Recommended Foods (not in any particular order):
- Orijen
- Canine Caviar
- Honest Kitchen
- Innova, California Natural
- Pinnacle, Avo Active Care
- Wellness
- Companion Natural Pet Food (raw diet)
- Animal Food Services ( raw diet)
- Nature’s Variety Raw diet
- Merrick, Fromms
- This is not an all inclusive list, there may be other foods that are also good, please ask me about them.
Is it advisable to rotate through a variety of the foods you listed or best to pick one and stick with it? Do you have a favorite of the foods you’ve listed? Can some meals be kibble and some meals be raw diet? I get tired of eating the same meal more than a day or two in a row and wondered if a dog would be the same way. Is it hard on their tummy to switch up the foods? What about raised feeders? Stupid? Genius? (the raised feeders. not me.)
I’m leaning towards purchasing an assortment of the raw diet and kibble you’ve listed and rotating through, with some of the meals being raw and some of the meals being kibble.
I think my favorite food right now is the Royal Canin German Shepherd Formula. Karen did an analysis of the ingredients and did not like that it had soy in it. But I have to say, I really liked how the dogs looked and acted on the food. According to Monica she thought the dogs never looked better when they were getting fed the Royal Canin. I of course fed off and on with kibble an draw food.
I started the puppies out on the Royal Canin German Shepherd Puppy formula and they are currently on Earth Born Holistic Puppy vantage .
I liked the Royal Canin German Shepherd Puppy formula better. When I use up the Earth Born I am switching back to the Royal Canin GSD Formula.
I heard about the raised feeders being bad for GSDs – something to do with bloat.
You can definitely feed kibble and raw, just don’t mix them together. I did a cost analysis on feeding Orijen in the morning and raw in the evening, it will cost me almost double. Raw is definitely cheaper and so much better for them.
Have you tried yahoogroups and look for your local co-op for raw?
I think the raised feeders are popular or started by the Great Dane people. I do not think it matters. what matters is management. Mainly no heavy exercise before or after big meals. I do not have a strict time that I fed but the main time I feed my dogs is right before they go to bed. I want them to eat at the time of day they are going to be least active. When I did the breeding to Allie I noticed they also feed their dogs at night. They feed Mera dog kibble and they soak the food before they give it to the dogs. I asked why and they said they only do this in the colder months. I came home and have started soaking the food now too. I wasn’t given a reason other then because it was cold out. My guess is to make sure they are taking in enough fluids. We are talking about outside dogs and not house dog. They also laced the food with table scraps. Huge word of caution is watch the fats. Dogs in general and most definitely GSD can not handle large amounts of fats in any form. By giving your dog too much fat you can easily blow out their pancreas. If that happens you will have a lifetime of vet expenses and expensive medications. I know of a person who spilled about a cup of sesame seed oil on the floor. He let his dog “clean” it up. Made clean up easier for him but cost his dog a function pancreas. The dog needed pancreatic enzymes for the rest of his life running about $200 a month.
Interesting. I feed my dog at night out of convenience. I am weird, I like to sit next to Koda while he eats, I also pet him while he eats. 😀
Another interesting observation, I ran out of food in the last week of December, so I went and bought Nature’s Variety kibble for Koda. I tell you what, I have never seen Koda so thirsty is his life. He drank so much more water when on kibble. Is that weird or what?
The chicken frames I get from the butcher, I cut the skin off until there’s very little left.
that is good that you make yourself part of the feeding equation, it is important that learn that the food comes from you, also teaches the dog not to be possessive of his food and to not get nervous just because someone comes near him while eating.
I notice that now that Libby is on raw. The water dish is not always almost empty.
Interesting. We fed our previous GSD water soaked kibble for the first two years per the breeders recommendation, but I don’t remember why exactly – I want to say it had something to do with preventing bloat. We ended up using a raised feeder for our previous dog but only after some serious trial and error trying to manage a host of gastrointestinal issues.
After growing up in a home that fed every possible table scrap to a little 16 pound dog who begged like crazy and would hardly touch the dog kibble (duh!, I’d hold out for goulash and ice-cream too) I was terrified to feed anything other than DOG FOOD to a German Shepherd. I thought if I did, I’d never win the begging battle. So, our last dog got his kibble in his bowl and the occasional Milk Bone. If someone dropped a steak on the floor, that dog would not go near it. He had learned after years of me diving through the air and throwing my body on any
morsel of people food that fell to the floor that, clearly, anything not in
his dog bowl was poisonous and should be feared.
Let’s just say I’m older and wiser now. 🙂 Wait, scratch that. I’m seasoned and wiser.
Hope this helps with the question. When a dry kibble is served, whether it is a dry non-grain or grain kibble, the dog‘s digestive system has to extract water from its’ tissues in order for the food to move through the intestinal track. Years and years of moisture being extracted from the intestine system can lead to compromised conditions in some dogs AND 65% of disease begins in the gut! This is the reason why it is best to always pour water over your dogs’ dry kibble and let it set for a few minutes. 🙂 Also, re-hydrating the kibble reduces the risk of bloat.
I swap out brands of kibble routinely. Sometimes this causes problems for my dogs if the formulation is way different like the time I fed them a brand called Mulligan Stew with cabbage and horseradish in it. I had some messy stools to clean up. That food was definitely one that needed to be eased into. Most of the time I do not have any major G.I. disturbances switching brands. I also alternate between kibble and raw. If I could do so I feed my dogs raw 100% of the time.
I have always heard that you should never feed raw and kibble at the same meal. I do not know why, Karen do you know why? Yet I know someone who breaks all the rules feeds a cheap-junk laden kibble and gives raw at the same time and their dogs always overweight but coat condition and their overall appearance looks good. So maybe the answer is if your dog looks good then you are doing something right?
Karen, Irene, Ann and anyone else please respond with what you thing is the right way to feed your dogs.
I think I read that raw diet and kibble digest at different rates and can cause issues if fed at the same time. Or I’m making that up to try and sound smart. I’m not sure it’s working…
I mean, there is meat in the kibble……right? 😉
Now, if you know that you have a dog with a sensitive digestive track, proceed with caution. You could try maybe a Tablespoon of ground raw sirloin or ground turkey breast in the middle of the day and see how the dog reacts to it. The key is not to use fatty hamburger.
Adding a small amount, such as 1/8th to 1/4th cup raw meat, to your kibble, shouldn’t change the overall integrity of it. It’s a great way to give them the raw meat they crave and should have as a carnivore! And, people do mix canned food into their kibble routinely! But raw is better.
Now, if you over-do the proportions, you would be changing the balance of the food, but not for a severing that small for a GSD. Just mix the meat, for instance, ground round, with a little water in the bowl to make it soupy, then mix in the kibble. I can almost guarantee that the dog will be drooling the next time he sees you making this! 🙂
Or you can feed kibble in the morning and a raw meal (balanced recipe of course) at night or just on the weekends. Again, proceed with caution for this type of regime if your dog has had stomach problems in the past. I did this with my previous 2 GSD’s before I went totally raw. The point is to try and feed your dog SOME raw meat, even if it is just a small amount for a treat in the middle of the day!
What about our puppies? Feed 3x/day, morning, noon, and bedtime? Our bedtime is around 10:00. That sounds too late. Should we put our puppy to bed much earlier than we go to bed, like with children? If we feed them at bedtime, does it make it harder to get through the night? I expect to be up at night in the beginning, but once they can sleep through the night, I don’t want to do something that will wake his bowels up. On the other hand, perhaps they sleep better with a full tummy!
If anyone has found a good online source for ordering a quality raw puppy food, please let me know. Thanks!
Where are you located? Just a general area, I will look in yahoogroups.
I am in the Berkshire’s of Western Massachusetts. THANKS!
The puppies are now getting fed about 4 times a day. When they leave at 8 weeks their eating rate will automatically decrease because the competition for the food is gone. I promote the competition for the food as I want to encourage good food drive. Food-drive will give you another tool to use in training. At 8 weeks, feed 3 times a day and within weeks decrease to two meals a day. The puppy will tell you when they are ready to cut down on the number of feedings when they start showing less interest in one of their meals generally morning or mid-day.
The puppy will take lots of rests during the day, you will find they have two speeds dead out sleeping or full tilt. Part of your job is to help them learn how to moderate the full-tilt mode. That is where the tether comes in handy and a good tug toy.
I bring the puppy to the crate in my bedroom the same time I go to sleep. I withhold water for at least an hour before bedtime (with a young puppy). My adult dogs have access to water 24/7.
The tether/umbilical cord has been a fantastic tool. It’s so simple! I’d never heard of it before you and Carole. Batman does great with it. He is learning my routine really fast. This morning, he even behaved himself nicely in the kitchen on the tether while I was making breakfast!
We had Max (Zucca + Gavin U Litter) on Wellness Core Original, and were combining it with a raw diet. Because we thought we were new to feeding raw, we’d better have some “balanced” kibble to go with it. Telling our non GSD friends and family about the raw diet, we got the strangest looks but definately found it to be cheaper, and thanks to the blog, healthier overall.
So, I have to say that the expert (Julie) is usually right. We had to just about force feed Max the Wellness Core, he really didn’t like it very much at all. We’d put half a cup of it in his bowl, and if we put it in his crate, he’d just dump it. If we fed it to him and stayed with him, he’d eat the first half, then only eat the second half if we handed it to him. Today we picked up a bag of the Royal Canin GSD Puppy formula as we finally (thank God) finished the Wellness Core. As I was opening the bag Max sat at my feet waiting for it, and as a few pieces dropped, he scarfed them up! Then once I put his half cup of kibble in the bowl, he did something he’s never done with kibble before, he laid down, paws around his bowl and slowly and luxuriously ate all the kibble and licked the bowl clean. I have to say that was nice to see him enjoying his kibble for once!
Today we also stopped in at Galesburg Meat Company as we were looking for another convenient source of raw organ meat for Max. They let us know that they make a dog food mix that contains ground beef heart, beef liver, beef tongue and other beef. We bought some to try out, and as far as I can tell it seems to be a fairly lean mix, so we’ll just have to wait and see. Julie, if you’d like I can bring some next week so that you can see it for yourself, and maybe try some for your dogs. We asked them to pack it in half pound servings, so we have a freezer full of the cutest little Max morsels. Max sure seemed to like it.
Overall thanks to the blog members here, Max ate like a king today, so thank you everyone! I would like to hear more about not feeding kibble and raw at the same feeding, or any other do’s and don’ts. We’re new to the raw feeding, and I think we’re doing ok, trying to mix it up a bit but any other suggestions would be great.
Thank you again!
Batman says happy 4-month birthday to his blue-collar brother, Max! It sounds like you’re doing a good job with King Max.
I have bought the meat mixture from Galesburg Meat too. You can’t beat the price. My only complaint/concern is on occasion seemed to have too much fat in it.
There are many more that read the blog that far more expert at nutrition then I am.
Batman is on Honest Kitchen “Love” (beef) in the morning and “Embark” (turkey) in the evening. He seems to like the Love better, but he’s a pig and will eat anything. He does really well on Honest Kitchen. Recommend doggiefood.com for the best prices.
I plan to do HK in the morning and raw in the evening for now. I like Dr. Becker’s book for meat mix recipes and ratios. Eventually, I will transition to all raw. I get ground whole animal (chicken, turkey, rabbit, etc) from a distributor, then add veggies. I’m trying topqualitydogfood.com in MD, and Hare-today.com in PA. Including supplements, I spend around $150/mo feeding the Ruler of Gotham City. Not cheap, but close to what you’d spend on a premium kibble.
I add organs to the raw meat, per Dr. B’s guidelines. If you have an ethnic grocer near you, check them out. The Korean market is a GREAT place to get hard-to-find stuff like chicken hearts, cow knuckles, chicken feet, and other weird parts of the animal that white people don’t eat.
If you feed kibble, Batman did well on Fromm Gold Adult formula. Fromm owns its own plant and the kibble only has one controversial ingredient (sodium selenite), according to Food Guru Karen.
U-Rock is still on Royal Canine GSD #30. Since Julie started him with it, I continued so as to keep his stomach straight.
He still eats 3X a day… gobbles it down like a true GSD… you blink, you missed it.
I mix his breakfast kibbles with probiotic Kefir (it’s like a drinking yougurt). His lunch is plain kibbles with pieces of cheese. His dinner is kibbles with mixture of cooked green beans/sweet potatoes/rice/lean burger meat. He inhales all 3 meals.
As I am getting ready to finish his RC kibbles, I was debating a change to either Fromm Gold or Orijen. Karen’s smiley faces are pushing me towards Orijen… I just wish it wasn’t so expensive…
Both Lindy & U-Rock loved the Honest Kitchen samples they mailed us but I am still having a hard time with the way the food looks… almost like a paste. I may try it later & mix it with kibbles.
Just pretend its oatmeal! I feed this when we travel and found that you need to add a little more water than it recommends.
Just think of it as not being able to put a price on health! 🙂 🙂 🙂 triple happy faces for you!
OK Karen, you are very convincing.
I can deal with oatmeal & triple healthy smileys did the trick.
I’ll try Orijen. Do you recommend the large puppy for U-Rock & adult for Lindy?
Hi Orly!
I think you’d be doing GREAT if you did rotations of The Honest Kitchen and Orijen. You could do HK, then the Orijen Large Puppy, then another HK flavor then Orijen Large Puppy again!
Orijen Puppy Formula Site quote: “Formulated specifically for large breed puppies, this special puppy formula is made with special low-ash chicken and fish ingredients that keep calcium and phosphorus at healthy levels — a common concern in large breed puppy diets.” This is 80% meat & 20% carbs.
The Orijen 80/20’s “Adult”, “6 Fish” and “Regional Red” with rotations of HK would be great for Lindy!
The Honest Kitchen Embark (grain free) and Thrive (contains gluten free Quinoa) are for pups as well as adults like Lindy.
Karen, thanks! I like this idea.
It will give them variety and keep their food interesting.
You are very welcome! Hope it works out. Keep me posted! 😉
That would be a great idea! Just go slowly being that she already has issues. Since she is on an elimination diet, also consider what human or dog treats she gets or someone slips her 😉