First raw bone

[JessandJackson]

Yesterday morning I got Jackson his first raw bone from the posh Pet Shop in my village. He loved it and was obsessively nawring away at it for a good 3 hours.

4AM and he woke us up choking up bile only for a few seconds. Blurry-eyed, he got into bed with me but woke me back at 6AM to actually jump down and properly chunder... I just want to check that this is a "normal adjustment" to his first bone and the fact his 7 month old tummy couldn't really process and breakdown the bone?

 

[JudyN]

Did he bring up any bits of bone, and was it particularly meaty? How have his poos been today?

I don't feed that sort of bone because Jasper is a guarder. However, I've discovered that he's not great at digesting bone so I have to be careful - he can't have anything denser than chicken carcasses (and even they can't be free range). But when I started him on raw, the advice was to feed him bone-in mince for a week or two before moving on to whole bones, so his stomach acids had time to adapt, i.e. become more acidic.

That's only my experience though - I'm sure others will share theirs.

 

[JessandJackson]

Sick - little tiny bit of bone but more carrot / his dinner.
First poo this morning - he had his first chalky white poo (2 weeks in of raw). Then a normal coloured one at lunch-time the dog walker said.
Where do you get this bone-in-mince; I hear a lot about it being quite good?

PS: If I am going raw too does that mean no things like dog treats i.e he loves chicken feet, pigs ears and standard dog training treats?

 

[JudyN]

Chalky white poo would indicate that he had a bit more bone than he could cope with, but there only being tiny bits of chicken in his sick suggests that he's digesting it well. Possibly next time it would be better to remove the bone after, say, an hour, rinse it off, and give it back the next day. (If there are ANY signs of possessiveness, then don't just take it but distract him with a toy, or sausage, or whatever.)

Most raw dog food suppliers sell bone-in mince. I use Nurturing By Nature but Landywood's or MVM also spring to mind. A quick google will find many more.

You can still give whatever treats he enjoys. Some purists will only give raw or dehydrated meat but I'm happy to give kibble, bits of leftover pizza crust, and pretty much anything else he regards as edible as long as it's not poisonous for dogs. Just make sure that the less healthy treats only form a small percentage of his total diet.