After ordering and reading a couple of classic Raw Dog Food books, I decided that today was the day to make the switch. That meant yesterday, which was Sunday, I had to locate all that cheap, wholesome meat. Market Basket turned out to be the most promising with the exception of chicken wings. Ever since bars started serving hot wings the price of those scrap parts is on par with breasts - almost.
Ruby weighs about 57 pounds. She's probably a little on the light side for her height and length but I'm so afraid of fat dogs I'm erring on the lean. I wonder why I don't apply this philosophy to myself? Doing the dog bone math about 2% of her weight should determine the amount of meat she gets per day. Rounding up to 60 pounds as ideal, I get about 1.2 pounds of raw food. I took a couple of big chicken wings (really composed of two parts, the round leg bone looking section which I tend to go for in the appetizer pile and that other flat section - further out on the tip of the wing.
I dropped them in her stainless steel dog dish where last night's chicken liver brought back in from the cold still clung. I projected that Ruby was excited. She did the first thing one of the dog books suggested, she dragged it out of the dish and dropped it on her dog bed. I decided that I should observe and modify instead of intervene. She got the other wing out of the dish and dropped that on the bed near the first. Probably thinking it might go away while she was working on number one. There was some hesitation in the approached. Then she licked them worshipfully. This was a classic bone maneuver. I don't think she thought it was food yet. She got the nerve to put one in her mouth and gum it, but it was kind of wedged in her mouth so the flappy part was hanging out. She must have figured out it wouldn't fit this way, so she dropped it back on the bed. Then she did the second thing one of the dog books warned about. She started to bury them both in the dog bed cover. I intervened. I uncovered them. She covered them. I uncovered them. Then she must have sensed a stalemate. I went up to get coffee and heard some crunching sounds. Movement. I came back to the bed and only saw a small part of one of the drumstick sections left. I looked around for the rest in the folds of the blanket. Nothing. That was a little quick I thought. I searched again through the cover and under the parrot cage until I realized that I was behaving like a dog hunting after the spot where the balloon just burst. Nothing there. Gone. In the gullet now. Time to wait for the poop, or the vet bill.
I think this is her full day meal. I'll let this pass through the system for good measure.
Monday, December 28, 2009
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Ruby found a deer leg bone
Ruby is my 9 month old mix of lab, boxer, cattle dog and whatever else happened to be running around the high-kill shelters down South before she was born. I found her on Petfinder.com, a great matchmaking site that traffics dogs for the dog-less folks like myself.
I suspected that growing up with dogs has little overlap with owning a dog. My partner Troy predicted that I would have a hard time as an effective dog owner. Growing up, as I did, without boundaries or limits, I would project this freedom onto my dog, which I didn't understand, is exactly what dogs don't need. Determined to take this opportunity to improve or maybe just make Troy wrong, I read two respected dog training books "Good Owners, Great Dogs" by Brian Kilcommon, and an old edition (1977?) of "How To Be Your Dog's Best Friend" by the Brothers of New Skete, cover to cover - prior to getting a dog.
Both books were right on - with different styles. I tended toward the philosophy of the Kilcommon book but the lifestyle of the handsome Monks in the Be Your Dog's Best Friend book. I was toying with giving up the dog project and becoming a monk myself. Going to their website, it was apparent that all the attractive monks in the book were my age now and they had moved on to selling designer dog beds which I was tempted to purchase when my finances changed. As a dog beginner, it is a little confusing to merge techniques so I settled on the Kilcommon book reserving the right to return to the Monk's book every now and then for course correction and a reminder that there are alternative lifestyles.
At the core of both books was the disturbing maxim that training had little to do with the dog and everything to do with the owner. As if that burden was hardly enough, the owner additionally had to assume the role as alpha dog. Where "assume" meant earning respect by taking consistent and benevolent control. By the time I really grokked this concept I already owned Ruby.
Fast forward to the event, the point of this first entry which inspired me to waste my time and others who accidentally stumble across this blog hoping to find some new facts about raw dog food: Ruby found what looked like a heavy stick on a walk we were taking over Thanksgiving. She seemed overly proud so I sped up and noticed the hoof. Heh, a deer leg. A perfectly formed fresh leg section from the knee down (if that's what you call them on a deer). It was beautiful, graceful, and had a lovely black hoof. I imagined the rest of the animal. It had been neatly dismembered so it wasn't dicey or gruesome. It had been rejected once already as a body part and I didn't have the heart to waste it a second time. So Ruby kept her prize and carried up and down a steep hill for two miles.
But, I wasn't entirely sure about letting her eat it when we got back. All the wives tales I've heard, and some I made up, poured into my mind. She'll get worms and/or trichinosis, it'll teach her to chase deer, I'll end up with expensive vet bills caused by splintering bones, she'll have the runs, she'll fart, hair balls will be lodged in her colon, think of what the bone will smell like in the bedroom, I'll get yelled at by my vet, I'll be sent to the high-kill shelter for being a bad dog owner.
I'd been giving her marrow and meaty soup bones and enjoying the grinding down sound of incredibly sharp puppy teeth, so it seemed a little insincere to draw the line at a deer leg. Haven't dogs eaten this sort of thing for centuries?
I've been around dogs in India, Africa, Romanian outskirts, Asia and other kibbleless contexts and they were eating scraps of anything they could find -- festering, make you wretch stuff, some of it cooked and a lot of it rotting with feathers, fur and bones of all sizes.
I did a huge amount of research, 15 minutes with google, and was amused to uncover a nearly religious kibble vs meat and bones undercurrent. I noticed the kibble supporters were not addressing why dogs haven't evolved molars though they had become domesticated enough to be eating doggy grapenuts. The anti-kibblers were disorganized. Some saying the meat should be cooked, others for only raw, most saying bones should not be cooked, a few dared to suggest feeding dogs cooked bones and supported that with a surviving dog tale but were often shot down by both churches. Others listed vegetables, cooked or uncooked, oils, and kelp as required suppliments. Clearly I need another exhaustive round of research and the nagging question of the raw dog diet has inspired this blog. However, the question burning in my mind and Ruby's was, "Does she get the leg?"
I found a hunting site (The Alberta Outdoorsmen) with some real life experience on dogs and deer meat. One poster acknowledged that an older dog of his had an impaction caused by the hair from a lower deer leg bone. Predictably, there was widespread support for feeding dogs raw hunting scraps. I decided to go with what I believe nature intended; Ruby gets the leg.
I took the leg out of the freezer this morning and with my best little kitchen knife started to pry away at the hair. A thought crossed my mind that I should be wearing gloves. In the good version of the Joy of Cooking, circa 1962 where Irma shows you how to skin a squirrel in a proper set of ladies work boots, she recommends wearing gloves. It has to do with avoiding the transmission of wild animal disease. Troy thought the gloves would only get in the way and suggested skinning the deer leg as opposed to just scraping the fur off. It was too frozen to skin so I took hunks of fur out until I thought the threat of impaction would be minimal. It was a ratty looking thing in the end.
I just gave her the semi-hairless leg. She seemed nervous. I really don't know what goes through a dog's mind when it comes to bones, but it's powerful - an etiquette, a worship, an entire belief-system which one day I hope to better understand. For now, the best choice was to let her face her mecca and for me to go back inside to officiate this blog and explore the pro's and cons of dogs, bones and kibbles.
I suspected that growing up with dogs has little overlap with owning a dog. My partner Troy predicted that I would have a hard time as an effective dog owner. Growing up, as I did, without boundaries or limits, I would project this freedom onto my dog, which I didn't understand, is exactly what dogs don't need. Determined to take this opportunity to improve or maybe just make Troy wrong, I read two respected dog training books "Good Owners, Great Dogs" by Brian Kilcommon, and an old edition (1977?) of "How To Be Your Dog's Best Friend" by the Brothers of New Skete, cover to cover - prior to getting a dog.
Both books were right on - with different styles. I tended toward the philosophy of the Kilcommon book but the lifestyle of the handsome Monks in the Be Your Dog's Best Friend book. I was toying with giving up the dog project and becoming a monk myself. Going to their website, it was apparent that all the attractive monks in the book were my age now and they had moved on to selling designer dog beds which I was tempted to purchase when my finances changed. As a dog beginner, it is a little confusing to merge techniques so I settled on the Kilcommon book reserving the right to return to the Monk's book every now and then for course correction and a reminder that there are alternative lifestyles.
At the core of both books was the disturbing maxim that training had little to do with the dog and everything to do with the owner. As if that burden was hardly enough, the owner additionally had to assume the role as alpha dog. Where "assume" meant earning respect by taking consistent and benevolent control. By the time I really grokked this concept I already owned Ruby.
Fast forward to the event, the point of this first entry which inspired me to waste my time and others who accidentally stumble across this blog hoping to find some new facts about raw dog food: Ruby found what looked like a heavy stick on a walk we were taking over Thanksgiving. She seemed overly proud so I sped up and noticed the hoof. Heh, a deer leg. A perfectly formed fresh leg section from the knee down (if that's what you call them on a deer). It was beautiful, graceful, and had a lovely black hoof. I imagined the rest of the animal. It had been neatly dismembered so it wasn't dicey or gruesome. It had been rejected once already as a body part and I didn't have the heart to waste it a second time. So Ruby kept her prize and carried up and down a steep hill for two miles.
But, I wasn't entirely sure about letting her eat it when we got back. All the wives tales I've heard, and some I made up, poured into my mind. She'll get worms and/or trichinosis, it'll teach her to chase deer, I'll end up with expensive vet bills caused by splintering bones, she'll have the runs, she'll fart, hair balls will be lodged in her colon, think of what the bone will smell like in the bedroom, I'll get yelled at by my vet, I'll be sent to the high-kill shelter for being a bad dog owner.
I'd been giving her marrow and meaty soup bones and enjoying the grinding down sound of incredibly sharp puppy teeth, so it seemed a little insincere to draw the line at a deer leg. Haven't dogs eaten this sort of thing for centuries?
I've been around dogs in India, Africa, Romanian outskirts, Asia and other kibbleless contexts and they were eating scraps of anything they could find -- festering, make you wretch stuff, some of it cooked and a lot of it rotting with feathers, fur and bones of all sizes.
I did a huge amount of research, 15 minutes with google, and was amused to uncover a nearly religious kibble vs meat and bones undercurrent. I noticed the kibble supporters were not addressing why dogs haven't evolved molars though they had become domesticated enough to be eating doggy grapenuts. The anti-kibblers were disorganized. Some saying the meat should be cooked, others for only raw, most saying bones should not be cooked, a few dared to suggest feeding dogs cooked bones and supported that with a surviving dog tale but were often shot down by both churches. Others listed vegetables, cooked or uncooked, oils, and kelp as required suppliments. Clearly I need another exhaustive round of research and the nagging question of the raw dog diet has inspired this blog. However, the question burning in my mind and Ruby's was, "Does she get the leg?"
I found a hunting site (The Alberta Outdoorsmen) with some real life experience on dogs and deer meat. One poster acknowledged that an older dog of his had an impaction caused by the hair from a lower deer leg bone. Predictably, there was widespread support for feeding dogs raw hunting scraps. I decided to go with what I believe nature intended; Ruby gets the leg.
I took the leg out of the freezer this morning and with my best little kitchen knife started to pry away at the hair. A thought crossed my mind that I should be wearing gloves. In the good version of the Joy of Cooking, circa 1962 where Irma shows you how to skin a squirrel in a proper set of ladies work boots, she recommends wearing gloves. It has to do with avoiding the transmission of wild animal disease. Troy thought the gloves would only get in the way and suggested skinning the deer leg as opposed to just scraping the fur off. It was too frozen to skin so I took hunks of fur out until I thought the threat of impaction would be minimal. It was a ratty looking thing in the end.
I just gave her the semi-hairless leg. She seemed nervous. I really don't know what goes through a dog's mind when it comes to bones, but it's powerful - an etiquette, a worship, an entire belief-system which one day I hope to better understand. For now, the best choice was to let her face her mecca and for me to go back inside to officiate this blog and explore the pro's and cons of dogs, bones and kibbles.
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