redman
Footballguy
Introduction
First of all, I'm going to assume the logic of raw feeding is already known to you, so I won't explain it here. I'm also going to ignore discussion about the nutritional benefits. Second, there is much, much more information that you should read on this subject besides what I'm putting here. This is only my way of doing things, which I acknowledge can be improved upon - I've simply tried to keep what I thought were the essentials and then streamline the process to fit my lifestyle. That's an important consideration though: as with your diet, you won't continue a routine that is unmanageable.
You need to suspend your prior concepts about what is proper eating and what is not. The nutritional and dietary rules are different - VERY different at times - for dogs and people. For example, chicken bones do NOT choke dogs, as long as they're raw; cooked bones can fragment and are a choke hazzard for a dog. When I was feeding my dog (when she was a puppy) chicken necks, I was shocked to find nearly intact chicken vertebra in her stool, but she was none the worse for the wear. She chews what she needs to be able to swallow and digest the food, and her system does the rest. Frankly, a dog's digestive system would do a billy goat proud.
Similarly, dogs don't have the same concerns at all regarding bacteria that we do. When we cook food, we're doing it to assist us in digestion and to kill bacteria. Dogs' shorter and more intensive digestive tract enables them to break down food while not being exposed to bacteria for nearly as long as we are while they're doing it. Remember, they evolved as scavengers who would come across other animals' kills and eat them, and not as hunters like cats (who won't eat carrion). Dogs became domesticated by hanging out at the fringes of human settlements and surviving on garbage and scraps. I've fed Molly meat that made me gag because of how gamey it had become. Short of an old piece of meat walking away on its own, I don't worry about it, and my dog is very happy to eat it.
In the same vein, forget about variety as a concern. A dog doesn't worry about that. Do they like to eat other things? Absolutely, but when presented with the same meal for the 37th day in a row, they don't think about variety and they're quite happy to eat what you put down in front of them. And as far as your routine goes, repetition is your friend because you get the benefit of economies of scale, both in terms of purchasing and storage. Pay attention to your dog though - mine ended up being allergic to turkey (I could tell from the fact that she would scratch incessantly when I fed it to her), so I switched to chicken and it was fine.
What equipment do I need?
You need a kitchen scale. I would suggest at least a 5 lb. digital one. I bought mine off of Amazon.com for around $24. It works very nicely. But measuring your dog's food down to the ounce is essential. You absolutely need to track how much food you're giving your dog because the dog's needs will change over time as he ages and (if applicable) as his activity level changes.
You need 1 gallon freezer bags to store your food in. I buy through my co-op 40 lbs. of frozen, split chicken backs. Once thawed I break these down into 7 freezer bags.
You need an additional freezer. I have a second, upright refrigerator with freezer in my garage which I use. This is ideal as you can pull the frozen bags out of the freezer and then feed the dog out of the thawed but still refrigerated stuff below. But the freezer is the key; the refrigerated food can be safely stored in your kitchen refrigerator. If energy concerns are a problem, then use a box freezer which is more energy efficient. Obviously, feel free to use the refrigerator and freezer to store your food along with your dog's.
I would also highly recommend some restaurant grade food storage containers. I bought 5 plastic storage containers that each hold 5 lbs. of thawed chicken livers (note the 5 lb rating on the kitchen scale that I suggested). They can also hold other things of course. Most importantly they can also be sealed with lids that snap on, which helps to keep the food fresh. This will help to keep your refrigerator clean, and makes the food more manageable. Freezer bags filled with meat that have been frozen and then thawed, and they repeatedly picked up and set down over a few days will leak the juices from the meat, so the container helps to catch that. Even the best freezer bags aren't rated for that much use, but that leads me to my next point.
You don't need the best materials. I purchased the generic freezer bags and the plastic food containers at Smart & Final, a wholesale warehouse out here (I don't know where else they're located) that is a food service vendor in addition to being a smaller food oriented version of Sam's Club or Costco. I can purchase 100 freezer bags for less than $10, which is a steal, and those last me for quite a while.
Finally, you need a good supply of meat. If you're paying retail prices for your dog's food, then you're paying too much. Your dog doesn't require the best cuts of meat. You can feed them chicken wings and drumsticks and breasts, but then you're competing with human consumers for those things which means the price is higher. I feed my dog chicken backs which are one of the classic staples of raw feeding because 1) it has an ideal ratio of fat to meat to bone, and 2) chicken backs are about the cheapest cut of the bird. My co-op enables me to purchase 40 lb. cases of them for around $.29/lb., or about $13/case. (To compare, while you do feed your dog more raw food than you would kibble because of the water weight in it, a $40 lb. bag of good quality kibble costs at least $40.) While I've been lucky enough to have my co-op, you can approach your local butcher about getting the chicken backs from them given that most stores don't tend to sell them and basically discard them anyway.
I also buy the cheap kind of hamburger patties for so-called "muscle meat" (more on that below). I get 10 lb. cases of them from Smart & Final for around $16 (yes, it's more expensive, but this is also a much smaller proportion of my dog's diet so it's certainly manageable and it's necessary from a dietary standpoint). These are most assuredly the low end of hamburger patties, but that doesn't matter - my dog thinks it's pumpkin pie. I even save the additional $1.50 by buying my dog the kind of patties that have the higher amount of fat, given that dogs need a higher amount of fat in their diet anyway. Besides - and this is key - they're all premeasured and pre-cut into 2.7 oz patties, and separated between wax paper sheets, which means I don't have to re-measure them every day when I feed them to my dog. Streamlining is your friend!
Finally, you need a nearby veterinarian who will let you come in every 2-4 weeks and weigh your dog. My local vet has their electronic scale in their waiting area, which means that I can just walk in, use the scale and then leave. This is essential in order to track your dog's weight which is your responsibility. It can be hard to spot weight problems in dogs (after all, as my vet says, their clothes always fit!). As a general matter you should be able to at least feel if not see their ribs (depending upon the thickness of their coat), as well as the tuck of their tummy as it approaches their hind legs. Monitoring for weight changes helps you know when you're feeding too much, or when there's another medical problem affecting weight.
What do I feed to my dog?
Here's what I feed, again using the 60%/25%/15% ratio of raw meaty bones (RMB's), muscle meat, and organ meat.
RMB's - These are any kind of bone which has meat on it and which (bone) can be consumed in whole or in part by the dog. I prefer chicken because of a combination of cost and also the fact that those bones are 100% consumable. Beef, pork, lamb and other bones would fall into this category, but those bones are not as easily consumed, and they also can cause deterioration of teeth over time from the amount of gnawing necessary to consume them. Don't get me wrong, dogs are made to gnaw on bones, but if they're doing it a lot every day tooth wear can become a problem. So I use chicken backs, but any fowl if it's available to you will work well.
Muscle meat - This is any meat that is boneless and that is not an organ. For example, if you have a boneless chicken breast, then that would be muscle meat; if that chicken breast still has the rib meat and bones, then that would be an RMB. Ground meat falls into this category. My muscle meat of preference is ground beef because it puts some different kind of meat into her diet besides chicken, and because it's readily available, affordable and pre-measured into hamburger patties. I've also used ground turkey (until I found she was allergic of course), ground/rendered chicken, and even whole ground rabbit (and I mean whole, fur and all! I was told to treat this as a muscle meat even though the bones would obviously be in there).
Organ meat - this is obviously any meat that is entirely made up of an animal's organ. This can range from chicken livers or gizzards to beef heart to anything in between. This is a key area of nutrition for your dog and really should be part of your dog's diet for optimal health. Again, I use chicken livers because liver is especially nutritious and because they tend to be very inexpensive; they're also small which means that I don't need to pre-cut them in order to get the right amount into the food the way that I would with a beef heart; they're essentially pre-measured for you, courtesy of the Almighty.
Note: Muscle meat and especially organ meat are very "rich", and sometimes are a shock to a dog's system. This is particularly true with older dogs who have been fed for years with kibble. To avoid problems (usually diarrhea which can be severe), you should start them on RMB's only, for a week or two, then add muscle meat for a week or two, and then add organ meat. Their bodies will "remember" how to digest these things, but you need to ease them onto the new routine.
Supplements - this is really its own area and you should read up on this, but there are a few essentials that should always be in your dog's meals IMHO. The first is apple cider vinegar (ACV) believe it or not. ACV acts as a dog's multi-vitamin as it has something like 17 of the 22 essential vitamins that a dog needs in its diet. You only need to add 1-2 tsps to the meal. The other essential supplement is plain yogurt (with active cultures) which is good for the digestive tract and also adds some calcium and fat for the dog; don't get low fat (unless they're all out of the regular kind) and don't get anything other than plain, including vanilla as the dog doesn't need that and certain fruits may not be good for your dog. I also add a very small amount of minced garlic to my dog's food as a flea repellant; I emphasize small because garlic in quantity can be harmful for your dog, but you don't need much for the repellant affects. I also add a raw egg to her meals twice per week. I'll post some more info on supplements at the bottom.
How much do I feed my dog?
This is the trickiest part of feeding, but once you've worked it out you just stick with the same measurements and only adjust them as needed based upon how your dog is doing. Here's the basic way to do this, but remember, your mileage will vary and you need to monitor and adjust as necessary.
Depending upon the overall age and activity level of your dog, you should calculate between 2.0% and 4.0% of their ideal body weight, using a lower percentage for an older and/or less active dog, and a higher percentage for a younger/active dog; activity level should be taken into account more than age though, so an active older dog should still be considered for the higher end of the scale as a general matter. A working dog such as a field dog or police dog that is getting constant exercise will tend to need up towards the maximum (I'd recommend starting at around 3.5% and adjusting up or down as needed), while a family pet or companion animal that tends to be a couch potato with infrequent exercise will tend to need near the minimum (I'd recommend starting at 2.5% and adjusting as needed).
Puppies up until around 12-18 months need more than they otherwise would given their overall lifestyle because they're of course building bones and muscle. The problem with puppies of course is trying to figure out their ideal body weight given that they're not fully grown. If you can judge based upon averaging the size of their parents, then that's not a bad way to loosely calculate. Otherwise, ask your vet to estimate how big they'll be as adults.
And let me emphasize, you go off of IDEAL body weight. If you've already got an overweight family pet or an underweight rescue animal, then you're doing your dog a disservice by using their actual weight.
You must adjust the diet depending upon what you observe about their weight. As I said above, as a general matter you should be able to at least feel if not see their ribs (depending upon the thickness of their coat), as well as the tuck of their tummy as it approaches their hind legs. Monitoring for weight changes helps you know when you're feeding too much, or when there's another medical problem affecting weight. This is where that veterinarian scale becomes so important.
So, using a 50 lb. dog, 3% would of course work out to 1.5 lbs. You next convert this to ounces, remembering that there are 16 ozs. to a lb., and not 10 or 12, which are common errors. 1.5 lbs. therefore computes to 24 ozs. This is the amount of food that your dog needs as his per day average. This is not per meal - it's per day! That's an important consideration because some people who opt to feed their dog twice per day, obviously are feeding only 12 ozs. per meal using our model 50 lb. dog. Others who try to mimic the scavenging a dog does only feed their dog once every other day, which means they feed double portions or 48 oz. meals. For my convenience, I feed my dog once per day, but you should read up on the subject of frequency of meals because there are different theories out there.
Now, here's where you go back to that 60/25/15 ratio I described for RMB's/muscle meat/organ meat. Using the 24 oz. daily total, that ratio would work out as follows as measured in ozs:
RMB's - 14.4 ozs.
Muscle meat - 6 ozs.
Organ meat - 3.6 ozs.
This, in a nutshell, is your dog's meal.
Note: you do NOT include supplements in your weight calculations.
Let me emphasize, I don't measure my dog's meal down to the tenth of an ounce. I get it to within one ounce or so, taking special note of when I'm particularly low or high in one area, and then adjusting the next meal accordingly. This is only a loose system, but it works. Some meals may measure out to 25.5 ozs., so I may then make the next meal 23 ozs. or so to compensate.
For those people living in cold weather climates, your dog's activity levels may change depending upon season and so you should take that into account when calculating the percentage.
One more thing - your dog will always lie to you and make like he's hungry. As long as you're measuring using this system and monitoring his weight for problems but finding none, then ignore this. As with people, "treats" or "snacks" throw off any diet and add needless calories. Avoid them as a general matter. A good treat for a dog is a beef soup bone, which provides some nice meat along with a good bone to chew on. If you give such a treat, then reduce the size of their next meal accordingly.
This sounds complex, and I suppose that it is, but once you've worked out your system, it's truly not so bad at all.
My feeding routine
Each morning, I go out into my garage and I power up my kitchen scale, and I pull out my thawed bag of chicken backs, my container of thawed chicken livers, a 30 oz. container of plain yogurt, a couple of beef patties, and a jar of minced garlic. I have a large bottle of apple cider vinegar sitting on the work bench near the scale.
I go ahead and plop the two beef patties into the dog's bowl, along with a large dollop (I don't bother measuring) of the plain yogurt. I then measure out 4 ozs. of chicken livers by doing the following: I put the container of livers on the scale, I hit "tare" which resets the scale to a reading of 0.0 ozs. and enables the scale to measure (backwards) what is being removed from the container. I obviously stop dishing out chicken livers when the reading hits -4.0 ozs. or whatever my goal amount is. This method helps to prevent you from dirtying up another container that you would have to place on the scale and scoop the livers into, before then dishing them into the dog's bowl. Don't as a general matter worry about measuring down to a tenth of an ounce. Streamlining . . .
I splash some apple cider vinegar on the food, put in enough garlic to fill only the end of the spoon, and then I mix all of this stuff together until the beef patties are all broken up, and everything is covered by the yogurt - this helps prevent your dog from deciding, for example, not to eat the chicken livers if he doesn't like them; it still may happen, but over time they'll start eating them. If you're adding fish oil or some other supplement, you should also add that before mixing.
After that's thoroughly mixed up, I then plop the bag of chicken backs onto the scale, hit the tare button again, and then remove as many chicken backs as I need. The RMB's are put in last because they are larger and more solid, and therefore don't mix nearly as well with the other. I just place them on top of the other food. I then serve and of course put the remaining food away.
Ideally, you are journalling the amount of each type of food that you feed your dog. I've never done this, but I do have a dry erase board in my garage that I use to mark the total amount of food in ounces that I've fed to my dog for the last week. If it's Wednesday, I simply erase the total from last Wed. and replace it with today's amount.
But there it is, you're finished in about 3 mins. The largest investment of time by far for me is breaking down the shipments of food, but even then I only average 1 hour per month, which comes to only an additional 2 mins per day. I weigh my dog simply when I'm running errands near my vet's office, which means I just throw her in the car with me. I'm no fanatic about the details of the diet. If I run out of chicken livers on a Tuesday, if I can't get to the store before Saturday I don't panic and I just fill in the remaining volume of her diet with other types of food.
Other things to read up on:
Frequency of feeding - ranges from twice per day to every other day.
Day of fasting - some people think that digesting all of this protein, while obviously necessary, is somewhat stressful for a dog's kidneys and that they should be fasted for one day per week. I don't do this as a general matter, but you should read up on this subject.
Teaching dogs to chew - older, kibble fed dogs have a tendency to inhale their food without much chewing at all. Such dogs may need to be closely monitored to prevent them from choking on food that is not chewed enough. Start these dogs on RMB's, and you should even go so far as to hold one end while they chew the other to ensure that they are chewing properly. They'll get the hand of it soon enough.
Green Tripe - this is a great supplement. It's simply a ground up cow's stomach with the stomach contents still inside, hence the green (or sometimes gray or brownish) color. While a dog does not eat what a cow eats, dogs in the wild are known to eat the stomachs of their prey, which people have found provides them with additional nutritional benefits. The reason? The dog benefits from the cow's stomach enzymes in breaking down the grasses and grains, and can therefore digest and enjoy the benefits of those things when they otherwise could not. It's essentially a doggy salad. A word of warning - green tripe smells like the end product of the cow's digestive process, and it doesn't wash off of your hands easily, so it's unpleasant to handle. OTOH, my dog, who's not a particularly food motivated dog, dives into this stuff and absolutely loves it. I try to feed her a meal made up of 50% or so of this stuff twice per week.
Supplements like fish oil (menhaden oil is highly recommended, as is salmon oil), and any number of other options are out there. Read up on them for more options. I tend to use salmon oil as a supplement in every other meal or so.
Good raw feeding links
Dr. Billinghurst's website
Raw feeding FAQ's
More raw feeding info
Site with background facts about raw feeding and its own links
That should get you started for now.
First of all, I'm going to assume the logic of raw feeding is already known to you, so I won't explain it here. I'm also going to ignore discussion about the nutritional benefits. Second, there is much, much more information that you should read on this subject besides what I'm putting here. This is only my way of doing things, which I acknowledge can be improved upon - I've simply tried to keep what I thought were the essentials and then streamline the process to fit my lifestyle. That's an important consideration though: as with your diet, you won't continue a routine that is unmanageable.
You need to suspend your prior concepts about what is proper eating and what is not. The nutritional and dietary rules are different - VERY different at times - for dogs and people. For example, chicken bones do NOT choke dogs, as long as they're raw; cooked bones can fragment and are a choke hazzard for a dog. When I was feeding my dog (when she was a puppy) chicken necks, I was shocked to find nearly intact chicken vertebra in her stool, but she was none the worse for the wear. She chews what she needs to be able to swallow and digest the food, and her system does the rest. Frankly, a dog's digestive system would do a billy goat proud.
Similarly, dogs don't have the same concerns at all regarding bacteria that we do. When we cook food, we're doing it to assist us in digestion and to kill bacteria. Dogs' shorter and more intensive digestive tract enables them to break down food while not being exposed to bacteria for nearly as long as we are while they're doing it. Remember, they evolved as scavengers who would come across other animals' kills and eat them, and not as hunters like cats (who won't eat carrion). Dogs became domesticated by hanging out at the fringes of human settlements and surviving on garbage and scraps. I've fed Molly meat that made me gag because of how gamey it had become. Short of an old piece of meat walking away on its own, I don't worry about it, and my dog is very happy to eat it.
In the same vein, forget about variety as a concern. A dog doesn't worry about that. Do they like to eat other things? Absolutely, but when presented with the same meal for the 37th day in a row, they don't think about variety and they're quite happy to eat what you put down in front of them. And as far as your routine goes, repetition is your friend because you get the benefit of economies of scale, both in terms of purchasing and storage. Pay attention to your dog though - mine ended up being allergic to turkey (I could tell from the fact that she would scratch incessantly when I fed it to her), so I switched to chicken and it was fine.
What equipment do I need?
You need a kitchen scale. I would suggest at least a 5 lb. digital one. I bought mine off of Amazon.com for around $24. It works very nicely. But measuring your dog's food down to the ounce is essential. You absolutely need to track how much food you're giving your dog because the dog's needs will change over time as he ages and (if applicable) as his activity level changes.
You need 1 gallon freezer bags to store your food in. I buy through my co-op 40 lbs. of frozen, split chicken backs. Once thawed I break these down into 7 freezer bags.
You need an additional freezer. I have a second, upright refrigerator with freezer in my garage which I use. This is ideal as you can pull the frozen bags out of the freezer and then feed the dog out of the thawed but still refrigerated stuff below. But the freezer is the key; the refrigerated food can be safely stored in your kitchen refrigerator. If energy concerns are a problem, then use a box freezer which is more energy efficient. Obviously, feel free to use the refrigerator and freezer to store your food along with your dog's.
I would also highly recommend some restaurant grade food storage containers. I bought 5 plastic storage containers that each hold 5 lbs. of thawed chicken livers (note the 5 lb rating on the kitchen scale that I suggested). They can also hold other things of course. Most importantly they can also be sealed with lids that snap on, which helps to keep the food fresh. This will help to keep your refrigerator clean, and makes the food more manageable. Freezer bags filled with meat that have been frozen and then thawed, and they repeatedly picked up and set down over a few days will leak the juices from the meat, so the container helps to catch that. Even the best freezer bags aren't rated for that much use, but that leads me to my next point.
You don't need the best materials. I purchased the generic freezer bags and the plastic food containers at Smart & Final, a wholesale warehouse out here (I don't know where else they're located) that is a food service vendor in addition to being a smaller food oriented version of Sam's Club or Costco. I can purchase 100 freezer bags for less than $10, which is a steal, and those last me for quite a while.
Finally, you need a good supply of meat. If you're paying retail prices for your dog's food, then you're paying too much. Your dog doesn't require the best cuts of meat. You can feed them chicken wings and drumsticks and breasts, but then you're competing with human consumers for those things which means the price is higher. I feed my dog chicken backs which are one of the classic staples of raw feeding because 1) it has an ideal ratio of fat to meat to bone, and 2) chicken backs are about the cheapest cut of the bird. My co-op enables me to purchase 40 lb. cases of them for around $.29/lb., or about $13/case. (To compare, while you do feed your dog more raw food than you would kibble because of the water weight in it, a $40 lb. bag of good quality kibble costs at least $40.) While I've been lucky enough to have my co-op, you can approach your local butcher about getting the chicken backs from them given that most stores don't tend to sell them and basically discard them anyway.
I also buy the cheap kind of hamburger patties for so-called "muscle meat" (more on that below). I get 10 lb. cases of them from Smart & Final for around $16 (yes, it's more expensive, but this is also a much smaller proportion of my dog's diet so it's certainly manageable and it's necessary from a dietary standpoint). These are most assuredly the low end of hamburger patties, but that doesn't matter - my dog thinks it's pumpkin pie. I even save the additional $1.50 by buying my dog the kind of patties that have the higher amount of fat, given that dogs need a higher amount of fat in their diet anyway. Besides - and this is key - they're all premeasured and pre-cut into 2.7 oz patties, and separated between wax paper sheets, which means I don't have to re-measure them every day when I feed them to my dog. Streamlining is your friend!
Finally, you need a nearby veterinarian who will let you come in every 2-4 weeks and weigh your dog. My local vet has their electronic scale in their waiting area, which means that I can just walk in, use the scale and then leave. This is essential in order to track your dog's weight which is your responsibility. It can be hard to spot weight problems in dogs (after all, as my vet says, their clothes always fit!). As a general matter you should be able to at least feel if not see their ribs (depending upon the thickness of their coat), as well as the tuck of their tummy as it approaches their hind legs. Monitoring for weight changes helps you know when you're feeding too much, or when there's another medical problem affecting weight.
What do I feed to my dog?
Here's what I feed, again using the 60%/25%/15% ratio of raw meaty bones (RMB's), muscle meat, and organ meat.
RMB's - These are any kind of bone which has meat on it and which (bone) can be consumed in whole or in part by the dog. I prefer chicken because of a combination of cost and also the fact that those bones are 100% consumable. Beef, pork, lamb and other bones would fall into this category, but those bones are not as easily consumed, and they also can cause deterioration of teeth over time from the amount of gnawing necessary to consume them. Don't get me wrong, dogs are made to gnaw on bones, but if they're doing it a lot every day tooth wear can become a problem. So I use chicken backs, but any fowl if it's available to you will work well.
Muscle meat - This is any meat that is boneless and that is not an organ. For example, if you have a boneless chicken breast, then that would be muscle meat; if that chicken breast still has the rib meat and bones, then that would be an RMB. Ground meat falls into this category. My muscle meat of preference is ground beef because it puts some different kind of meat into her diet besides chicken, and because it's readily available, affordable and pre-measured into hamburger patties. I've also used ground turkey (until I found she was allergic of course), ground/rendered chicken, and even whole ground rabbit (and I mean whole, fur and all! I was told to treat this as a muscle meat even though the bones would obviously be in there).
Organ meat - this is obviously any meat that is entirely made up of an animal's organ. This can range from chicken livers or gizzards to beef heart to anything in between. This is a key area of nutrition for your dog and really should be part of your dog's diet for optimal health. Again, I use chicken livers because liver is especially nutritious and because they tend to be very inexpensive; they're also small which means that I don't need to pre-cut them in order to get the right amount into the food the way that I would with a beef heart; they're essentially pre-measured for you, courtesy of the Almighty.
Note: Muscle meat and especially organ meat are very "rich", and sometimes are a shock to a dog's system. This is particularly true with older dogs who have been fed for years with kibble. To avoid problems (usually diarrhea which can be severe), you should start them on RMB's only, for a week or two, then add muscle meat for a week or two, and then add organ meat. Their bodies will "remember" how to digest these things, but you need to ease them onto the new routine.
Supplements - this is really its own area and you should read up on this, but there are a few essentials that should always be in your dog's meals IMHO. The first is apple cider vinegar (ACV) believe it or not. ACV acts as a dog's multi-vitamin as it has something like 17 of the 22 essential vitamins that a dog needs in its diet. You only need to add 1-2 tsps to the meal. The other essential supplement is plain yogurt (with active cultures) which is good for the digestive tract and also adds some calcium and fat for the dog; don't get low fat (unless they're all out of the regular kind) and don't get anything other than plain, including vanilla as the dog doesn't need that and certain fruits may not be good for your dog. I also add a very small amount of minced garlic to my dog's food as a flea repellant; I emphasize small because garlic in quantity can be harmful for your dog, but you don't need much for the repellant affects. I also add a raw egg to her meals twice per week. I'll post some more info on supplements at the bottom.
How much do I feed my dog?
This is the trickiest part of feeding, but once you've worked it out you just stick with the same measurements and only adjust them as needed based upon how your dog is doing. Here's the basic way to do this, but remember, your mileage will vary and you need to monitor and adjust as necessary.
Depending upon the overall age and activity level of your dog, you should calculate between 2.0% and 4.0% of their ideal body weight, using a lower percentage for an older and/or less active dog, and a higher percentage for a younger/active dog; activity level should be taken into account more than age though, so an active older dog should still be considered for the higher end of the scale as a general matter. A working dog such as a field dog or police dog that is getting constant exercise will tend to need up towards the maximum (I'd recommend starting at around 3.5% and adjusting up or down as needed), while a family pet or companion animal that tends to be a couch potato with infrequent exercise will tend to need near the minimum (I'd recommend starting at 2.5% and adjusting as needed).
Puppies up until around 12-18 months need more than they otherwise would given their overall lifestyle because they're of course building bones and muscle. The problem with puppies of course is trying to figure out their ideal body weight given that they're not fully grown. If you can judge based upon averaging the size of their parents, then that's not a bad way to loosely calculate. Otherwise, ask your vet to estimate how big they'll be as adults.
And let me emphasize, you go off of IDEAL body weight. If you've already got an overweight family pet or an underweight rescue animal, then you're doing your dog a disservice by using their actual weight.
You must adjust the diet depending upon what you observe about their weight. As I said above, as a general matter you should be able to at least feel if not see their ribs (depending upon the thickness of their coat), as well as the tuck of their tummy as it approaches their hind legs. Monitoring for weight changes helps you know when you're feeding too much, or when there's another medical problem affecting weight. This is where that veterinarian scale becomes so important.
So, using a 50 lb. dog, 3% would of course work out to 1.5 lbs. You next convert this to ounces, remembering that there are 16 ozs. to a lb., and not 10 or 12, which are common errors.
1.5 lbs. therefore computes to 24 ozs. This is the amount of food that your dog needs as his per day average. This is not per meal - it's per day! That's an important consideration because some people who opt to feed their dog twice per day, obviously are feeding only 12 ozs. per meal using our model 50 lb. dog. Others who try to mimic the scavenging a dog does only feed their dog once every other day, which means they feed double portions or 48 oz. meals. For my convenience, I feed my dog once per day, but you should read up on the subject of frequency of meals because there are different theories out there.Now, here's where you go back to that 60/25/15 ratio I described for RMB's/muscle meat/organ meat. Using the 24 oz. daily total, that ratio would work out as follows as measured in ozs:
RMB's - 14.4 ozs.
Muscle meat - 6 ozs.
Organ meat - 3.6 ozs.
This, in a nutshell, is your dog's meal.
Note: you do NOT include supplements in your weight calculations.
Let me emphasize, I don't measure my dog's meal down to the tenth of an ounce. I get it to within one ounce or so, taking special note of when I'm particularly low or high in one area, and then adjusting the next meal accordingly. This is only a loose system, but it works. Some meals may measure out to 25.5 ozs., so I may then make the next meal 23 ozs. or so to compensate.
For those people living in cold weather climates, your dog's activity levels may change depending upon season and so you should take that into account when calculating the percentage.
One more thing - your dog will always lie to you and make like he's hungry. As long as you're measuring using this system and monitoring his weight for problems but finding none, then ignore this. As with people, "treats" or "snacks" throw off any diet and add needless calories. Avoid them as a general matter. A good treat for a dog is a beef soup bone, which provides some nice meat along with a good bone to chew on. If you give such a treat, then reduce the size of their next meal accordingly.
This sounds complex, and I suppose that it is, but once you've worked out your system, it's truly not so bad at all.
My feeding routine
Each morning, I go out into my garage and I power up my kitchen scale, and I pull out my thawed bag of chicken backs, my container of thawed chicken livers, a 30 oz. container of plain yogurt, a couple of beef patties, and a jar of minced garlic. I have a large bottle of apple cider vinegar sitting on the work bench near the scale.
I go ahead and plop the two beef patties into the dog's bowl, along with a large dollop (I don't bother measuring) of the plain yogurt. I then measure out 4 ozs. of chicken livers by doing the following: I put the container of livers on the scale, I hit "tare" which resets the scale to a reading of 0.0 ozs. and enables the scale to measure (backwards) what is being removed from the container. I obviously stop dishing out chicken livers when the reading hits -4.0 ozs. or whatever my goal amount is. This method helps to prevent you from dirtying up another container that you would have to place on the scale and scoop the livers into, before then dishing them into the dog's bowl. Don't as a general matter worry about measuring down to a tenth of an ounce. Streamlining . . .
I splash some apple cider vinegar on the food, put in enough garlic to fill only the end of the spoon, and then I mix all of this stuff together until the beef patties are all broken up, and everything is covered by the yogurt - this helps prevent your dog from deciding, for example, not to eat the chicken livers if he doesn't like them; it still may happen, but over time they'll start eating them. If you're adding fish oil or some other supplement, you should also add that before mixing.
After that's thoroughly mixed up, I then plop the bag of chicken backs onto the scale, hit the tare button again, and then remove as many chicken backs as I need. The RMB's are put in last because they are larger and more solid, and therefore don't mix nearly as well with the other. I just place them on top of the other food. I then serve and of course put the remaining food away.
Ideally, you are journalling the amount of each type of food that you feed your dog. I've never done this, but I do have a dry erase board in my garage that I use to mark the total amount of food in ounces that I've fed to my dog for the last week. If it's Wednesday, I simply erase the total from last Wed. and replace it with today's amount.
But there it is, you're finished in about 3 mins. The largest investment of time by far for me is breaking down the shipments of food, but even then I only average 1 hour per month, which comes to only an additional 2 mins per day. I weigh my dog simply when I'm running errands near my vet's office, which means I just throw her in the car with me. I'm no fanatic about the details of the diet. If I run out of chicken livers on a Tuesday, if I can't get to the store before Saturday I don't panic and I just fill in the remaining volume of her diet with other types of food.
Other things to read up on:
Frequency of feeding - ranges from twice per day to every other day.
Day of fasting - some people think that digesting all of this protein, while obviously necessary, is somewhat stressful for a dog's kidneys and that they should be fasted for one day per week. I don't do this as a general matter, but you should read up on this subject.
Teaching dogs to chew - older, kibble fed dogs have a tendency to inhale their food without much chewing at all. Such dogs may need to be closely monitored to prevent them from choking on food that is not chewed enough. Start these dogs on RMB's, and you should even go so far as to hold one end while they chew the other to ensure that they are chewing properly. They'll get the hand of it soon enough.
Green Tripe - this is a great supplement. It's simply a ground up cow's stomach with the stomach contents still inside, hence the green (or sometimes gray or brownish) color. While a dog does not eat what a cow eats, dogs in the wild are known to eat the stomachs of their prey, which people have found provides them with additional nutritional benefits. The reason? The dog benefits from the cow's stomach enzymes in breaking down the grasses and grains, and can therefore digest and enjoy the benefits of those things when they otherwise could not. It's essentially a doggy salad. A word of warning - green tripe smells like the end product of the cow's digestive process, and it doesn't wash off of your hands easily, so it's unpleasant to handle. OTOH, my dog, who's not a particularly food motivated dog, dives into this stuff and absolutely loves it. I try to feed her a meal made up of 50% or so of this stuff twice per week.
Supplements like fish oil (menhaden oil is highly recommended, as is salmon oil), and any number of other options are out there. Read up on them for more options. I tend to use salmon oil as a supplement in every other meal or so.
Good raw feeding links
Dr. Billinghurst's website
Raw feeding FAQ's
More raw feeding info
Site with background facts about raw feeding and its own links
That should get you started for now.
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