[quote="Stray DogGive probiotics (live, natural, unsweetened yoghurt) when you make the switch to help him or her cope with the new bacteria (also good for diarrhea or when the dog is taking antibiotics).
quote]
Just curious… what effect do antibiotics have that yogurt is good for?
[quote=“Mordeth”][quote=“Stray Dog”]
The cheap stuff is garbage. Look at the ingredients and you’ll probably see meat (by-products or meal, most likely) way down on the list of ingredients, when it should be the most predominant ingredient by far.
Also, the foods that are thrown in will be of very poor quality.
What you save in the cost of the food you will pay in additional trips to the vet. The cheapest dog food you can get here is extremely cheap; we calculated we can feed 15 dogs for about NT$60 per day total, not each, feeding the cheap kibble. By comparison, by getting the offcuts of meat from a wholesale supplier or market vendor as Magnolia suggests we can feed the same number of dogs for NT$75 per day. That’s 25 percent extra, but only NT$1 extra per day per dog. Considering the vast difference in health benefits to the animal and the reduced veterinary costs, the raw meaty bones comes out a clear winner. The needed supplementation can be given for a few NT$ per day, or more if you really want to ensure good health.
Even if you buy your meaty bones from Wellcome, it would cost you on average about NT$25 per day if you feed mostly chicken backs (a fantastic food item for dogs, and only NT$13 per day for a medium-sized dog) and whatever else is going cheap that day, including fish once a week and steak or lamb every two to four weeks. An egg a day is great for a dog: organic and free range, about NT$5 per day per dog.
With proper supplementation, it should cost from NT$35 to no more than NT$50 per day per dog if buying meat from the supermarket, or about NT$8 to NT$25 per day, depending on the extent of supplementation, if using wholesale meat or offcuts.
My dogs never have to get their teeth cleaned, never smell bad (unless wet in the rain), don’t drink so much water, poop smaller and drier, have fewer ear infections, have no skin problems, and are generally very healthy and happy. They all have great physiques with very little visible fat.
My dogs rock! 
[/quote]
This post is the most helpful to me. I’d love to improve my dogs diet. But for example another poster metioned buying whole chickens and portioning it out…I could probably count on one hand how many times I’ve cut up a chicken in my life. I have an aversion to anything work related when it comes to food. I won’t eat anything with bones in it…Why? Because it’s too much hassel having to eat around something. No…I’m not kidding…I really am that lazy.
But buying raw bones…and just dumping them in their dog dish…that is something I could do. Any other EASY tips for buying healthy dog food?[/quote]
Like stray dog said, chicken backs sold at wellcome are really easy.
They range from 11-16nt each, and is basically enough for a meal. Just take the seran wrap off and feed the dogs.
If you go to the traditional market the meat is cheaper. You can buy chicken backs, necks, and head+neck. I got about ummmm a kilogram or more of chicken parts for 50 nt. The backs from the traditional market seem to be fatter and have more meat too.
Also, I pick out most of the veggies in my food and give it to me dog. 
When I fed my dog kibble and canned dog food, she would always have plaque buildup on her teeth, but now her teeth are nice and white.
Her poop is also a lot better digested. It doesn’t as smell rotten and is hard. And she doesn’t let out awful farts. So it would seem that when you feed kibble, most of the kibble is unable to be digested. But when you feed raw, the dog uses most of the nutrients.
This site has a pretty good list of what not to feed your dog
It mentions that garlic and raw egg whites are bad for your dog though.
[quote=“Little Yellow Dog”][quote=“Stray”] DogGive probiotics (live, natural, unsweetened yoghurt) when you make the switch to help him or her cope with the new bacteria (also good for diarrhea or when the dog is taking antibiotics).
[/quote]
Just curious… what effect do antibiotics have that yogurt is good for?[/quote]
Antibiotics kill bacterial infections but they also kill good bacterias. Yogurt helps producing the good bacteria.
bobepine
I did a lot of research on garlic, and it’s only bad for small dogs (under 5 kg) but extremely good for larger dogs - about one clove per day for most dogs is great.
LYD, probiotics replace the the good flora detroyed by antibiotics and help maintain a healthy environment in the digestive tract. Antibiotics often cause diarrhea because the good bacteria in the stomach are destroyed; this doesn’t happen when taking probiotics.
I always take probiotics when I get food poisoning and it always sorts me out a treat! 
One last thing before bedtime: although you are feeding three times more when giving raw meaty bones, the ‘waste product’ of this is about half the size.
You can work out for yourselves what that means.
Night night.
Sean
With summer and heat and humidity approaching fast, I’ve nicked this recipe from a Shar Pei site where Shar Lee and I are members:
Doggie Ice Cream Recipe
32 oz. plain yogurt
1 mashed banana
2 T p’nut butter
2 T honey
Mix all these ingredients in your blender, then dump into ice cube trays, paper cups, or even a kong toy to freeze and serve.
Dairy products are not good for dogs, but yogurt contains much less lactase than regular milk and the live cultures are great for your dog
[quote=“Tigerman”]
Dairy products are not good for dogs, but yogurt contains much less lactase than regular milk and the live cultures are great for your dog
According to our vet, some of the antibiotics now given to dogs will not significantly disturb the bacteria in a dog’s stomach. Whenever he’s given antibiotics to our dogs, he’s always told us when yogurt will be necessary and when it won’t be. He also said that for the antibiotics that do wipe out stomach bacteria, giving yogurt during the course of the medicine won’t necessarily help (though it can’t hurt) since most of these antibiotics will kill the yogurt cultures, too. Whenever I’ve had to give them antibiotics, I’ve usually waited until the end to give them yogurt unless they get the shits or lose appetite.
You people and your talk about the markets in Taiwan make me jealous. In HK, there is no such thing as an “off cut” for most cuts of meat. What will end up in your dog’s bowl in Taiwan will end up in the taitai’s soup pot in HK. All local and mainland chickens are sold whole. I don’t buy them because they are expensive (they are killed the same day and never carried over to the next day) and I’m afraid of H5N1. I stick to chicken imported from the US or South America. These chickens are cheaper and IMO less likely to carry bird flu, but they come to HK without necks and guts. I wish I could get just necks and backs, but they just aren’t sold like that in HK. Feeding whole bird is more expensive and the diet will probably contain a higher proportion of meat to bone than what is optimal. Nevertheless, the dogs do so much better on it than when they’ve had dry food.
In this website
provided by Stray Dog, it says not to feed dogs fruits and vegetables 'cause they are carnivores.
Has anyone any insight as to wheather there are any benefits or downsides to feeding fruits or veg?
Also I read that Stray DOg said not to feed fish with red inside or out. So is Salmon bad? It’s orange inside. And also why is this?
Awesome insightful thread by the way. I am going to switch over ASAP.
I keep reading about the debate about a Raw meat and bones (Biologically Appropriate Raw Food-BARF) diet vs. a cooked meat diet vs. a kibble diet.
It seems that there are so many apposing opinions about all three diets.
It logically seems to make sense to me that when dogs lived in the wild that they couldn’t cook meat so that this is the best/most natural way for dogs to eat. But how his the biology of dogs which have been domesticated for 1000’s of years changed?
from
archaeology.about.com/od/domesti … t/dogs.htm
BARF diet links
barfworld.com/
njboxers.com/faqs.htm
Against Raw diets
secondchanceranch.org/traini … index.html
vetinfo.com/drawmeat.html
Anyways. Sorry for the kazillion links but I am a bit confused.
Can anyone point to a scientific study about raw meat diets for domesticated dogs?
It sounds a bit of conspiracy theory to say that dog food companies are making food that harms/isn’t good for dogs.
I only spent a few hours on this so pardon my possible ignorance. I’ll look into it more when I have time.
bobpine, et al:
to add to the list of doggie no-no’s of onions, chocolate, grapes/raisins: NO macadamia nuts.
i’m not sure about other nuts. legumes must be fine because a lot of local dog biscuits made here have peanut butter.
but i read that macadamia nuts will result in temporary paralysis. but ususally they recover.
also, many common types of houseplants can be toxic to pets.
oh, and cat poop gives them really bad breath. no kisses please.
jm
[quote=“Lo Bo To”]I keep reading about the debate about a Raw meat and bones (Biologically Appropriate Raw Food-BARF) diet vs. a cooked meat diet vs. a kibble diet.
It seems that there are so many apposing opinions about all three diets.
It logically seems to make sense to me that when dogs lived in the wild that they couldn’t cook meat so that this is the best/most natural way for dogs to eat. But how his the biology of dogs which have been domesticated for 1000’s of years changed?
Anyways. Sorry for the kazillion links but I am a bit confused.
Can anyone point to a scientific study about raw meat diets for domesticated dogs?
It sounds a bit of conspiracy theory to say that dog food companies are making food that harms/isn’t good for dogs.
I only spent a few hours on this so pardon my possible ignorance. I’ll look into it more when I have time.[/quote]
That’s an interesting point about whether or not dogs have evolved to eat non-raw foods, and I’ve wondered the same thing myself. To me, there are two reasons why dogs couldn’t possibly have lost their ability to safely digest bacteria that would make a human ill:
Reason 1-dogs haven’t been exclusively eating cooked food from humans for anywhere near as long as they have been living with us. Plenty of dogs even now get their fill from trash dumps. In these dumps, they’re eating rancid cooked and uncooked meats alike. My guess is that in most civilizations, this is what the vast majority of domesticated or stray dogs were eating all the way up to the middle of the twentieth century; it is still so for strays. I don’t think dogs could lose their ability to digest bacteria and bone in less than 100 years.
Reason 2-What dog, after an adjustment period of a week or two, has rejected the raw diet? I’ve never heard of it happening. Instead, the opposite seems to happen for every dog that goes raw: improved health. Sure, there may be dogs out there that have pre-existing dental problems (likely due to the rot caused by a high carbohydrate kibble diet) and they can’t handle bones well, but I can’t think of any other condition that would prevent a dog from eating a raw diet.
I think you guys need to look at the age of the breed. Some dog breeds are thousands of years old and some are much newer. Also I doubt that people hundreds of years ago fed their dogs kibble. They probably got leftovers which might be raw animal parts from a hunter gatherer society or cooked leftovers from an agricultural society or may have been left to fend for themselves. Also very few societies, now or then, treated dogs the way we do in some of our societies today. There were certain pet breeds for royals and what not, but these changed with fashion, so the breeds that survived did so out of these pampered places.
Chocchoc (Stray Dog’s avatar) gets 400g of raw chicken wings or necks every day, plus the occasional raw egg, plus a few raw pork ribs, plus a pinch or two of kelp powder, plus a fish oil and vitamin E capsule every now and again and she is positively thriving.
I started feeding Lucky some raw food as well just recently. He still eats the pebbles too because I get them for free and we have a lot of expenses related to animals so we can’t really afford to spend more than what we need to.
I’m noticing that raw food is far better though. Lucky eats less of it, and his stools are more healthy-looking and firm. His teeth are whiter and his breath is incomparably better if he eats raw. He gets really stinky breath when he eats the pebbles. One big meaty bone will clear the bad breath on the spot.
To me, it’s all signs that pebbles, either good quality or not, are basically just a convenient way to feed a pet, but a far cry from ideal for our furry companions.
bobepine
Stray Dog gets his chicken backs and carcases for free, or close to it. Ask him how.
Myself, I pop into RTMart two or three times a week at around midnight and pick up 1000g packs of wings that are close to the sell-by date and marked down to about NT$50. That’s less than NT$25/day.
Stray Dog gets his chicken backs and carcases for free, or close to it. Ask him how.
Myself, I pop into RTMart two or three times a week at around midnight and pick up 1000g packs of wings that are close to the sell-by date and marked down to about NT$50. That’s less than NT$25/day.[/quote]
That is cheap no doubt. I should actually make a point of finding a good place to buy raw meat and bones. I buy the pig legs at Dollars. I get a huge bone for about 35NT depending on the weight. It’s too much because the dog eats it in one go. I can’t feed him pork steady either.
If anyone from Kaohsiung knows where to get this kind of deals on raw meat, it would be helpful. I live on the north end of the city in Zuoying District.
bobepine
Wow. This thread is eye-opening to me. But I have some questions…
My vet told me that my dog have “elevated liver indicator numbers” and thus have to eat the k/d dogfood from Hills. I don’t really know what the “k/d” stands for, but have been feeding them that brand religiously since then. Is this a special case where my dogs will have to stay on the k/d kibble, at least partially?
People are advocating the feeding of table scraps. How about the salt issue? Isn’t that awfully bad for dogs.
Chicken wings – do the dogs really just eat the whole thing? And they dont’ choke on the bones?
My miniature schnauzer is very omniverous – she loves lettuce, cucumbers, mango pieces and she freaks for watermelon. Is this normal/healthy?
nothing beats green tripe. it’s the best.
[quote=“Battlepanda”]Wow. This thread is eye-opening to me. But I have some questions…
My vet told me that my dog have “elevated liver indicator numbers” and thus have to eat the k/d dogfood from Hills. I don’t really know what the “k/d” stands for, but have been feeding them that brand religiously since then. Is this a special case where my dogs will have to stay on the k/d kibble, at least partially?
People are advocating the feeding of table scraps. How about the salt issue? Isn’t that awfully bad for dogs.
Chicken wings – do the dogs really just eat the whole thing? And they dont’ choke on the bones?
My miniature schnauzer is very omniverous – she loves lettuce, cucumbers, mango pieces and she freaks for watermelon. Is this normal/healthy?[/quote]
Hi, Battlepanda.
I’m a bit busy, but I’ll answer your questions as well as I can quickly.
(1) The reason I started feeding raw was because my own dog had kidney problems (and heart problems). The vet (a heart specialist) put her on the k/d diet and told me she had about two months to live. My dog hated the k/d, so I was forced to find an alternative. What I discovered shocked me: the k/d is very low in protein, as ‘dog food’ high in protein puts a lot of strain on the kidneys, but the heart needs protein in order to function. I did more research and discovered that what dogs with kidney problems really need is good quality protein.
Kibble is one of the worst sources of protein; it has been cooked to high hell - the protein in kibble has a bioavailability of about 40 percent. Meaty bones have a bioavailability of 95 percent, and eggs (ccoked or raw) 100 percent. Because the protein in meat and eggs is so easily broken down, it puts no strain on the kidneys, and in fact gets put to work restoring the overall health of the animals.
How shocking is that? Because Hills sells highly processed foods, they can’t offer good quality protein that won’t tax the kidneys, so they just offer a kibble with less protein - which is a recipe for distaster as far as your pet’s general health goes.
My dog lived three years past the specialists prognosis, and was in excellent (in fact improved) health right up until a few months before the end. The vet said she broke all records for a dog living with such a serious condition (her heart only functioned on one side and had no valve). She had kidney failure several times, but we adjusted her diet and she recovered - amazing the vets each time.
So, dump the kibble and feed your dog that is good for its health, not for a food company’s profits.
(2) Yes - avoid salty leftovers.
(3) Cooked chicken bones can be dangerous. Raw bones are what your dog is designed to eat and forms the basis of a healthy canine diet. Raw bones are pliable and break down quickly and easily; cooked bones are brittle and don’t break down easily at all.
(4) It’s normal and fine, but if you want your dog to really benefit from her healthy tastes, you should blend or crush the fruit and vegetables, or feed well ripe, as your dog cannot digest / break down the cellulose in fruit and vegetable matter. Fruit makes a great supplement, but should not make up more than 5 percent of the overall diet.
Hope that helps!
Sean