Digi is sick again... Can Vegan be an option?

[king2005]

Thank you everyone

I'm still researching what to feed her... Shes still eating her current food as I can't starve her to death. The vet said she should be "ok" for a while as long as I keep an eye on her... We just need a little time to get everything right so we don't hurt her by an unbalanced diet ...

I'm hoping to come up with something over the weekend.. Right now I'm sick as sin & doing my best to read but I can hardly keep my eyes open let along think straight... I haven't slept in 3-4 weeks, had the tooth pulled a couple days ago.. then woman hood visited me, drained the life out of me & now I have a nasty cold that took me over in 1 day.. I was cold free yesterday & now I'm 1/2 dead with it... blah... I'm so tired...

[bckrazy]

I'm sorry that Digi isn't feeling well. Poor little girl.

Have you ever considered a raw diet? It's quite easy and simple, once you get used to it, and it can work wonders with severely allergic dogs. A friend of mine had a dog who suffered from intense, severe allergies for years on every kibble in the world and even different home-cooked diets, but now he's symptom-free and healthy on a raw diet. There are ways to easily provide all of the vitamins she needs by adding a few inexpensive supplements.

[king2005]

I'm sorry that Digi isn't feeling well. Poor little girl.

Have you ever considered a raw diet? It's quite easy and simple, once you get used to it, and it can work wonders with severely allergic dogs. A friend of mine had a dog who suffered from intense, severe allergies for years on every kibble in the world and even different home-cooked diets, but now he's symptom-free and healthy on a raw diet. There are ways to easily provide all of the vitamins she needs by adding a few inexpensive supplements.

According to Orijen's bag of food, If I do 70% meat & 40% veggies + vitamin/mineral supplements I should have a healthy balance for Digi


This is how Jordan & I would "like" to cook the food.

Whole duck &/or Whole chicken &/or whole fish (head, feet, body, everything, except feathers) + whole eggs with shell... turned into mush in a pressure cooker, & then blended to mix it evenly.

fresh raw mixed veggies + supplements, mixed in a food processor.

[bckrazy]

I'm kind of confused... do you mean Orijen tells you how to make a home-cooked diet?

http://www.dogaware.com/wdjhomemade3.html

That's a really good place to start, with some example meals/supplements. It also has lots of raw info. First and foremost, make sure you are balancing out phosphorus and calcium. That means, meat and bone. You must provide a bone meal in addition to meat, hence why raw diets are so easy (not to mention that bones are built-in teeth cleaners). I would not recommend pressure cooking bones into mush, as much of the nutritional value will be lost. It's way easier to just feed muscle meat, if you cannot feed raw bones, and measure out exact amounts of bone meal or ground eggshells.

It does sound like a really good idea to feed homemade. I would never, ever, ever force an opportunistic carnivore to eat vegan for life. Is there any reason that you have an aversion to raw? Just curious.

[king2005]

I'm kind of confused... do you mean Orijen tells you how to make a home-cooked diet?

Not really.. what it does tell me is that 70% of the recipe is meat & 40% is veggies/fruits... I was going to use it as a ratio to aid in how to make food for Digi. I was also going to try to get all the veggies they list so I could add it to my recipe. This way I know what veggies are safe & prob the better to have.

http://www.dogaware.com/wdjhomemade3.html

I only skimmed through the site to take a quick peek at it.. It looks awesome!! Its the best site I have seen so far. I haven't been impressed with most sites so I have felt quite lost & somewhat helpless.

That's a really good place to start, with some example meals/supplements. It also has lots of raw info. First and foremost, make sure you are balancing out phosphorus and calcium. That means, meat and bone. You must provide a bone meal in addition to meat, hence why raw diets are so easy (not to mention that bones are built-in teeth cleaners). I would not recommend pressure cooking bones into mush, as much of the nutritional value will be lost. It's way easier to just feed muscle meat, if you cannot feed raw bones, and measure out exact amounts of bone meal or ground eggshells.

What I was planning on doing was buying a whole chicken, as I can get them for 5.00 for 1 or 2 birds (LOVE the area I live in!). The bird is typically gutted & de-feathered & thats it.. it has its head, wings, tail, legs & neck still attached (they are not easy to look at). Some might come with the gizzards, but I can buy them in small packs of a specific organ (heart/liver).

So I was going to Pressure cook the whole bird (no veggies, just bird) so the bones would be safe.

After reading the site quickly I saw the ratio of egg shell I can use... 1/2 /1lbs meat.

My next plan was to cool the meat & then blend it into nothingness. Add the powdered eggshell (can't use bonemeal) & mix together.

Then I was going to blend a mix of raw veggies & cooked Sweet Potato (read somewhere today that potato has to be cooked for dogs) together.

Add 70% of the cooled meat mixture to a container & then add 40% of the blended veggie mixture to the container.

& in theory that should be a healthy meal... What do you think?

It does sound like a really good idea to feed homemade. I would never, ever, ever force an opportunistic carnivore to eat vegan for life. Is there any reason that you have an aversion to raw? Just curious.

I don't have an aversion to raw. But with Digi's gut we can't afford to add any sort of "bad" bacteria to her gut, & giving her something easier to digest is best (raw bones take time to digest & her body might try to pass it onto the intestines too quickly or her system could freakout).

Also Digi has no body fat (zip) so there is no padding on her belly to absorb any shock to it, so when shes playing, she easily can put a lot of pressure on her stomach where the bone can be forced to hit the stomach wall roughly (which happened in the past when I fed her raw).

This is why I'm going with cooked. Its just safer for her gut. I plan to buy supplements to help with the food loosing some nutrition as its being cooked (well the meat anyways). So in theory this should work, or at least I hope it does

[king2005]

The vet office called me back a few mins ago. They sent me 2 vet approved sites for making homemade dog food.

www.petdiet.com
www.balanceit.com

I'll go over these 2 sites when I get home, as I'm swamped at work.

[ChrisH]

Sorry to hear about Digi being sick again. Seems like, good dog mum that you are, you are on the right track in sorting out what to feed her to avoid further upsets. Kudos to you.

Prayers and good thoughts on the way that you find that exact recipe and all is well.