Envy’s On a New Diet
No she is not getting fat, although she is quite lazy. We have decided to switch her from a healthy kibble diet (Innova Evo dog food) to an all raw diet.
As you may have read, my mom started feeding Envy raw while we were in Destin and she really seemed to like it. We were constantly struggling to get creative and add new safe human food to her dog food every day and she just was not into eating it. The food that we were feeding her was excellent quality food but she just did not mind skipping a day or so. Innova Evo is a no-grain kibble and did not have all of the shit that the supermarket and pet store food has in it such as animal by-products. If you are feeding your dog this type (supermarket / pet store food) you should really consider changing over to a much better food… if you dont go raw like we did. If you are wondering why or what can possibly be bad about your food, take a few minutes and check this out. It will really surprise you:
- http://www.dogfoodanalysis.com/dog_food_reviews/index.php/cat/1 - Site rating dog foods… see where yours is. ratings are done on quality of food and nutritional content.
- http://www.dogfoodanalysis.com/faq.html - About the ratings. Click the links on the left, particularly the “how we rate” link.
Feeding raw does take a little bit of knowledge but honestly not much. Basically you need to feed them meaty bones so that they get both bones as well as meat. It can be pork, buffalo, rabbit, deer, chicken, whatever.. they will usually eat it all. You must also balance this with organ meat such as livers, hearts, etc. You do want to stay away from feeding large bones with little meat though as the balance are important for their diet and poop 
Too much bone and they wont get it out… too much meat and it will… well flow
Many feel that this kind of diet encourages their dog to “crave blood”, become completely aggressive, and change the pet into an animal. Not true, not true, not true… dont believe everything that you hear… afterall both me and my parents own pitbulls and they are not snarling demons right? Trust me. Those are myths. There are links at the bottom of this post to some sites the debunk these myths.
I really thought that feeding raw made total sense and knew that it was better for Envy but thought it was kinda odd. All in all, it is kinda gross having do work with raw meat all of the time, but in a sick way I kinda enjoy when she takes in parts of chicken thighs and legs and starts chomping right through the bone. Turkey was even crazier. Those bones are a lot larger and thicker and she would just chomp right through them. It was rather entertaining. :crackup:
Now that we are feeding raw we really expected our “dog food” costs to rise conciderably. We would pay about $50 dollars per bag of her Innova Evo and it would last somewhere between 5 – 6 weeks at best. We figured that with her eating a chicken leg quarter plus hearts or livers daily that we would be spending quite a bit more a month… until we realized that we live right near the Tyson plant Cumming that is! I had heard a rumor that you can pick up chicken for MUCH less if you go to the Tyson plant. I had Alisha run by there one day and asked her to take like $40 bucks or so. She called me on her way out and had picked up 3 boxes of chicken leg quarters for the $40!!! We allowed them to defrost a little and then cut them up into individually wrapped daily servings. We found that there were 28 leg quarters in each box and we had three boxes. That means that we have 84 chicken leg quarters or damn near 3 months of food for her! I would say that is a hell of a deal… we would have nearly spent $120 – $150 bucks in that same time frame.
We are really glad that we made this switch to raw. We know it is much healthier and more natural for her to be eating this way. We hope that you choose to do the same or at least look into purchasing dog food that is MUCH healthier then Purina or Iams.. i assure you it is pure garbage for your dog… you saw what happened when that guy ate McDonalds for 30 days.. you are essentially doing the same for your dog. The new food will be cheaper (if you look at how much you feed per day it equals out if not saves you money) and you will feel better about what you are putting in your dog’s body. Plus healthier food means less trips to your costly vet
Here are some links that used to learn about how to feed a raw diet:
