Happy Rawiversary!

Today marks one full year since I first dove elbows deep into feeding raw - literally.
Switching the dogs to raw was a decision I made based out of necessity for their health. Most people who met PU when she was "falling apart" can't believe the difference now. I use to worry about infections, oozing sores, missing fur and the general unhappiness of my irritated dog. Now the worst she seems to get is patches of dry skin if I don't bathe her often enough or if I fed her a bit of chicken. Every now and then I try to give her a bit of chicken and monitor her. There's improvement, but she still can't seem to handle it. She may never be able to, but I will keep trying for now! Not just chicken, but many other foods I've found to trigger her old Seborrhea Oleosa ways.

I switched Coal because; why not switch both at the same time? Coal's coat has never been shinier and blacker (excluding all the grey of course!), and his general mood seems improved as well. He's more bouncy like he use to be as a young dog.

Unit

Coal

Both dogs teeth are amazing now. Unit's especially, since she was started on a raw diet at a younger age. Coal had 9 years of eating kibble to ruin his teeth. That said, even his teeth are quite beautiful now!

People ask how I keep their teeth so clean, the answer is simple; bones! Raw meaty bones (RMBs) are the best way to clean your dogs teeth. Much cheaper and much less risk than sedation and teeth cleaning at the vet, that's for sure!

Raw feeding over this past year has also proven to be quite challenging. I've had to learn to get creative to feed the dogs on a budget, and while I still exclaim "ewwww" and "yuck" and occasionally gag still while preparing dog food (I despise handling liver), it's all worth it!

When I see my dogs beautiful coat shinning in the sunshine. When he creaks and groans less while moving from a down to a standing position, and vise versa. When I see Unit playing and happy, without having to stop and scratch or rub her back on the grass constantly (only occasionally and it's purely for the joy of scratching one's back on the grass!).

When I see my floors are covered in less hair. It's not all gone of course, I still have two medium-large sized double-coated dogs! The fur will never go away! But it use to look like really dirty carpet. Unit would scratch and you could see a cloud of fur and skin flying off her!

When I can enjoy the company of my dogs, without the awful doggy smell, even a month + after bathing and they still don't smell nearly as bad as they did before the diet! I never even realized how bad they smelled!

It's all worth it. Every nasty liver, heart, etc. every time I've had to rush to the store and buy some pigs feet because I ran out of things Unit can eat. All the poop monitoring and occasional vomiting from a bone that wasn't quite swallowed right. Every time I worry they'll choke on said bone. It's all worth it because my dogs are healthy.

I end this post now because I have a furry face staring at me, expectantly, waiting for breakfast! Deer meat and sweet potatoes for breakfast this morning, with of course, some calcium powder, green lipped mussel, and flax seed mixed in. Delicious!