brands I think.