u/Vermontsue

I think I am sold on raw although I am still transitioning. I appreciate all the help and support from my first post. After more than a year of soft (and massive) stool, my sweet pup's stool is smaller and consistently firm. This feels like a miracle to me. I gave her her first chicken foot last night which helped SO much for me to get over the fear that she would choke. I think I will get some necks for her also. She was fine and loved it! I have often thought, but now think I have been wrong, that she has some food insensitivities. Because of this, I am going slow. Here are my questions:

Treats--she is a food-motivated and very rambunctious lab (1 1/2 year-old field lab). I use A LOT of training treats and for low value treats, I probably use about 1 1/2 cups of kibble every day. I have started to cut down on this as she gets a lot of treats for just being cute (sitting and staring at me with adoring eyes that I find hard to resist.) What do you all use for low value treats? I could cut up apples and carrots, I suppose. I am using freeze-dried chicken, tripe and turkey giblets for higher value treats. She is starting up a good manners class and they want me to bring 3 CUPS of treats for each class! I plan to use kibble, in addition to the high value stuff, for a while but am looking for other ideas.

Overall plan: I am using a base of a local chicken product (Vermont Raw Petfood) which is about 85% muscle meat, 11% bone and 4% mixed organs. I was thinking I could do about 3/4 this and then add 1/4 other proteins (prepackaged raw w/bone and organ) for breakfast (I started with lamb this morning and so far, so good (she loved it), and rotate through 1/4 tripe, egg, oily fish, organ mix, mussel and meaty bone at night. I got some Oma's pride mixes to try out (are they any good?). I can also get local organic beef liver and kidney and, if she tolerates it, could add this daily. Vermont Raw also has a turkey mix so I could swap out the chicken for turkey sometimes. I could also do a veggie mix with kale, pumpkin ets. Do I need to add kelp powder or chia seeds or other stuff to make it balanced? The Vermont Raw is NOT a complete food, just meat, organ and bone.

Thanks so much! It has been really inspiring to read all the posts on this sub and I am feeling really good about making this move!

I have a super energetic, 1 1/2 year-old field lab who has had erratic diarrhea and generally soft poops since I got her. She had three rounds of antibiotics in her first year of life and I think that has only made the problem worse. There has been some improvement with prebiotics/probiotics, with no help from the vet except $1500 in tests that were all normal. She is on Hill's Biome Food which the vet had said was "the very best" but looks like a bunch of crap to me. She poops 3 - 4 times/day with very large, softish poops. After the last bout with diarrhea, after her spay when she was on a bunch of meds that caused GI distress, the vet wanted to put her back on antibiotics. I said no, took her off the Trazadone and she was back to baseline within 24 hours. I lost faith in the vet and found a holistic vet who recommended raw food. I have been reading a lot and started her on a small amount of a local product that seems good, Vermont Raw Petfood. I have a bunch of questions so here goes.

-Sanitation? Do you all religiously spray everything with bleach. I am washing things in hot water, separately, washing hands etc. I am not immunocompromised and just don't know how worried I should be. One site I saw recommended actually sanitizing the meat with Grapefruit seed extract. Seriously?

- I am thinking about continuing to increase the amount of raw. The best way to do this is buy larger packages frozen. I then thaw, and repackage and refreeze? Is that what I should do? It would be too much to leave in the fridge.

-As I continue to increase, maybe up to 50%, maybe eventually all raw, seems like I should consider adding stuff in. The Vermont raw is 21% raw meaty bone, 75% muscle meat, 5% organ. I don't know how to figure out how much bone that actually is. Seems like I should add more organ? Some sardines? The whole thing is a bit overwhelming to me. The vet was pretty casual and didn't seem too worried about this and I can tend to get obsessive.

-I have worried on and off about food sensitivity and think raw may be a good way to test that out since I could just add a protein without any fillers. Seems like switching out proteins, eventually, is the way to go?

Sorry for the long post but I'd appreciate any help. I plan to just keep adding raw slowly (and decreasing kibble) and reassessing how she is. I think there has been a slight improvement since we started. I am not opposed to all raw and, eventually, DIY. Thank you!