As most of you know we eat raw meatables here at Camp WriggleButts. We believe in the natural diet of carnivores – a so called prey model diet of 80% muscle meat, 10% organs (or which no more than 5% liver) and 10 % edible bone. This imitates the pray animals of carnivores like the wild cats and canines – some even feed whole prey animals, but we do what is referred to as «frankenprey». We make our food from the meats available in the grocery stores and mix it up to give the ratios stated above. Sort of making a Frankenstein prey animal – which is of course where the «frankenprey» got its name.
If you are interested to learn more we suggest a reading on these sites:
http://www.rawlearning.com/
http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/rawfeeding/ (LOTS of posts in the archives, very active list. I recommend the daily digest option if you don’t want your in box to drown)
http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/rawcat/ (Especially for cats – though the diet is similar for both cats and dogs, cats have some special issues to deal with such making sure they get enough taurine. A dog will do well on a diet a cat does well on, but not necessarily the other way around.)
Here you can read how we ended up being raw fed:
Today we’ll cover the beginning of our raw adventures. From back when I was just a pup.
Before Mom picked me up she did a lot of reading and believed she was pretty smart and clever and stuff. Tara, the Airedale, had quite a lot of food issues when she was young and it took a lot of time with special foods to make her stop itching. So Mom thought veterinarian diets were the only real way to go. She hung out at a lot of doggie forums, though, after I arrived. And although she used to be one of those who said «high quality kibble is the only way» she started to read more about canine nutrition.. And being interested in nature/biology/science some of what she read stood out as more «logical» than the rest.. Quite a few experienced, knowledgeable dog people were feeding raw and happy with it – and also some famous «experts» recommended it.. So she decided to give it a try. Not 100%, but after some consultations with Turid Rugaas she was convinced we could try part raw part kibble.
I’m ashamed to say I thought she was crazy! The first time I was presented with a raw chicken wing I had no idea what to do with it and we had quite a few troubles and somewhat gave up the whole thing.. Then one day a while later Mom was shocked to find my back covered in blood. She thought my somewhat boisterous MinPin friend, Fenris, had bitten me too hard. But after shaving me down it turned out to be all over my back.
After trips to the Vet it turned out to be food allergies – I was reacting to the meatables in my foods. I was left with the choices of feeding kibble with a high grain content or prescription foods with hydrolyzed proteins. Either way I produced masses of poop and farted and shed a lot. Mom was rather unhappy. She only bought black clothes to match my furs, since my hairs stuck to everything.
Then she started hearing good things about a pre-made raw food made here in Norway. It was mainly used by sledding dogs at the time, since they need a very high quality food. They need high energy foods that digest very well.. So she decided to give it a go. She got a few small packages and I LOVED it. It was so furry, furry yummy! Now we had to wait and see if it would make me itchy and bloody and horrible. But HOOORAY! I was only allergic to COOKED proteins. Turns out that as long as they are raw I can eat meatables from any protein source, and lots of them. This was a 100% meat based product, no grains or veggies or fruits or anything – just meats and organs and ground bone.
Mom started driving out to the guy that produces it to buy it fresh – at this point Coco and Nimbus had joined our crew, too. And this raw food was the only thing that managed to keep some weight on Nimbus’ skinny frame. From time to time, if she didn’t have the time to drive out to buy a large amount of the raw yummyness she’d try some kibble, but it was always a disaster. When you’re used to tiny, odorless poops – big stinky poops (and the gas produced all day and spread in the living room) just isn’t fun.. And if fed kibble for too long, the shedding began again too..
So – that is the very beginning of our adventure with the raw foods. Now to the fun stuff I promised to show you:
A while back a fellow WhippetWorlder wanted some pictures to use on her new website. She put in a lot of hard work to create a raw food CoOp in Indianapolis, to make it affordable for herself and others in the area to get raw foods for their pets. Mom thought it was an honorable cause and allowed her to use pix of Virus and myself (this was back before Hyssy arrived). And now the website is finally ready:
http://www.rawpaws.org/AboutUs.aspx
Just pop over there and scroll down to see your celebrity friends! Hee hee… We encourage all our friends in the area, who might be (interested in) raw feeding to give it a try. We looked at the order form and the contents and prices made us VERY envious.
Kisses,
Bajas
