Hi everyone,

Caper is an extremely picky eater. I have tried so many different top quality grain-free kibbles and wet food, and taken different pieces of advice on getting Caper to eat, but he quickly tires of any type of food (even treats and human food!). Starving him out results in him reluctantly eating a couple mouthfuls of kibble, but this is clearly not cutting it since his bones are starting to become more prominent

I've tried everything medically - deworming, bloodwork, etc and he has a clean bill of health.

Then a raw feeder convinced me to give raw a try - I started out giving caper a raw chicken thigh and he LOVED it. I had never seen him eat something with so much zeal, consistent from day to day. And his poops are finally looking beautiful and firmed the more raw/bone he gets. Looks like we finally hit upon something he is enthusiastic about! I feel like he would keep eating until he exploded if I let him...

My only concern now is balancing his nutrition. There seems to be a lot of different suggestions out there and I want to see what a daily meal for some of your dogs looks like. This is what I have in mind for him for one day's meals for example:

AM
1 chicken breast
2 meaty pork ribs
1 pork liver (which he hates)
small section of beef intestines

PM
meaty chicken back/body
a handful of chicken hearts
halved pork foot
1 section meaty beef femur marrow bone for dessert

Is this too much or too little? He is a 55# 7 mo. old boy. I will also feed him veggies and fruits from my own plate, since that's the only way he'll eat them. I'll throw in all kinds of fish and the occasional goat and other body parts like tripe, gizzard, kidneys, heads, but am having a hard time finding more exotic meats at low cost, so I'm wondering if a routine feeding of meals similar to the above would be appropriate.

Thanks again husky lovers

My 50lb guy eats 1-1.5lbs of raw food a day, which is how I base his intake, so it's hard to tell by the above how much, weight wise, your guy is getting, but the variety in protein seems good. I have one that can't eat chicken and she does fine on 3-4 other proteins. Have you checked Craigslist for other proteins? I've been told it's a good resource, but haven't checked myself.

Is his dessert the actual bone? Large animal bones, ie cow, elk or bison femurs, are dangerous for their teeth and can cause teeth breakage. Just couldn't tell by the way it was worded.

If his stools are solid then it seems the balance of meat/bone/organs, which should be 80/10/10 (5% of which s/b liver), are good.

As a side note, dogs don't need fruits and veggies... says the plant-based (aka: vegan) mama that feeds her dogs raw.

Good Luck!

Subjectively it feels like he's getting around 2 pounds of food, but I think i read that he is supposed to get 10% of his body weight at his age. So that would mean 5.5 pounds of meat?? He starts slowing down after a whole chicken back, so I'm not sure if I can get him to eat that much! Also I feel that our bone content is quite a bit higher than 10%, more like 30%, which he really loves... what is the danger of feeding too much bone? He doesn't seem to be having constipation or chalky/dry poo.

Yes he does get slices of the actual bone, but he seems to know that he is no match for the hard part. I closely supervised him the first few times and he just extracted the marrow from the center and scraped the meat and tendons off of the outside. Great toy to entertain him for a while!

That same raw feeder told me that dogs would ingest the stomach contents of their herbivorous prey so we would have to feed them plant matter, but it sounded like a bit of a stretch going from incidental ingestion to a daily requirement. I'm glad to hear that they don't really need plant matter! Saves my begging and pleading for another cause.

Our puppy, Kona, had parvo about a week after we adopted her so she was severally under weight and even then was fed at 8% of her body weight until she got back to "normal". She's now 30 pounds at 6 months, she's a petite little thing, and is fed at 4% of her body weight, which seems to be good for her, she's still gaining, but not too fast.

Now our older rescue (about 3yrs), Rico, was under weight when we got him a month or so ago and was fed at 4% of his body weight, he's now a healthy 50 pounds and we've back off a bit to probably 3% and even then he doesn't complete each meal, he's a picky boy, but loves the chicken backs. I'd say 2lbs for your guy is about right, I've read 4% of body weight for a normal puppy up to 1 year.

I think meat/bone/organ is subjective and based on what wild animals are consisted of if they were eating prey in the wild. As long as his poops aren't too dry I wouldn't be concerned. We're just transitioning Kona from a prefomulated raw diet, Primal, to the prey model, so I'm not sure on her meat/bone/organ ratio with the patties.

My dogs love the bone marrow too, I scoop it out. Rico had a canine tooth pulled before we got him, it was broken when he was hit by a car, and his other one is chipped so we just don't risk it. They get kongs filled with chicken treats or the marrow. So gross for me, my husband handles a lot of the meat duties.

I've heard the same about stomach contents, but after researching the prey model raw diet I feel there's sufficient evidence that says otherwise.

We do give both dogs a supplement of NuPro as Kona has demodex on top of her bout with parvo so her immune system was a wreck, we're hoping that since she's spayed and done with vaccines we can take her off even that with the raw diet eventually. Rico has issues with his joints in his hind legs from the accident, both legs were exposed down to the muscle and joints, so the extra oils, glucosamine etc seems to really help him. He's new to the raw diet so he may not need it either once he's eating a larger variety.

I feed 3% for my male - 2% for my female.

You should really only be feeding 1 to 1 1/2lbs - Over feeding is likely to cause stomach upset - especially cannon butt.

I feed no veggies unless I feel like it. It's not required but my dogs do actually like them. I also supplement with coconut oil, fish oil, vitamin and a joint concoction for my female.

I only feed my two once a day - I have to do this because otherwise my female doesn't eat all of her food for the day. I also feed organs as treats and not really in meals except maybe once a week - we use freeze dried liver as our main treats.

Wow Drea, that's a lot for either dog to deal with. Thanks for rescuing them both!

Considering that they were gaining weight on just 4%, 10% does seem like overkill. I think I forgot to remember that huskies eat much less than the typical dog, which those websites may have been describing at 10%. Megan - is the 1.5lb/day sufficient for puppies too?

Caper is also healing from a bone injury so I think I may look into supplementing for bone & joint health too. I've been giving him shrimp (in the shell), extra bone & cartilage for the glucosamine & chondroitin and fish for the oils, but I'm not sure if these are enough.

Today he ate:
- the meat off of a whole fish about 12" long
- 1 duck neck & head, skin & all, plus skin off of the duck's thigh (lots of fat...)
- 1 pork liver mixed in with 1 chicken breast
- 1 chicken back
- handful of beef tripe
- 1 meaty marrow bone. beef femur again, but I took it away from him after he was done licking all the marrow and scraping the meat off the outside. He starts trying to scrape out the spongey interior too, which i'm afraid will lead to him trying to crack it open.

His poop at the end of the day was beautiful (if one can say that about poop, haha), but only the length of my pinky finger and about twice its diameter  

Already noticing the difference in energy and reduced scratching on raw, AND he doesn't care for cooked people food anymore!! That's one way to curb begging - feed your dog something he actually likes to eat!

I fed Cato 2 - 3% of his EXPECTED adult weight. He has literally had 16 - 20oz his whole existence. lol The only time we had a hard tiem keeping wait on was from 9-15 months. He had a HUGE growth spirt and it just kept coming and he couldn't even out.

All of that food still sounds like a bit too much.

Are you on Facebook? There are quite a few raw groups on there.

http://www.dogaware.com/articles/wdjhomemade2.html

http://preymodelraw.com/how-to-get-started/


All sites have different guidelines. I personally followed the 2-3% of adult weight his whole life and never had a problem. This is what many, many people I know do and it allows for adequate control of food consumption. When trying to an exact 10% of puppy weight you run into the ever changing weight problem. 2 -3 % of adult weight is perfectly fine (and almost exactly the same.)

That actually sounds pretty convenient! Is Cato the darker of your two dogs? Both are looking gorgeous on their diet. I hope Caper's fur will fill out like that too.

So if Caper weighed 55 pounds at 6 months, what do you think his expected weight will be? I'm wondering if he's in a growth phase right now, since his bones seem to be getting more prominent but when I weighed him last Saturday at the vet's he had gained 4 pounds  

Cato is my light Grey. Delilah is my Sable Female.

He is purebred Siberian? He's going to be big. Can you post pictures from above him showing his shape (should have a silhouette that is nice) and side pictures. That would be awesome!

I'd guess he'll end up around 70 - 75lbs. Give or take a pound of two. But, I don't know if he's overweight now, so I'd have to see.

If 70 is projected weight feed around 24-28 oz Not quite two pounds.

According to his previous owner, he is purebred and akc registered but i hadn't received any proof. Here are some photos, or the best I could manage with a cellphone, dim lighting, and a groggy doggie:





(The shaved patch of fur is where is morphine patch was after he had his paw surgery, and it's finally starting to fill back in)

Here's one in better lighting, albeit farther away:

IMO - he does not need to gain any weight. I would leave him at a solid 2% - 24 oz of meat.

Are you 100% sure on his birthdate?

Not very sure - I'm his 3rd owner, and all I got was his previous vet records indicating that his bday was 11/29/12. But considering that he's been through 3 owners already and the previous owner didn't have his registration papers, it might have just been an estimate. Is it possible to tell from the above photos? I've got plenty more if they'd help.

Today he decided to play with his food in between eating it, which made feeding time extremely messy and drawn out - sigh lol but I'm glad he likes it

Hahaha feed him in a crate if he keeps it up.

He just looks older ot me, but I could be wrong. Try just feed him 3% of 55. That should keep him stable. I don't know that he will gain much more weight, he will probably just fill out because he's almost 8 months old.

Thanks for the crate feeding tip, it saved me cleaning many a messy floor

So he has begun to be picky with even with the raw food now! He only wants to eat beef marrow bones, pork ribs and fish. Sometimes he'll eat pork hearts, if there's a lot of congealed blood in it. No organs, no poultry or anything else! He'll sniff, lick, take a couple of half-hearted bites and walk away.  

He'll eat if he gets hungry don't give into his demands. if he doesn't eat it pick it up put it in the fridge and try again later, eventually he'll learn to eat what you give him

I had resorted to cooking it lightly on the exterior with some olive oil, sugar and chicken broth powder - did the trick, but is this ok? It definitely smelled yummy to my human senses

He also gets desperate enough in the between times to go after the other dog's kibble so he's no longer desperate by the time I pull the meat back out of the fridge. I'll have to toughen up for both of our sakes

I would refrain from using anything extra - picky eaters are made

Just feed once a day and leave it. if he doesn't eat he likely will next meal.

NewComer wrote:

I had resorted to cooking it lightly on the exterior with some olive oil, sugar and chicken broth powder - did the trick, but is this ok? It definitely smelled yummy to my human senses

He also gets desperate enough in the between times to go after the other dog's kibble so he's no longer desperate by the time I pull the meat back out of the fridge. I'll have to toughen up for both of our sakes

I have one dog on kibble and one on raw if I were to leave his kibble down London would eat it. If put it down in the morning while London eats in her crate, if he doesn't eat it, it gets picked up until the next meal.
Don't cater they'll just keep being picky