XTRAWLD

Sorry, to clarify - I meant previous dog experience in general. I think it's hard for ANY dog to lose weight once it's on....I didn't realize that Grey's can lose it quickly. My boys do not get to run around a backyard or get loose often to wear themselves out. So I can't imagine it being easy for my boy to trim down. If it is, I'd love to hear suggestions on getting him to lose it - obviously cutting back on his feeding is one, but I've got this nasty bile issue if he isn't fed regularly. Good news, yesterday he had a small dinner before class, treats at class, treats when we got home. No vomiting in the morning - I was really thinking he was getting up to do that at 4:30am but YAY nothing!

YAY!!!

This is what I was going to say as well, sorry. Of course it's not the best picture for evaluating weight but I think Kasey looks very good, a couple of visible ribs, a little spine showing, nice muscles on the bum. I wouldn't be trying to fatten him up but that's just IMHO. Keep in mind that some dogs will self-regulate. My grey will refuse a meal or two if I've been feeding him more than he needs (according to his definition). Don't be sorry. I knew Ryder needed to lose weight before I started! Kasey is too skinny (he honestly needs 1 or 2 pounds more), if I had the side profile pics accessible I would add them but I'm at work. He does have a nice butt eh?

As a human that has suffered with IBS, it didn't matter what I ate or what I drank I was ALWAYS in pain. I don't recall always having D myself, but the pain is unmistakeable. I also do not recall the ultrasound being the sure fire way "they" thought I had IBS. A colonoscopy and a biopsy got closer to that determination - but still it was their best guess to address my pain symptoms. Being on medication for a long time is what helped my body recover. I started eating better, smarter, started to de-stress my life (which is a huge factor) and eventually I am no longer on the meds I was told I would have to be on the rest of my life. To relate this to a dog, are you feeding raw? I'm a new raw feeder, and have been under a week, and I am already seeing results in my boys, starting with behaviour and attitude and stool formation (whatever little there is of it).

My hubby is a wiz when it comes to giving pills. Open throat, shove the pills back (I think he chucks them as far back as he can really) and lock the jaw shut until they swallow (he rubs the throat to help). I have a tough time administering pills, but with practice I can do it, maybe not as cleanly as hubby, but I can do it....it's just difficult when you've never tried before. Kasey has an easy gag reflex that makes it seem like we are KILLING HIM when a pill touches his tongue. For the times hubby isn't around to give pills, I gave up and bought "Pill Pockets" from Petsmart. It's a really soft, chewable treat with a hole inside. Stick the pills in, mush up the opening and give as a treat. If they are a chewer there is usually enough treat to hide the nasty taste if they break the pills open, but if they are eager it'll easily go down the throat. They come in two varieties, the capsule version or the flat pill version, and in various flavours. When all else fails, wrap it with cheese or peanut butter. I have a cheater version of peanut butter - it's Kong filler - and I can smother anything with it and they will lap it up.

Oh my gosh the poor thing! I don't have any advice, but wow, what a shocking number at once!

Perfectly put Swifthounds.

Ya, the picture is sort of deceiving, but only the last rib on Ryder is visible, all can be felt. Hence why I don't want him to keep putting more weight on He's 75 lbs currently, but I'd like to get him down to 72 or so. I totally forgot to take pics last night

While both my boys have perked their ears and start trying to go after squirrels/birds/cats....we've had Kasey nearly 6 years now and he's mellowed out quite a bit, but while he still perks his ears at the movement and the object, he doesn't try to drag us down the road. He stops and stares. Currently Ryder is nearly at that stage right now, and we have had him 10-11 months. So whatever we've done with our training (aforementioned) has worked this seemingly out of their system. I don't think it's impossible to get the dog to stop the pulling behaviour upon seeing the object....you just have to work with them. Who is the boss here - them or you? Note: This is in reference to walking with the dog, leaving them loose to their own devices in a yard or park is a totally different story.

He's high prey right now cause he's so fresh off the track. It will tone down with time but they have to learn not to jerk and drag you on your walk! I will have professional experience training Ryder on "not to pull" in my class this week - so I may have better thoughts at that time. However, I have never done "distraction" training. In our previous experience, we ensure the dog is at our side, and the leash is kept short. We walk on, you should ignore that squirrel at all costs, because the dog will pick up on your feeling towards it! If we have to control the dog to turn etc, we step in front of the dog so our leg is in their way and off we turn. When the dog is beside you, you have more control should the dog suddenly jerk forward, keep some slack - maybe wear gloves so you don't burn if he pulls lots. We've also found harnesses to work really well (it actually gives more power to the dog, however I feel like I'm in control and I'm not pulling on his neck during these power struggles). In my class this week, the trainer is hoping to put a halti or a gentle leader on Ryder (good luck) LOL. If you can control the head, you can control the dog - is the premise of the halti.

Well, what has worked the last two days is a big breakfast and then taking his dinner and splitting it into two and feeding the second portion before bed. So far no puke! This dog swallows pieces that are absolutely massive without chewing LOL I keep trying to keep them big so he'll chew, but no dice. We are feeding pork right now. I can't do 1 big meal, it's been attempted both on kibble and raw, and I still end up with bile.....so..... I like the suggestion of changing up the feeding times one day and then offsetting the hours the other day. I will try this. Umm, I am actually accounting for the treats portion, but the treats are literally a couple of grams on our "training nights".....this dog has packed on weight since the day we got him. I wouldn't classify him as chubby, but he's "just right" know what I mean? He's filled out in the right places and I want him to stop LOL Thursdays are his class nights, so I try not to feed him dinner and I do this so he'll work for me in class (I give him a little something so he won't puke though because I simply can't fast him). Those nights are when he will get more treats than usual, and I compensate for the amount at dinner time. I know raw will be better for him nutritionally, and maybe that's why he's continuing to pack it on because it is better for him than the kibble? To be honest, I've only been feeding him raw since Friday night and haven't noticed a weight change visually....I just don't want him to get too big and I can't control it and bring the weight back down. Once a dog gets heavy, it's hard to bring them back down. I know this from previous experience.

I will answer your questions as best I can for what I know the answers to.... (did that even make sense?!) I'm assuming the egg you just crack it open and put it in the dish....yolk and whites and all and let them gobble it up. I am lucky to have someone that feeds and sells raw, so I'm lucky to have established a "wholesaler" to buy the raw from. I joined a Yahoo Group called CarnivoreFeed-Supplier@yahoogroups.com. People post raw food that is available pretty much within North America. If you join, you can just email where you live and if there are any suppliers close by you can purchase from. I have seen pigs feet at the grocery store. However they were rather large and they were from adults. I was told that it is more of a "recreational bone" for them to eat, as opposed to be provided as a meal. A younger pig, that would be split, would be better as a meal. Haven't gone down that route yet, but maybe soon. I once a long time ago fed Kasey raw ground beef using a recipie for weight gain. I did not notice any ill effects from him eating it, but I could be mistaken that it shouldn't be fed LOL.

Thanks everyone. This raw thing is a learning curve to begin with, but we are starting to narrow it down to a science. We'll get the pork thing sorted out, and then I'll have to sort the whole thing out when we switch to turkey!

I JUST started on Friday evening. So I know more folks here will have better info for you, but since I'm in the middle of the learning curve, here is my take on it. We started on Pork because Kasey is allergic to chicken. I ordered boxes of food - which are currently all sitting in my freezer. Pork Belly (lots of meat and lots of fat) and Pork Riblets are on the menu for 2 weeks. (I think you should stick with the same "type" of meat for a 2 week period before trying something else.) What I know I need to use is either in the fridge or is defrosting in a cooler. I prepare their dinner and prepare breakfast for the next day at the same time so I can feed breakfast without sitting there weighing when I'm busy getting ready to go to work, etc. To prepare dinner, I grab the pork, put it on the scale to the set portions I need and that's about it. I add 1 little pork riblet if necessary - I just learned that you don't need to do this every day - and I'm currently adding about a tablespoon full of tripe. That's ALL right now. I will soon be able to add actual organs like liver when it is necessary, but to start that's all I do, it's a learning curve for both the dogs and me. When I'm done prepping dinner, I set their dinner aside and do the same for breakfast and I put that breakfast into a resealable container and leave it in the fridge until feeding that the next morning. Then I feed them dinner, and they have learned they can't leave the kitchen with it. I just clean the tile in the kitchen when they are done, which thankfully they only make 1 square dirty now, big improvement from ALL OVER THE PLACE on Friday LOL. Once the nice weather hits, it will be feeding time OUTDOORS! It took them a while to figure out what to do with the meat. Kasey actually took the riblets the first time and shook them! It was rather comical. Kasey is eating nearly 2 pounds of raw a day (cause he's so skinny and needs to gain weight), and Ryder is a little under 1.5 pounds of raw a day (just need to maintain his weight). I have only ever added Cold Water Fish Oil. I will be graduating to giving them an egg soon. They get their vitamins/minerals from the bone portion during feeding, outside of what is already in the meat. No veggies necessary (although I'm sure the jury is out on that thought process). We will be using pork for 2 weeks and then will switch to Turkey because Kasey isn't allergic to turkey (it is different than chicken believe it or not). Treats are currently dehydrated liver and dehydrated lung. That's sort of their organ intake at the time, since I haven't introduced the raw version yet. That's my newbie take for you. Edit - Oh, and I can't stress enough how wonderful it is to not pick up a mountain of poop, or smell farts all day.

We've had Kasey nearly 6 years now, so we know how good he COULD look. That's what bothers me. He's very skinny, all his ribs and his spine are visible which makes me so sad. I will try to get some side pics for comparison. We are starting with 3% of his body weight and see how he does over the next couple weeks.

I'm not sure if it's the appropriate thread to get into all this, but here goes. Kasey's weight issue stems from the fact that: 1. He's not a big eater (this was on kibble) he so far isn't turning his nose up on the raw. 2. He is on prednisone to control his allergy breakouts and the kibble he was on was LID. Highly allergic to chicken. We have started raw feeding on pork. My hope is that by turning to raw, we can feed him food that we know he isn't allergic to, and eventually get him off meds entirely. We can only hope. Further to this, the side effects being on prednisone are actually the opposite of what we should be happening. He does not have an increased appetite or thirst (thus he hasn't gained weight since being on it), and actually while not fully retaining urine, he has to pee for minutes when he does go out, even when not drinking very much water. The stress of being on prednisone since early 2008 has taken a toll on his body and his weight. At peak before meds and all this mess, he weighed 72lbs. He looked good at that time but IMO he could have done a bit better weight wise. There were always about three ribs visible. Right now he's about 69 to 70 and all ribs are showing. He only receives about 10mg of prednisone roughly every 4-5 days depending on how bad his breakout is. We are incredibly good at using it and not abusing it. We took him to the vet in October last year when we noticed the constant weight loss, and according to the vet, he still seemed to be ok but to continue monitoring. This was based on his hourglass figure when looking at him from the top view. He is still well rounded where it counts, and hasn't "angled" off or in a triangular shape like you would see in an emaciated animal. His blood work has always come back fantastic. He was eating Natural Balance which was a limited ingredient diet and the vet said it was very good food...... IMO, because it was LID I felt that perhaps he was missing essential nutrients or even essential proteins that he should be having. Maybe whatever he had he just wasn't processing. Which takes us to today. I had changed from the LID shortly after that vet visit to another kibble food that fit within Kasey's allergic criteria. He seemed to do much better breakout wise with that food, but there was still no additional weight gain that we could see. His last weigh in was early March, and he was listed at 69. He is not just allergic to food, he has environmental allergies also - but that's another story and much more difficult to control. So far, both Kasey and Ryder are responding incredibly well to raw. No D, no farts, no tummy rumbles, small stool (if any actually - they didn't poop this morning). I cannot get over how much their bodies are absorbing in comparison to the kibble. But where is it all going?!?! Thank you very much for any help. I've adjusted their diet slightly since the last post. I introduced a tablespoon of tripe last night and did not include any bone. I plan to do the same today and maybe tomorrow. I'm currently using calculations of 3% for Kasey and 2.5% for Ryder. Keep in mind, I only started feeding raw on Friday night, so I don't want to make sudden changes, which is why I'm doing small tweaks here and there. Thoughts on when I should see some weight gain? Here is a "rear view" (He's the white one standing up taken in Feb) You can still see he looks ok, but compared to Ryder at his side, it's night and day

I concur with the dog treat ball. So far that the hound can walk around and is food motivated. Ryder LOVES his ball. He tends to get really fixated on it also, so after about 10 minutes we sometimes need to take it away, and he ends up scouring the floor for missed kibble for about 10 minutes afterwards. She can also stuff a Kong full of peanut butter and treats, and freeze it. Give it to the dog to lick. It should keep her busy for a while trying to get the frozen middle goodness out of it. Depending on how much the dog can move, mental stimulation via human contact should be good for her. Getting the hound to sit for treats, or if she's laying down to shake a paw on command.

We put the blanket over the chairs and watched Ryder RUN back and forth through our makeshift tube....it was Kasey that did not enjoy that exercise. He's not big on "crouching". I made sure the blanket was low enough to touch Ryder's back, but he didn't really duck much. We then grabbed our patio chair cushions because they were more sturdy and made a better tunnel. He totally took 4 chairs out with his excitement! I think he'll be ok....I reminded my hubby though, the tube has a bottom he has to run on that shakes the whole unit and it'll make noise as he goes through. If he can't perform the task this week in class, I'd like to try to work on him solo after the class if Howard will let me. A solid tunnel and a lazy blanket/chairs/cushions are two different things.

He did this when on kibble. I was thinking regarding the kibble, maybe it's just a bad bag? Or maybe he ate something that didn't agree with him during the day (table scraps or the like). Now he's doing the same thing now that we are on raw. I'm discovering 11-12 hours between meals seems to be his threshold. Breakfast is always between 7 and 730am. Dinner anywhere between 530 and 630. On March 18 (yes I logged the day) we started to try to feed dinner closer to 630pm and lots of treats at bedtime to see if the bile theory was true. It did help out and he didn't start throwing up until early Saturday morning. We also train for roughly a half hour in the evening so he gets lots of treats there too. I'm debating giving him a bedtime treat that consists of a meal portion now. The problem is, this guy is continually gaining weight....and I really don't want him to get any more padding....but this bile stuff is making me feed him just in case he throws up. We don't have a yard, so there is no grass nibbling, or even much sneaking of anything odd on our walks.

Thank you. I have some tripe/organs that I'm introducing tonight. About a tablespoon each for dinner. I'll cut out the bone tonight. Should I still feed 80% for the meat or bump it up to like 95% today? My boy Kasey is terribly skinny and I'm trying to get him to gain weight, still doesn't look like there is any change yet, and I'm actually looking at him thinking he's LOST weight over the past week or so..... I'm not sure when I should expect to see results. Been feeding raw since Friday dinner. Thoughts?

We have a prolific poop eater in the house. Started one day in our yard, in 2006, he preferred the frozen variety. Kasey would grab it, throw it up in the air, run around, then find it and chew it and eat it. Of course we tried to stop him, but it was such a fun game wasn't it....he grabs poop, knows we will react, starts to run, we give chase and off he goes. We alternatively tried nothing, or running away from him, and well...he still gobbled. We went to the vet, he provided us with Forbid and a quick write up from a book regarding copography. The Forbid was to be added to his food as a powder. It was designed to react with the stomach acid and make the poop even more revolting to make him want to eat it even less. You know what, he STILL went for it. This was a better option than going outside with cayenne pepper and sprinkling it on the poop already outside - I think my neighbours would think I'm absolutely loopy if they saw that. So, basically, pick up after your dog often. We thought he kicked the habit after we moved. There no longer was a yard and he gets walked 4-5 times a day. We visited my mom's place just a month ago, both boys did their business, and I didn't go out to clean up right away. Didn't he find a piece of poop I believe it was Ryder's when he went out for a later elimination round, but could have been from my mom's chihuahua and down it went. I think they do it for both reasons. I think the first time Kasey did it, he was curious, maybe even hungry, I don't know. I read up about all sorts of animals doing this, horses, rabbits, FISH. Everyone seems to believe that the animals think something in the feces is not fully processed and they should eat it again and reprocess the food for lack of there potentially being no other option or food source later. Take the opportunity. Afterwards, I think he just realized, hey look what I can do mom, and started doing it for the hell of it. Now it's like a nicotine addiction to him = he got to do it a lot, got addicted to it, and when he sees the opportunity he can't resist.

I'm going to start researching this a little more. We are still encountering issues. Like clockwork, Ryder was up at 5:30 puking bile. He did this yesterday morning too although at 2:30 instead. I'm dumbfounded as to why last night. He had dinner at 6:20pm, we trained and he had kibble between 8-9 and a really good snack at 11pm. Usually he pukes and he's all better, no issues. Right now he just started "wheezing and chuffing" like something is caught in his throat. Lsst for a few seconds and then he's fine. I fed him a snack, as we always have after he pukes. This should tide him over for another hour before breakfast is served. I just don't get it. Is there something more serious that could be causing this? Could he have ulcers? Does he have acid reflux?

Oh I know I was totally off the mark on the bone percentages. Total newbie error. I think I got it now, so now have to wait. Currently feeding pork. (Belly Trim and Riblets) Too new to add organs etc in the mix yet. I haven't killed them yet with my boo boos LOL. Trying to get the basics down. (I have an amazing mentor helping me out every step of the way in Karen from Camp Greyhound btw)! Kasey ideal weight - 72 lbs (32.72 kg) I find grams easiest to use - even with my scale, so sorry for the conversions. Kasey is at 3% so he's getting 981g a day or 490g per meal. I'm still using 80% for meat portion which is the belly trim (393g belly per meal) 10% for the bone portion - riblets (49g riblets per meal) Ryder ideal weight is also 72 lbs (32.72kg). Ryder is at 2.5% so he's getting 818g a day or 409 per meal. 80% for meat portion = 327g belly trim 10% for bone portion = 41g riblets Should I be concerned that there is 10% missing? Stool is firm little bullets. LOL Which I actually much prefer against the Terrible D. This morning they still received more bone than they should have, just because I can't cut the riblets any smaller. Their portions today are as follows: Breakfast Kasey 409g belly trim, 79g riblets = 486g total Ryder 357g belly trim, 54g riblets = 411g total I'm thinking I will see an improvement from the massive over bone feeding I've been doing yesterday LOL Just need this to work through their systems. Does all this sound right now. Tweaking every meal so far

My sister-in-law has a condition that causes easy brusing. A light touch and she could get a bruise. Could it be that easy?

We are feeding raw - YAY. We've got hard poops - clearly too much bone. Is there anything small I can give tonight to help their system out overnight to do a correction? Edit: I just gave then a tablespoon of fish oil. Hopefully that will help.