Feeding Glock Update

So, I did the homecooked food for Glock for a few weeks. A bit off and on, I went out of town and he just got regular kibble while we were gone, didn't want to deal with cooking it and everything. His diarrhea went away while back on the kibble, so when we got back I did a bit of a mixture of homecooked food and his dry kibble. This did seem to help. However, the more I really thought about it the more I knew that this was the time to start feeding him raw.

I have wanted to put him on a raw diet for quite awhile. Pretty much since he was a puppy I have done research on it. He was less than a year old when I decided I wanted to do it. At that time I was living in Show Low with my dad, and there just weren't the options of places to get inexpensive meat from me to feasibly do it, plus I didn't quite want to start him when living with family. Once I moved into my own place I really couldn't afford it, my money was pretty much all tied up in keeping us going.

Now that I am in a town with many more grocery stores, supermarkets, and ethnic grocery stores I have a much wider range of possibilities of meat sources. On Thursday a friend and I visited several of the ethnic grocery stores so I could get an idea of what they had as far as organ meat, and other types of meat. I did not buy anything from them that day, but now I have an idea of what they have and the prices.

We did go to Restaurant Depot where I knew they had chicken leg quarters for $.45 a pound for a 40 pound box. Soooo I figured that was the perfect way to begin, it would last a few weeks, and it was cheap. We went and I picked up a box, it did end up being $.47 a pound, but it was just over $18 for the 40 pounds!! Can't beat that!

With all of that said, today was Glock's first day of a raw food diet. Hopefully this will be a good thing for him!!

Glock's Food Update

Just a note of warning, this is a post about a dog, his new diet, and the resulting.... consequences of not getting his diet balanced right, i.e. resulting bodily functions. Just so you know!

So today is Glock's third day of home cooked meals. Yesterday he had more of the ground pork mixture. I added some yogurt morning and evening, as well as an egg last night.

He woke up this morning insisting on going outside. He had extremely runny stools, then came back inside and threw up some yellow bile. *Note to self, he most likely got too much dairy yesterday, and double check to make sure he is not getting too much fat on the meat.*

Even with his upset digestive system this morning I still feel like this is the best solution for him. I feel like his ear is continuing to improve, it hasn't been an immediate 100% improvement, but every day it seems to be bothering him less and less and looking better as well. It will take me a bit of time to get the hang of all of it and making sure he gets the right amount of everything that he needs, and not too much of anything.

First Day of Glock's Homecooked Meals

So, first day of Glock's new feeding plan. Honestly, I didn't put much thought into it this morning. I just pretty much went downstairs and decided I didn't want to feed him his regular dog food. I opened up the fridge, knowing we had leftover meat in there, pulled out the pork roast, the rice, and the congealed beef broth stuff I had saved. So, I threw it all in a pot and heated it up, remembered there were some green beans that needed used, pulled those out and threw them in, and pulled a few blueberries out of the freezer. All of that was thrown in the pot, mixed together while heating, and put in his bowl. He LOVED it. Maybe it is just my imagination but his ear doesn't seem to be bothering him as much today.

There was some of the pork and rice mixture left over, and he was so excited about it that he got a lunch time meal, which he usually doesn't get.

Earlier today I pulled out a package of ground pork from the pig that I got over a year ago. I figured it wouldn't be cooked for us for a long time,if ever, and it was the perfect way to use it up. For dinner I threw that that in a small pot, added some water, chopped up some carrots, a huge leaf of swiss chard, some fresh basil, then at the end added in some strawberries, a baked red potato and some more chopped pork as well some leftover chicken from last week. I kind of felt like it needed a bit more meat for the amount of potatoes that was in there. I poured a part of it in his bowl, added a couple of tablespoons of cottage cheese on top of it all and served it up. He devoured it.

I'm feeling like as long as I can find good deals on meat and get some supplements, Vitamin E and some fish oil, this is going to be a good plan for Glock. I haven't noticed him seeing as bothered by his ear today, and am hoping that that will continue to improve.

I need to make sure I don't feed him too much though, he has put on a couple of pounds recently, he's looking a bit thicker than I like. That probably has something to do with the fact that it's been 110 ish lately and even early in the morning isn't ideal for our walks or runs.