Feeding the Dachshund Raw vs Cooked

[Dachloves201]

So I am making this post for some advice. I have read some of you out there that cook for your dogs and wondered if anyone has done or tried a raw diet for their dachsie. I'm kind of skiddish to go toward raw but am interested but would even be alright with cooking for my pack (2 dachies and a schnoodle).

Gizmo, my oldest, is getting along in years...he also had a seizure last month rather unexpectedly but is getting along okay since then, thankfully. That said, I definitely want him and my other pups to be around as long as they can. I feed everyone in the house Blue Buffalo currently but lately for some reason Gizmo has had diarrhea and I can't pinpoint the cause. We did go to the vet the week before last when he was having the worst of his stomach issues and his poo smelled something terrible and was mostly liquid and hard to even pick up for the sample....The vet at that time found spirochete in his stool and had him on a course of metronidazole and then a Rx for the Hills Prescription Diet I/D to give as his bland food while his stomach settled. His poo started to form back up while on the meds and bland diet, then it was time to start slowly putting him back on his regular food...... bam, now we're back to the runs.

While I love Blue Buffalo it appears Gizmo's tummy no longer cares for it. I'm back to fasting him again starting tomorrow and then going back on a bland diet. His poo does not smell the way it did when I took him to the vet and they found spirochete but it's definitely not his normal consistency so I'm thinking of pulling everyone off and introducing fresh foods either raw or slightly cooked.

I just feel a little overwhelmed though because I want to make sure they are all getting the right amount of vitamins and nutrients (mostly the reason I was buying BBuffalo) and ensure they keep good weight and stay healthy. I'm really curious though to see once Gizmo's stomach gets back into shape from the bland diet if he starts getting 'fresh' foods if I'd suddenly see the runs stop. I also have a theory that if I'm giving fresh foods or cooking well for them I will likely eat well too and shed some pounds which would definitely be a plus

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated

 

[DeafDogs]

Well, a raw diet is alot better than kibble. Basically you will feed a variety, and they will get everything they need. I'm a fan of the Prey Model Raw Diet, where you feed 80% muscle, 10% edible bone, 5% liver and 5% other organ meat

I do not feed raw exclusively, but I do give raw now and then to my cat and dogs. Mine get a variety, and something different every meal (kibble, canned, dehydrated, raw, scraps, homecooked, etc) But if I had the freezer space to feed all of mine raw, I likely would.

 

[Dachloves201]

I don't have that much freezer space but I have found a way to fit their first round of meats in the freezer. I have decided to go PMR mostly and I may cook a bit for them or feed them ground meats mostly when they need to go for kenneling and stuff or if I'm eating an especially good meal that they can benefit from as well (with no seasoning of course ) Today was their first day so they each got a chicken drumstick and some spinach. So far so good. One immediate thing is I definitely have seen less poop today than usual, I'm guessing that's likely because of the bone matter but also that their body is using more of the nutrients from the meal than they would with kibble and the kibble sits around in their body most of the day which equals several trips out to poop. LOL. Also, the poo did not smell.... I was not at the point of nearly gagging when I picked up Lady girl's poo today and hers normally smells pretty bad and is quite bulky yet soft. This movement was decent sized not as big as what I've seen come out of her on Kibble. It also wasn't as messy to pick up! I can get used to that lol

I think once they get used to chicken I will move onto Turkey then from there to Beef and Pork. I'll have to find a good source of bulk organ and hearts for them to eat as well.

 

[babysis]

My almost 12 y old girl Baby has to be on Z.D. for stomach issues. Her's was from a parasite that attacked her stomach and she had contracted some type of virus at the same time. She was on I.D. but one day she stopped eating it and refused it. Don't be surprised if Gizmo does that. Once in a while I give her boiled carrots or a little bit of boiled chicken with the Rx food. If you can incorporate cooked foods into his diet slowly it should help. Raw foods might be too hard for his tummy. Also for future reference, half of regular strength pepcid helps their stomach when it is upset. Half of the pepcid is equal to the amount of one pill that the vet would prescribe for the dog for an upset stomach. And if you aren't too sure on that, ask your vet about it. From experience, I give that to Baby once in a while when she has a hard day- per my vet.

 

[DeafDogs]

A word of the wise, stick with bony meals for awhile, to help prevent diarrhea, and feed a bony meal when you introduce a new meat.

I would never feed that crap from the vets, anything by Hills is worse than garbage in my opinion. I don't care what the vets say.

 

[babysis]

Sara- I totally agree with you about the Hills. I wish I could have my girl off of that but every type of dog food I have tried she gets welts all over her body and has trouble breathing because her airway closes up. The vet I have is a doxie owner and has raised them from the time he was a kid!

 

[DeafDogs]

Sara- I totally agree with you about the Hills. I wish I could have my girl off of that but every type of dog food I have tried she gets welts all over her body and has trouble breathing because her airway closes up. The vet I have is a doxie owner and has raised them from the time he was a kid!

I would feed raw then (much easier to do an exclusion/allergy diet on raw), I would do everything in my power not to feed my dog that stuff. Honestly, the company has way too much power over vets, and makes their foods out of the worst possible ingredients (Including those known to cause cancer).

I don't feed exclusively raw by any means, and one of my dogs never gets raw, however I feed a variety diet, of only the best possible foods (and for 2 dogs and the cat, they get raw once or twice a week) Nutrition is soooo important to longevity and keeping your dog healthy, I would spend more time looking into healthy alternatives, if I were you.

 

[babysis]

Thanks...sorry it took so long for me to reply. I am looking into different foods for her. She still likes her boiled carrots! I gave her boiled chicken last night and she puked it up. No welts though!! I don't want her on that zd anymore but it's the only thing that helps her system calm down with no allergic reactions, and she goes crazy for it. With this dog food she has been off of prednisone and benadryl for over 6 months. She has been medicine free for a while now.

 

[Dachloves201]

So I kinda left this thread hanging as my dachsie Gizmo has been battling some very odd stomach issues. He's not had a firm stool since about the time I first wrote this thread which is alarming! He's been to his regular vet, which at this point I'm very displeased with, more times than I can remember and they just kept handing me Metro and FortiFlora,neither of which helped. At one point the metro got him back to normal stool but when it came to gradually switching back to his regular food his stools went south again. After that, he stopped wanting to eat any of the usual things that would remedy loose stools (chicken/rice, pumpkin, sweet potato...he was having none of it so he started loosing weight because he literally would not eat anything... Even still his old vet kept pushing to stick with the FortiFlora because they'd found nothing in his fecals.

At that point I'd had enough so instead of just staying with his current vet and getting nothing more than pills and sachets of probiotic I took him back to his old vet, where he used to go as a pup before it got way too expensive to keep taking him, and I get lots more tests on him. It turns out his B-12 is low which apparently his Small intestine is affected in some way that does not allow him to absorb B-12 normally. From looking around it seems that a lack of B-12 can cause excessive diarrhea. The vet feels that he may be suffering either from IBD or there is the possibility of GI Lymphoma. :'( The only way they can tell is to biopsy either via exploratory or endoscopy. Being that it's the small intestine the exploratory is more likely the option because the scope probably can't reach as far as it needs to through the small intestine. I've decided to treat him symptomatically at this point rather than pay for whichever procedure to get samples from his intestine. Partly because the surgery would be very expensive but at the same time Gizmo has lost over 3 lbs through all this and I feel that putting him under and opening him up would be too much at this point. So he's on Prednisone and Sulfasalazine now which I don't like giving but if it can take down any inflammation and make him feel better then it's a must for now. He also just had his second shot of B-12 under the skin today which he needs every Friday. I now have a cabinet full of supplements that I researched and found people who have had success with them for IBD and am treating him under the assumption that, that is what it is. The good thing is, is that I had gotten him eating again, for a while he refused anything and kind of SD or RC Prescription food. He was eating turkey baby food for a while and then he stopped wanting that. In reading more about IBD it seems most have tried to put their pups on a novel protein diet. Unfortunately, Gizmo has been on several different kibbles throughout his life so thinking of a novel protein he hasn't had ever or in a long time is tough. I had him eating Grilled Sockeye Salmon but this didn't seem to stop his need to go poo every 2-3 hours. It appears that one of his older foods had Salmon so this would likely explain why he was still having poo issues.

I've settled upon the fact that right now he likely cannot have Chicken, Beef, Turkey, White/Sweet Potatoes, Soy (tried Tofu) and now Salmon! I assume that he can't have potatoes either along with the meat/soy proteins above as his poo really didn't get much better when I was using them as ingredients for his bland diet. Potatoes gave him more of a gritty soft serve type consistency. =/ The vet is urging that we find someway to get him back on a dog food. While I don't want to, he has to eat. I did do some searching and got him some Arcana Lamb and Apple and picked up some Stella & Chewy's Freeze Dried Lamb. He did not seem to want the Stella & Chewy's at all, at least that would have been a bit closer to getting him on Raw. As for the Arcana food he seemed very willing to eat that, as long as it had no supplements in it lol. While the Arcana does have a grain in it in the form of Oats none of his other foods have had that kind of grain and I don't recall him ever eating a lamb based kibble formula so I'm really hoping this works out and that he still wants to eat it tomorrow. =/ I guess that all depends on how his digestion goes tonight as to whether or not he'll try to eat it again

 

[babysis]

Poor Gizmo. Sounds like IBD. Prednisone can cause them to have loose stool and very dark. Chicken can also cause loose stools as well. While chicken is supposed to be good for them it can cause the issues to worsen in IBD. It's frustrating....Baby wouldn't eat for almost 3 weeks when she got sick in last October. I was mixing up wet food with water and putting it into a syringe and putting it in her mouth. Lamb based kibble in my opinion is good for the dogs. I used to give that to my lab when he was alive. One thing I did to get Baby eating again was I left her food out for her to have. I even took her bowl to her when she was recuperating and had her smell it. Just have to keep pushing it on him so he starts to eat. Just make sure he stays hydrated and get that other opinion.