Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Bland diet on raw?

Not that I've had a serious problem with it yet...

But lets say you are feeding raw - have tons of variety in the diet and for some reason, your dog has an upset stomach (the runs!)
1. I would fast the dog for a full day (or half a day if you can't handle it) then up the bone content in the next meal (like, a chicken back).

Lets say your dog is vomiting, and/or has 'the runs' (after you consider a vet visit..)
2. Chicken, plain old raw chicken is the blandest thing I can think of on a raw diet. It is what is recommended as the very first protein to try when switching your dog to a raw diet from kibble.

^this^ I have had to do. When I first began raw, we spent about a week and a half introducing different parts of the chicken (including liver). Then we introduced beef in combination with chicken. Then we added turkey. Then fish. Then pork - ACK! The pork was a disaster... we had to A. FAST him a day, and B. backtrack all the way to week one (chicken) to get Kitsune's digestion back to normal.

As a last resort
3. Nature's Variety Raw Medallions are SO bone heavy, they firm up even the runniest of stool!

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I say this because I recently got an email about a Wheaten terrier who has been on raw for about a month, and had a digestive set back when trying to be introduced to veal. The owner wanted to give him a bland diet (of cooked chicken & rice, maybe some pumpkin).
Once your dog has adjusted to the digestion of raw foods, it will make his digestive track work even harder to digest cooked foods (topped with carbohydrates - rice, and vegetation - pumpkin). The owner was even considering going back to kibble until the issue resolved. NO NO NO! Just backtrack, keep your head, fast, and go back to chicken.

I certainly have more research to do on the topic, these are just observations tested on and approved by my dogs!

2 comments:

  1. Question, what about the whole allergic to chicken thing? Can Tuski tolerate it 'in the raw'???

    Just curious :)

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  2. Tsuki tolerates it really well in the raw form... something about enzyme bioavailability that makes it easier on their system, the protein doesn't change as it does when cooked and all that.

    But she has no issues with raw chicken, no.

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