leslie, congratulations
the only advice i can give you after reading your post is...
-are you home on monday?... some dogs *can* get cannon-butt for the first few days or weeks on raw, so weekends are the normally suggested times to switch... just to be there in case doggy asks for the door more often than usual. also make sure to fast your dog for a day before feeding raw for the first time, a cleared-out system is better equipped to digest new stuff.
-at first i would monitor the amount of food, as over-eating can and does cause diarrhea (some dogs love the raw sooo much, they go nuts and gorge themselves senseless!). whole chickens are great, as the back & ribcage bones are the softest & easiest to digest at first. legs are great but the bones are thicker, so make sure doggy chews well. you can serve the meat half-frozen to slow down gulpers, and give pieces that are bigger than the dog's mouth to encourage crunching and munching.
-lop off any thick, hanging pieces of skin, the fat can cause gastric upsets to dogs who don't have an iron stomach.
that's about it... we're here to answer all the questions you have!