Please critique my diet so far!

OK, so we are officially "RAW" for 2 weeks now and everything is going great! Everyone has noticed how beautiful the min pin's coats are, and Gretchen has even lost 1/2lb. (she was 21lbs. and needs to be about 18lbs.) Anyhoo, I wanted the pros on here to look at my diet so far and make suggestions or let me know what else to add. Here it is - these are all the things we've used in the past 2 weeks:

*chicken breasts, cut into big chunks
*chicken leg quarters & wings - they love these!
* meat patties I made up of 2 parts ground turkey, 1 part ground beef, 2 eggs, 1 apple, and 1 carrot (my dogs love apples and carrots as treats, so I added these for flavor and fiber)
*canned pumpkin 1 Tbsp. at a time
*bits of beef when I find it on sale
*lowfat plain yogurt a few times a week


I am going to add in organ meat tonight - just didn't want to do the "too much, too soon" thing and have problems. :yuck: The meat patties are for convenience for me when I work early mornings and the dogs love 'em.

Oh, I do have one more question....when you figure 2-3% of body weight, is that at each meal or just the total for the day? My dogs still seem hungry if I only give them 2-3% a day.

Thanks for any and all input! This has been an amazing experience so far, and the girls have the energy of a puppy again (they are 6 years old)!

:grouphug:

Oh, I do have one more question....when you figure 2-3% of body weight, is that at each meal or just the total for the day? My dogs still seem hungry if I only give them 2-3% a day.

I can help you with this question but I have two cats so I am unable to comment on the meal as cats and dogs are different ;)

2-3% of your dogs body weight a day is what is recommended. If your dogs seem really hungry keep them at 3% for a while or until you start to notice weight gain. If you are really worried they are starving feed them a bit more for now but only temporarily. The trasition might be new to them because it is much healthier than kibble....

Here is a raw feeding calculations chart I like to use for my cats (it is for dogs as well). I enter in their ideal weight so this helps with them losing some weight for now.
http://public.sheet.zoho.com/public/moolhuizen/xUYWj5pRM3DITSbpLaOzjg%3D%3D Please note: I feed my cats a prey model diet with no ingredients other then the meat/bone/organs added. I am sure you can search the web for similar calculations for adding other ingredients.

As long as the dog isn't loosing weight (and certainly age, activity level, season, the individual makes it so that one dog need 1.5% vs. another who needs 3.5% to maintain a healthy weight--go with what works for your dog) I would keep feeding the amount that you are, the dog will get used to it.

These are the issues I can see:
- lack of organs (but you said you'll be adding those)
- no fish or fish body oil supplementation
- carrots and apples are a ton of sugar. If you're feeding veggies, I'd try to use different varieties....(maybe keep the apples and carrots for snacks, or make them a smaller part of the diet)