Tomorrow marks the beginning of feeding raw to my two dogs! I bought $20 worth of chicken that should last us about 2 weeks for them. I am making them their own thread because I am pretty sure I will have questions along the way but I think I have the basics down pretty well. I butchered an entire whole chicken today, raw is going to be a lot more work then kibble! Hahah. If after 2 weeks of chicken they are doing well I will add in some duck since they have a lot of duck at the asian market, plus they have been getting duck wings already as treats.

Good luck with it! I'm glad that you're making a dedicated thread, makes it easier to follow and give specific advice if needed. Remember also that with puppies it's often a good idea to hold the food so they don't swallow it without chewing, if you know they'll chew it then that won't be necessary. Keep us updated. Oh and I hate cutting up the meat myself lol, so nasty!

Uh oh. Faolan loves his raw food a little too much I think. He had a chicken quarter for breakfast and he did good and ate half of it on the linoleum but then he tried to move to the carpet and when I reached down to take his collar and move him back, he started this really nasty snarling and "lunged" towards my hand (his mouth was full of food so I don't think he would have actually bit me). I have never had him do this with kibble or even his duck wings! I kept my hand on him the rest of the time he ate (on the linoleum) and he never stopped growling, though he did calm down and stop doing the little lunges. Any tips to work through this?

Pictures of his first entirely raw meal:

I'd hold it and make him chew/rip pieces off while I'm holding it. Though obviously that entails holding raw meat, which I'm assuming you're comfortable with, and he may accidentally get your finger when trying to chew.. lol.

Danielle, that's how my sibe is too. He is very possessive of his raw food, no reaction like that with anything else. You'll want to nip that behavior in the bud now. Holding his food while he eats is a good starting point as well as making him work for his food (NILIF). I allow my boy to carry on like that ONLY because I know it is all show. I could take his food away without being bitten if I needed to which is important for you to be able to do just in case.

Alright, I will hold it this time. I didn't this morning because he is very good at chewing his food.

Also, is mucous poo something to be concerned about? I expected weird things going on with the poo at first but didn't read anything mentioning to possibly expect mucous poo.

Mine had mocousy poop also. The Val said it could be the skin of the chicken. Once I started removing the skin it got much better. It's a pain in the butt to remove the skin though. IMO...

I did read about removing the skin because it causes runny poo in some dogs. Faolan's wasn't runny, just mucousy. I suppose I will start doing that. If I can at least remove most of it it should help, right?

Legend_of_Faolan wrote:

I did read about removing the skin because it causes runny poo in some dogs. Faolan's wasn't runny, just mucousy. I suppose I will start doing that. If I can at least remove most of it it should help, right?

Yep, Kody's was runny either just slimy looking..lol. It helped when i removed most of the skin. It's not easy though...total pain in the a$$ for me actually..lol. A few days ago I tried leaving a little bit of skin on and his poop wasn't mucousy at all though. Guessing maybe his body adjusted to it...who knows...

It could be the skin as Melissa suggested. I'd try removing it as best you can and see if that doesn't help. Some dogs don't take the transition as well as others either so that is also a possibility. Some dogs will go through a "detox" period where they may have runny, mucus covered stool and even see their coats get worse with shedding before things get better. It's quite normal but every dog is an individual so some switch with no problem while others may go through a transition period.

His poo has been less mucousy since I have been taking skin off but its still soft. Not liquidy, and he gets bone in every meal, so I think its just part of the transition.

Another tip is that the more bone in their diet the firmer their stool will be. Likewise too much bone can result in constipation and difficulty defecating...just some fun facts for you. lol We love talking poop a little too much.

Yes I read about that. He did take longer to poo today than normal, but it was soft poo. Idk what that means, lol. His poos are smaller already, too! Is it supposed to happen that fast?

Yes, you'll notice smaller stool instantly. That's a good sign, they're actually utilizing more of their food.

Hey, what do you feed to your little chihuahuas? My papillon has been eating drumettes and he can eat those well enough, but I don't think he could handle any bones bigger than that.

I feed bone-in wings and young chicken thighs for my one chihuahua that eats raw, she's 7 lbs. My other 6.5 lb chihuahua cannot tolerate raw so she doesn't get it, she literally cannot stomach raw for some reason but she's also my sensitive girl with irritable bowel so there's a lot of stuff her tummy won't tolerate.

Cornish hens cut up are a good option for little mouths as well. For other proteins besides chicken I usually feed boneless meat to my raw eating chi.

So for him I should just use chicken to get him his bones? Like give him a chicken wing to get the bone and switch up the protein with other boneless types?

I wouldn't start introducing other proteins for a while since you just started raw...especially since his stools haven't quite returned to a desirable state.

But for my chi that's what I do is chicken with bone but other proteins like beef, pork, turkey I feed boneless. You could feed other stuff with small bones like fish, rabbit, mice, or quail for example.

Oh yeah I didn't mean now, I meant after he is used to eating raw.

Okay, wasn't sure and didn't want you to end up with more issues.