Hi Myka
I think the only reason people say to "start slow". are those that do not feed raw appropriately and add all kinds of things to their raw diet, instead of just adding meats.
Mkya, (stay with me here), close your eyes and just imagine...........
Just imagine for one minute that there was no more food in your fridge...
Just imagine that the stores were empty, everything gone,
All that was left was you, the hobby farm... the woods... the fields.
Just imagine.... your dog is hungry... and see a rabbit !
(are you still with me?)
Your dog, so hungry.... chases the rabbit and catches it.
Just imagine! Wow... his old instincts have kicked in and once again he's
the proud hunter his ancestors were........
(still with me? so far so good?)
Just imagine him eating that fresh, warm, succulent rabbit.
He will eat everything. The fur, chunky meats, a few small, tiny orgrans, and a bone here or there , he'll gorge himself, it tastes so good.
OK MYKA!!! WAKE UP NOW... OPEN YOUR EYES NOW
Each day you wake up, try to imagine, what your dog "caught today".
Was it a squirrel? A muskrat? Rabbit? did he bring down an elk? raid the chicken coop? steal some eggs? find a dead fish along the riverbank?
That is how you have to look at your raw feeding. Just like your dog does.
If you start thinking in those dimensions, next time you are in a store you'll have no problem choosing appropriate meats for your canine companion, and certainly you'll have no problem feeding him either. Natural raw feeding is just like all or any of the recipes at
http://rawfeddogs.net/Recipes
No, she doesn't need fish everyday, but she does a good and abundant source of Omegas and a natural source is fatty fish. You could also use krill oil, wild salmon oil, 3-fish oil, NEVER COD liver oil, but it's simply easier to toss your dog a fresh herring. It's a double bonus. It's health and acts like part of the meal where as a pill won't.
Green Tripe FAQs
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Much to the chagrin of many people who won't like to hear this , I can pretty much tell you that it's been my experience, that most people who have trouble with raw diets are the ones who feed psuedo raw diets, or contorted raw diets, and generally speaking they don't last long with the diet, the dog never really does exactly well, and later on down the road you'll often hear them say;
"Oh, I tried raw and it didn't work for me, so I'm doing this and that now".
or better still,
"My dog didn't like it"
"My dog actually got sick on it".
If you stick to just serving an abundance and variety of fresh, raw meaty bone, you should be successful, and that means not hamberger meat, not chicken necks, and backs raw, it means quarter and half chickens, turkeys, hunks of cod/salmon/whitefish , sides of ribs, entire carcass when available, meaty shanks and quarters and hinds, some tripe, a bit of organs here and there and some bone - it's that easy.
I will go to my grave saying that is it far better for your and your dog, to serve an ultra premium commercial dog food, than it is for you to try to implement a low quality raw diet of little or no merit. If you can't afford a premium bag of dog food, then you also won't be able to afford raw either.
Both costs are similar.
Best of luck - have fun though - and get a clothespin for your nose. The aroma in your kitchen is about to change.
Happy Humpday