OK Lara, that's fair enough, I've tried, and failed. Best of luck to you and your little guys, may they continue to thrive.

As long as you control his portion size there is no reason why he would be more prone to putting on weight. The general guidline is 2%-4% of an adult dogs weight daily, so if you start with say 3% then as you get used to it you can tweak the amount as needed. Over time you will be able to judge how much he needs yourself.

This is a useful tool in working out amounts- http://www.raw4dogs.com/calculate.htm

Hi Helena, that's interesting about the raw tripe. VERY interesting, because when you feed raw tripe (I believe it is called green tripe, but I'm not sure) then you are feeding predigested vegetable matter as well ... so maybe that's why the mastiff lived a good long life. Raw bones as well would have been good, but there is no doubt that raw tripe is a fantastic food for dogs.

This sounds awful, but I never used to weigh Hal's food. Because he was not a greedy dog, he would only eat when he was hungry, then I would guess at the quantity of meat I fed him. If he cleaned up his bowl, which he never did, but if he did, then I would have given him more. But my recommendation with a dog prone to be overweight, and therefore probably a guy who has a propensity to be greedy, I would suck it and see. My boy weighed around 60 lbs, very light for a large dog, but in weight terms, I would give him between half a pound and a pound of fatty meat, say breast of lamb or brisket of beef chopped up with the fat, mixed with a dessert spoon of veg and some chicken stock. That would be a typical meal, fed at about 6 pm. In addition to this, he had two chicken wings, or a small raw meaty bone when he got back from his second walk of the day.

I need to bone up more (no pun intended !!) on Billinghurst's book, but I think I am right in thinking that fat doesn't make dogs fat, it is carbs that do, so liver, being high in carbohydrate, perhaps is best avoided except as a treat. Marrow I believe is high in carbohydrate too, so this may be why he looked fat after extracting the marrow from a juicy bone!

I know that Billinghurst recommends increasing the veg for overweight dogs, so that they are filling up on the less fattening things. A whole raw carrot is good to give dogs because in that form they can't digest it, and the bits of carrot just pass through whole, undigested, in the faeces, so the carbohydrate is not absorbed.

We haven't taken down Hal's website yet - the address is www.kalikakasa.info if anyone wants to take a look at him. Note his teeth - though strong they are stained - this was due to the years when he was on kibble - dreadful stuff! About six months ago we did have his teeth cleaned by the vet and they looked a lot better, but never regained their pearly whiteness.

Lara: I am curious to know what happened to your little guys when you fed them vegetables? Did you puree them in a smoothie maker, and how long did you feed them for?

They obviously caused something undesirable, and I would be fascinated to know what. I am wracking my brains to think of any ill effect that Hal had, and I can think of none I have to say.

Thanks Lara. He weighs in at 46kgs now whereas he was 50!!! so that equates to about 3lbs of food a day then, so I'll check out what 3lbs of meat looks like coz I tend to be a bit like Gnasher with my feeding and judge for myself with the kibble and cooked meat.

Hi Gnasher, yes she said it was definitely green and very smelly! I've always been the same as you with feeding, I never weigh, I just judge, and whereas my current dog was a real dustbin when he first came to us, since I lost my other one, he has taken to being very fussy with his food and eats just like she used to, picking out every piece, or sometimes just walking away! I suspect that's because there's always 2 ab's prestinely wrapped in liver pate somewhere in there and he knows it! The raw carrots he loves, he's always had a raw carrot after each meal morning and night so that's not a problem.

Now you saying about your Hali's teeth surprises me, because my previous dog who ate nothing but kibble because she had EPI most of her life and wasn't allowed anything else, had the pearliest, whitest set of gnashers (no pun intended there either!) you ever did see! My vet would always comment on her beautiful teeth and she was 11 1/2 by that time. I never cleaned them either, she never ate chews, only raw carrots, and an occasional (once every 3 months) marrow bone throughout her life.

I won't be doing the chicken wings bit though! For one thing I couldn't stand to watch, and another is, I think he's gone off chicken (cooked), so it'll be lamb or beef, but I've made a note of the liver being a carb I won't be doing the pork due to an incident I had with my other dog and what the vet said, but that's another story!

Thanks guys, I'll be interested in seeing a change in my dog I hope, and you never know, it might help if not cure his terrible skin condition that he's had all of his life instead of him having to live on ab's like he does now. Maybe my vet might agree with me too on this change, as she seems to think we should try everything at the moment with him and his skin problems! I really appreciate all your help, and once again apologies to Leanne for the hijack!

I've checked with hubby, and green tripe (very smelly) is the best thing you can feed your dog as it contains the predigested stomach contents of the cow, sheep or wherever it came from - no wonder it stinks !! Hal hated the stuff, raw or cooked, even after a week of starvation, he refused to eat tripe, bless his little cotton socks.

How interesting about those teeth. I always assumed it was the kibble that gave him such stains, but maybe not. I will never know now.

I personally did not feed raw pork, I was advised not to by the vet because of trichitosis (spelling?), a parasite that can be found in pork meat, and also the risk of tape worm. Rightly or wrongly, I stuck by that. I did find that if I gave him raw pork bones, they upset him terribly. Just feeding beef and lamb shouldn't be a problem, but chicken wings are extremely good because of the soft bones in them that are easily digestible. Just don't look, you'll soon get used to it. A lot of barfers feed whole chicken carcase as well, which is very good, I believe I chopped a carcase into 4 once and gave these to Hal one at a time, and he loved it.

Regarding teeth, dogs are like humans in that some are more prone to bad teeth, weak teeth etc, so the level of decay varies.

Having said that I do know some dogs with very good teeth fed on kibble, who are just lucky, but the majority of kibble fed dogs get perodontal disease which is awful, and another reason RAW is great as it works the teeth and cleans them

I agree that dogs do need veg. Wolves are omnivores and I dont understand what you mean LarasYorkies when you say dogs are 'Canin Lupis Familiaris' ! Lupis is Wolf and Familiaris 'used' to be domestic dog, until they realised that the DNA was actually one in the same thing !!

Erm, no you're not. The stomach contents are hosed off the green tripe. You are feeding simply the stomach itself: minus the contents.

Wild dogs/Wolves shake out the contents of the stomach from their prey. Only small prey gets eaten stomach contents and all (even then sometimes still shaken out). The small amount found in these stomachs is insignificant in the over all diet and wouldn't contain the variety of veg some offer their dogs on teh raw diet. Indeed it would only contain a small amount of grass and herbs.

I just want to add to this that of this amount (if following the prey model diet) roughly 80% should be meat, 10% edible bone and 10% organ. This is just a rough guide to get you started some dogs do better on more/less bone etc.
I don't like refering to "meaty bones" when talking about raw feeding. It can be a deceptive wording; one persons meaty bone can be anothers bare bone. Hence I refer to the amount of actual meat and bone the dog consumes. Most of this will be done by eye, sonce obviously you won't be weighing out each individual bit.

I just put whole chicken carcases in their bowls and watch the magic.

Now you see it, now you don't.

If you want to give them a meal that takes ages for them to eat, try skinned sheep's heads which you can get from a good butcher or your local abattoir. I personally get the ones with the brain still left in them, but you can ask for that to be removed if you want.

You see they are packed full of meat and because of the shape of the head it takes them ages to nibble away at it to get every last bit of meat off of it. So not only do they get fed, they also have to use they brains to work out how to get to those little morsels of meat.

By the way it normally takes my lot about an hour each to eat a good sized head.

I think Willow would LOVE to have a go at sheeps head. Not so sure if Archie would go for it, sometimes he thinks whole fish is too much of an effort, ha ha.

Can you get it brains and all from a butcher? I thought they couldn't supply the likes of brains, or am I totally wrong?

I wonder how my neighbours would handle seeing sheep heads on our decking, lol. Knowing my kids love of all things biological they would be totally fasinated at this one!

With my two I divide a chicken carcuss into four and feed a piece a day... they are a bit smaller than your dogs Colin.