Hello!
Let me start by saying THANK YOU to all of you who regularly contribute here for providing such a friendly, informative forum!
Now, let me introduce myself: My name is Michelle, and my husband Mark and I live in western Massachusetts with - LITERALLY! - a house full of furry and feathered friends! The newest additions are two Boxers we adopted from someone giving them away on craigslist. Hurley is almost one year old (7/20), a neutered male brindle. Penny (any LOST fans out there?) is 7 months old, scheduled to be spayed this Thursday, and a beautiful reverse brindle. I grew up with Boxers (we had 5 of them over the course of my childhood into my adulthood) and I am their biggest fan. Mark and I had been researching becoming foster parents at a local Boxer rescue when these two were dropped from the sky into our laps - truly fortunate for us!
When we picked them up, they were being fed a diet consisting of solely Beneful. Right off, I KNEW that was no good. They really were bone-thin and their coats were dull. We have had our cats on Natural Balance wet and dry for years, so we picked up some of that for the dogs. They seemed to like it, but both had horrible diarrhea. Come to find out, they both had ghiardia, and were obviously treated for that. At that time, our vet recommended we go to 50/50 boiled chicken OR cooked ground beef and cooked white rice. The dogs loved it! It did seem to help with their diarrhea a little, making their stools more of a 25-50 on the "Poop Chart" instead of a 0-25. I started adding some kibble in (Natural Balance) because I felt they could not live on rice and cooked chicken alone (old habits die hard!), and that is what they continue to eat today, and their poops are remaining in the 50 range now. I don't think I have ever seen a 75, so I came online looking for suggestions and alternatives to help...and stumbled upon your forum. I have read the "Raw Feeding" section NEARLY in its entirety!
I have followed links to several other raw feeding sites, and done a lot of reading in the past several days. Mark is in agreement that we can try feeding raw and see if the dogs like it and how it might change their poop...and other things! I have made calls to a few local butcher shops, and we are near enough to a big city that we have TONS of ethnic grocers in the area, so I am sure we will be able to find a wide variety of meat/poultry/fish at very good prices. The local butcher told me that chicken backs sell for $0.49/pound - can't beat that! I frequently buy chicken thighs there for US to eat at $0.69/pound...so it is certainly reasonable!
I know I am going to have DOZENS of questions in the near future, but my most pressing one at this time is this:
Is it OK to start the conversion to raw now, as Penny goes in for her spay surgery?
I figure since she will already be fasting, it might be an easier conversion as she will be hungry and likely to be more interested in eating whatever is in front of her when she is allowed to resume eating after the surgery, and I can just fast Hurley at the same time. However, I know the spay is a pretty rough surgery, and I don't know if it would be too much of a change to ask her to accept a new diet at that time. I will also be home with the dogs for three solid days after her surgery before I have to go back to work, so it would be a good time to keep an eye on them and see not only how Penny recovers from the surgery, but how they are adapting to raw.
Oh! One more:
Can anyone direct me, please, to a good website for feeding raw to INDOOR ONLY cats? I know many of you do, and I know chicken drumsticks and wings are good base diets, but I would love to read suggestions as to how often to add in "extras" and at what rate.
Thanks for reading my first LONG post, and again, so much for providing such a friendly, helpful, and informative website for dog lovers!
Michelle in Massachusetts
