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Ben Mcfuzzylugs
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Ben Mcfuzzylugs is offline  
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15-09-2008, 12:33 PM
I switched Ben at 8 months and I noticed within a month he had far more energy, speed and stamina - but also that he had better concentation and in the house was a lot calmer (but of course some of that could be growing up)

He has pretty much no carbs and he can go on a 3 hour walk with my friends 3 collies and at the end of it they are plodding and he gets the zoomies

actually the change in Ben has had me cut out carbs for a month now (Not atkins - lots of veg)
What I have been feeling
Far more energy and no bloted sluggish feelings
High fat makes you feel far less hungry (not to mention that it also contains the fat soluble vits and minerals)
weight dropping off
no food cravings

The only downside - which I am applying to Ben too - you MUST eat brecky else no enery

Dont worry about ratios - feed as natural and whole food as you can
I deff think you are low on fat
I would add Lamb breasts and salmon if your dog will eat them, cheep lamb mince is good too. deff leave the skin on the chicken

seriously I would try totaly ditching the kibble for a few weeks - you can always go back if you aint happy
but everywhere I have looked and done recearch the most poeple who have problems with their dogs are the ones who add other things to the diet - kibble, veg, loads of supliments

a raw diet really does give them what they need
and if you are trying it for his skin then give it a real good try for a few weeks
say how about try it for 1 month - fully raw - then if you are not happy you can be secure in your mind that you wont have done him any harm in such a short time

But I bet you see a bigger improvment as soon as you up the fat and ditch the carbs
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scarter
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15-09-2008, 12:44 PM
I'm sold on the idea of upping the fat content.

Ditching the kibble (carbs) is something we've mulled over. It did occur to us that it's possible that it's 'confusing' for Beanie's system having to get her energy from carbs for half the day and from fat the other half. And it's even more worrying that she's getting insufficient fat and getting her energy from protein for part of the day!!

It's a big step though. Kibble is a bit of a safety net for us. I know lots of people swear by raw diets, but then again lots of people swear by kibble. I won't be content until I've found scientific studies that give me clear guidlines and have seen the evidence with my own eyes! But I guess I won't get anywhere sitting on the fence.

On Saturday I actually went out and brought a bag of James Wellbeleoved Lamb and Vegetable Kibble which is free of cereals, wheat etc. But it's not carb free.

We will seriously consider what you say. It does make sense. It's just a big step for us.

I think it will put my mind at rest quite a bit if I can find someone that works with high performance working dogs or canine athletes and feeds them raw. Not because I put my dog into that category (yet ) but because I feel that these dogs realy 'test' a diet more rigorously. This is more likely to show up weaknesses in a dog's nutrition.
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Sarah27
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15-09-2008, 01:42 PM
I totally understand what you're saying, but a kibble diet is a totally different thing from a raw diet. So a kibble manufacturer will say your dog needs carbs from sources such as grains/veggies whereas what a dog really needs is high protein from meat. I guess what I am saying is I don't think it would be possible to get the same quantities of carbs etc. from a raw diet.

I also understand that kibble is a safety net for you, but I went cold turkey from kibble to raw and had no problems at all.

Anyway, hopefully you'll find loads of people who have working dogs etc. who feed raw on the yahoo group and they'll be able to tell you the right quantities. I agree that a working dog needs different things from their food, but maybe that just means giving more food when the dog is working/competing? (Sorry, just thinking aloud there ).

Good luck, and happy feeding xxx
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Ben Mcfuzzylugs
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15-09-2008, 02:10 PM
We do agility - but just starting
I know the top HWTM handler feeds raw
Also I know of several border collies in america working in huge sheep farms who feed raw - those dogs are worked hard
An ex of mine had racing grayhounds and they were fed raw and a little veg

) there is lots of working dogs out there
Once you are on the groups you will see so many testimonials - I rem reading about the kennels that say they have saved so much money on vet bills, their bank account really shows how much healiter their dogs are

Lots of people also say skin and ear infections have cleared up - I wasnt so lucky with Ben

I totaly understand why you are scared to jump - I was too
until I realised the simple thing
Raw is not the new untested diet - kibble is
in the UK people have been feeding dry food for a v short time
With all the advances in vet science and everything dogs should be far healthier than they ever were, living longer with less problems

If they were I would have stuck to kibble and listened to all the recent advice

as it stands just now I prefer to feed my dog the most natural food for him and let other people run the health tests on this new food on their dogs

The reason we think dry food is the best for our dog and it is too difficult to feed the dogs ourself is just fantastic marketing by the manufacturers, there isnt that kind of advertising for a good raw diet - cos if its a good diet noone is making money out of it

Why do we say
'as fit as a butchers dog'?
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Evie
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15-09-2008, 10:21 PM
Originally Posted by scarter View Post
Hi,

We have an 11 month old Beagle. We started feeding her a raw diet 3 weeks ago.

Until recently we'd fed Beanie on Burns mini-bites. It kept her very lean - too lean according to some breeders and show people. But the vet always said she was in great shape. We tended to agree with our vet. Our pup has been a member of a whippet racing club (Beagle division) since she was 6 months old and every week without fail she'd get noticably faster.

Then for a variety of reasons we decided that a raw diet was our best way forwards (mainly because she has pollen allergies and we've found studies in human allergy sufferers that suggests to us that raw food might help).

Way to go!

In the three weeks that she's been on a raw diet she's put on 1.5 lbs (which is a huge amount for her - she'd been at a tiny 9.6 kg since she was about 7 months old. She's always been a very muscular little pup (but not bulky), but this extra weight is muscle bulk. Also her rib cage has really opened up. I'd say if anything there's less fat coverage on her. People have commented that she's looking good and we have to agree. It's as if the raw diet has quickly matured her from a lanky teenager to a lean, muscular adult.

If we didn't have any physical test to go by we'd be raving about the wonders of a raw diet!

But....

In the past three weeks at the racing she's not only stopped improving, but has actually been slightly slower, and we feel that her endurance is down very slightly too. (Although she is still very fast and has way above average stamina).

I think the change in speed is down purely to the weight gain. Be the weight gain from her as she naturally matures at the age she is or from her change in diet, none of us could be sure. If the weight gain is a healthy gain and the dog is doing well otherwise I'd not worry about it, after all the racing is purely for her fun.

Now in my mind the real test of how well a diet suits a dog isn't how it affects looks, but performance. If a diet causes the dog to be slower or have less endurance then I feel it must be lacking in something and probably isn't keeping her in the best possible health.

Speed and endurance are two totally different things. A sprinter can run at very fast speeds, but would never beat an endurance runner in a long race, they'd have burnt out much quicker. Top speed doesn't necesssarily equal top health. Body shape, age etc all comes into that.

The first point that I need to make is that there's no guarantee that her poor performance or improved looks has anything at all to do with her diet. It could just be part of the natural maturing process. But it *seems* to be food related.

We want to stick with raw rather than panic and go back to kibble, so we're hoping to learn more in order to adjust the balance of her diet to suit her better.

IMO returning to kibble would be a step in the wrong direction.

Here's what we're feeding her:

She's currently on raw for breakfast and kibble at night. (We aren't brave enough to do a complete switch over yet)

For breakfast a range of *very lean*, top quality meats including skinless boned chicken breast, lean steak, lean beef mince, turky mince, chopped turkey thighs, tripe, white fish, raw sardine - occasional raw liver and a tiny bit of other offal. Perhaps a couple of chicken wings, a lambs neck and a marrow bone or beef knuckle bone each week. And a wide variety of liquidised vegetables.

WOOOAAAHH!!!! She's been on raw for 3 weeks now, right? Best way to make the change to raw is to slowly introduce one type of meat/bone/offal at a time for a week or two before introducing the next. This way the dogs system can adapt to it and if there is any meat sources that might cause trouble in any way you can pin point it. Easy does it.

That's a lot of new foods for her system to be dealing with, coupled with the fact that she's also got to adjust her system to go back and forward to kibble, you're lucky there's been no case of cannon butt.

Ditch the kibble and ditch the veg. Both are not needed in your canine carnivores diet. Trust me.


Some thoughts that I've had:

1. Her kibble was fairly high carbohydrate, very low fat and fairly low protein (19% I think).

Dogs don't need the carbs. Most of the kibble you feed is just coming out the other end.

2. Her current diet is much higher in protein and fat, but has no/little carbohydrate.

By your own admission, it's quite a lean diet. Dogs need fat for energy. Leave the skin on and see how she gets on with it. If she does get some cannon butt from it you can cut back on it again.

3. I've read that fat is a better source of energy in dogs than carbohydrate. This is based on studies of canine athletes - both endurance and spped. Does it take time for a dog's system to adjust to running on fat rather than carbohydrate? Or could it be that she's not getting enough fat (she has lean cuts of meat)? She is a very fit, active little pup that has always stayed very lean despite eating a lot!

A dog that is used to eating kibble will have weaker stomach acids than dogs on raw, but it does become stonger and the system more efficent at digesting raw. Switching between the two, whilst it can be done, isn't optimal to health. A pure raw diet is.

If you are worried by unhealthy weight gain, cut back on the over all amount you are feeding, rather than the fat in her diet. But from what you have said this sounds like a healthy natural weight gain and nothing to be concerned about.



4. What about carbohydrates - has anyone found that their dog does better if these are included in a raw diet? I know research has shown that they aren't necessary but does anyone's experience say otherwise?

My experiance has shown me that dogs do much better once the carbs are ditched from the diet.

Any suggestions/thoughts/ideas very welcome!

Especially from people with experience of tweaking the diet of competetive or working dogs. Beagles are endurance animals, but Beanie loves to sprint - chases are her favorite game. So I guess her physical demands are similar to that of compettive agility dogs. (In fact, she's starting agility classes in a week or two).

As you say, beagles are built for endurance. It is natural as they mature they will slow down a little. Animals built for sprints will never be able to cover as much ground as those bred for endurance.

If she still enjoys the racing, let her go along and enjoy it for the fun. But don't see her slowing down at the age she is as a negative. She's mearly growing up and turning into that wonderful fit dog that can go for miles as a beagle should be.

Hope thats of some help.
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scarter
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16-09-2008, 08:37 AM
Her endurance AND speed have slipped back. Also, FIT adult Beagles are much faster than pups. But as I said from the outset, there are various possible reasons for her recent loss of fitness. I don't want to cause a defensive reaction from dedicated raw feeders. Even if it is her raw diet that's caused the setback that doesn't mean it won't work perfectly once we've got the balance of protein, fat, carbs and fibre right. The purpose of this thread is to learn from people that have already gone through the process of optimising their chosen 'basic' diet to suit the specific dietry needs of their active dogs.

From my point of view, a big weakness of feeding raw is the lack of clinical studies and statistical information. Most of the books I've read justify the feeding program by explaining that this is how the domestic dog's predicesors would have eaten. The problem is, you then have various proposed models of this theoretical wild dog ranging from meat only eater to meat and veg eater to eater of veg in it's prey's stomach. All claim that they know their approach is right as their dogs superb health is proof. Which suggests that they're all deluded or that there are very many ways to feed a dog a superbly healthy diet. I suspect the latter is true.

I'm interested in feeding raw. But I want to base it more upon what we know about the nutritional requirements of dogs - particularly canine athletes. So rather than basing my feeding plan upon what model of the theoretical wild dog I buy into I want to base it upon the results of studies and research....and once I'm in the right ball park on how well my dog looks, acts, performs and what my vet thinks of her condition. I plan to have her blood tested once I think I've found a diet that works well in all other respects.

I'm not critisising those that choose to base their feeding on what they believe wild dogs or wolves ate/eat. It's just not an approach that sits well with me personally. And with so much anecdotal evidence proving that there are lots of very different 'perfect diets' for dogs at the end of the day a big factor in what you choose has to come down to what the owner feels comfortable with.

I've read a few studies on nutritional requirements for canine athletes. A diet that was found to be good for a small, high metabolism, high energy, agility dog (so similar to my dog) breaks down as follows:

35.6% protein
23.3% fat
4% fibre
7.2% ash
29.5% carbohydrate

In this diet, 29.2% of the calories are coming from protein, 46.6% from fat and 24.2 % from carbohydrates.

I'm now torn. Not sure whether to produce a raw variation of a diet with this composition, or to experiement with cutting out carbs first. Virtually all sled dogs, greyhounds, hunting dogs etc are fed carbs (according to my research I should add - I know you say otherwise Ben McFuzzylugs, and those are the people I'm hoping to get in touch with for more detail !) - is this because it works better or because it's cheaper? If no carbs was better surely someone would want their dogs to excel enough to pay for the best diet? And I'm sure at least some competetive dog owners put the time into researching and experiementing with these things. If anyone here has experiemented can you provide us with the results of your study? So not just "my dog's better without", but detailed info about what you tried and the results?

Those of you that don't feed carbs - have you ever worked out the percentages of fat and protein in your dogs diet, and how much energy is coming from each?
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scarter
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16-09-2008, 08:59 AM
We gave our pup raw last night instead of kibble, so her last kibble meal was 36 hours ago. I gave her nice fatty mince last night, and chicken with skin on this morning.

Now I know it's VERY early days, and I will stick it out for a little while, but...

My partner has just phoned from the park to say that he's on his way home because our pup has run out of steam! That has NEVER happened before. Dogs that she normaly runs into the ground are outrunning her. So a dramatic drop in performance this morning.

Has anyone experienced this - an initial loss of stamina and/or speed after switching from a good quality kibble (burns) to raw food? She has always been an exceptionally fit dog, and really she always thrived on Burns. It is just because of her itchy skin that we thought we'd try raw.

In all other respects I'd say she's thriving on raw, but this drop in performance is very worying. We'll see what happens over the next few days.
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Evie
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16-09-2008, 09:23 AM
Originally Posted by scarter View Post
Her endurance AND speed have slipped back. Also, FIT adult Beagles are much faster than pups. But as I said from the outset, there are various possible reasons for her recent loss of fitness. I don't want to cause a defensive reaction from dedicated raw feeders. Even if it is her raw diet that's caused the setback that doesn't mean it won't work perfectly once we've got the balance of protein, fat, carbs and fibre right. The purpose of this thread is to learn from people that have already gone through the process of optimising their chosen 'basic' diet to suit the specific dietry needs of their active dogs.

From my point of view, a big weakness of feeding raw is the lack of clinical studies and statistical information. Most of the books I've read justify the feeding program by explaining that this is how the domestic dog's predicesors would have eaten. The problem is, you then have various proposed models of this theoretical wild dog ranging from meat only eater to meat and veg eater to eater of veg in it's prey's stomach. All claim that they know their approach is right as their dogs superb health is proof. Which suggests that they're all deluded or that there are very many ways to feed a dog a superbly healthy diet. I suspect the latter is true.

I'm interested in feeding raw. But I want to base it more upon what we know about the nutritional requirements of dogs - particularly canine athletes. So rather than basing my feeding plan upon what model of the theoretical wild dog I buy into I want to base it upon the results of studies and research....and once I'm in the right ball park on how well my dog looks, acts, performs and what my vet thinks of her condition. I plan to have her blood tested once I think I've found a diet that works well in all other respects.

I'm not critisising those that choose to base their feeding on what they believe wild dogs or wolves ate/eat. It's just not an approach that sits well with me personally. And with so much anecdotal evidence proving that there are lots of very different 'perfect diets' for dogs at the end of the day a big factor in what you choose has to come down to what the owner feels comfortable with.

I've read a few studies on nutritional requirements for canine athletes. A diet that was found to be good for a small, high metabolism, high energy, agility dog (so similar to my dog) breaks down as follows:

35.6% protein
23.3% fat
4% fibre
7.2% ash
29.5% carbohydrate

In this diet, 29.2% of the calories are coming from protein, 46.6% from fat and 24.2 % from carbohydrates.

I'm now torn. Not sure whether to produce a raw variation of a diet with this composition, or to experiement with cutting out carbs first. Virtually all sled dogs, greyhounds, hunting dogs etc are fed carbs (according to my research I should add - I know you say otherwise Ben McFuzzylugs, and those are the people I'm hoping to get in touch with for more detail !) - is this because it works better or because it's cheaper? If no carbs was better surely someone would want their dogs to excel enough to pay for the best diet? And I'm sure at least some competetive dog owners put the time into researching and experiementing with these things. If anyone here has experiemented can you provide us with the results of your study? So not just "my dog's better without", but detailed info about what you tried and the results?

Those of you that don't feed carbs - have you ever worked out the percentages of fat and protein in your dogs diet, and how much energy is coming from each?
AGGHH. I've just sat and typed out a detailed response to you and managed to loose it all!
Promise I'll get back to you!
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Evie
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16-09-2008, 09:28 AM
Originally Posted by scarter View Post
We gave our pup raw last night instead of kibble, so her last kibble meal was 36 hours ago. I gave her nice fatty mince last night, and chicken with skin on this morning.

Now I know it's VERY early days, and I will stick it out for a little while, but...

My partner has just phoned from the park to say that he's on his way home because our pup has run out of steam! That has NEVER happened before. Dogs that she normaly runs into the ground are outrunning her. So a dramatic drop in performance this morning.

Has anyone experienced this - an initial loss of stamina and/or speed after switching from a good quality kibble (burns) to raw food? She has always been an exceptionally fit dog, and really she always thrived on Burns. It is just because of her itchy skin that we thought we'd try raw.

In all other respects I'd say she's thriving on raw, but this drop in performance is very worying. We'll see what happens over the next few days.
I do believe that some dogs go through a small detox when they are first changed over. Wills certainly did, Archie didn't.

I am concerned that you are throwing alot of new foods at her at once. As I mentioned before each new protien source should be introduced one at a time over a period of weeks.

I think you have mentioned that you have already done so; but if not:
Joint the yahoo "rawfeeding" group. People on there with decades of experiance, competitors, breeders, all sorts of breeds as well as people!
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Louise13
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16-09-2008, 09:38 AM
Yes the detox thing is true for some..you just have to work through it..

I have 2 very active malamutes and they are fed whatever is at the top of the freezer.. a bag of minced food each night.. they NEVER run out of steam!! wish they would!! I don't analyse everything.. I just feed them.. it seems to work..and they can pull a rig for fun..AND make it look easy LOL..

I get my food from Landywoods so they have a variety of everything on their price list..
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