Shari and Dakota wrote:
We feed them twice a day. Morning and evening. We don't worry
whether Dakota eats or not, she'll eat if she's hungry enough. It
usually gets the better of her if she skips a meal or two and then she
eats everything in sight again.

Many raw feeders will fast a dog now and then. I do vary the amount of
food at meals, some small if they don't seem real interested, and other
times a large meal.


I know the experts say to take the
bowl up after 15 mins but the older dog has always been a slow eater,
eating a little now and a little later. Doesn't hurt anything so we
let her. Leave the bowl all day and if she's hungry (and it's
appealing enough) she eats. It's actually kinda funny to watch the
two dogs jockey for each other's (same) food. It always tastes better
out of the other dog's bowl.

I don't pick it up either but I don't leave food out when I'm not home
either. Choking hazard.

But I don't feed vegetables, especially raw ones. Dogs don't get any
nutrition from them, you have to cook them to death to break down the
cell walls. No need to anyway. Dogs are carnivores and do great on meat,
bones and organ meat.


No doubt many will disagree, but I have a hands off approach to aging
pets. My philosophy is that if I take her in and she's diagnosed with
virtually anything serious, I'm not going to subject her, or me, to
treatments. I'm going to let her go naturally, in peace and comfort,
without needles and unpleasant tests and so forth. At her age it
isn't like they can "fix" her. She's elderly. You get old, the body
starts to wither. Geez, I know the feeling with my own body and I
don't run to the doc for me, either. So it's pretty much a personal
philosophy all around.

As long as she's happy, comfortable, good quality of life and not
suffering, she lives her life in peace with us. The older dog and her
appetite issues, she's just gotten picky (and senile) in her old age.
She has lost a few marbles along the way. Pretty normal based on the
other old dogs I've encountered. Even people get that way. Right now
she's happy to eat if I add a bit of vegetable soup to her food.
Tomorrow she might feel picky again. And they always get carrots as
treats, she's never said no to a carrot or dog biscuit.

I had two old cats years ago. One I let go naturally, and she had a
good end, and I have happy (sad happy) memories of her end. The other
I took to the vet, and his end still tortures me to this day. The
tests, the poking and prodding, the treatments that left him worse
than when we took him in and shortly after, the final ending where
they couldn't hit his vein and kept sticking him over and over... no,
I'd rather let it be natural as long as there is no suffering for
beyond normal old folks stuff.

Shari

I agree with you to a point. I had a dog with a bad heart and the vet
did give me meds that helped him live out his final days in comfort. I
did not go to extremes and do more than that.

BTW, I'm reading your website and it says you crate the one dog all day.
I don't feel that is a good thing for any dog, especially one that has
had such a bad life. Get on with allowing her to have more freedom if
you can't be around to let her out every few hours.

And stop feeding them grapes!

But I don't feed vegetables, especially raw ones. Dogs don't get any
nutrition from them, you have to cook them to death to break down the cell
walls. No need to anyway. Dogs are carnivores and do great on meat, bones
and organ meat.

Ok boys and girls. Let's have that fiber lesson again. Dogs DO need fiber.
And, yes, in the wild they get plenty from the stomach contents of the kilss
as wells as the grass they nibble at.

Hey Chard - why is it again that you altered what I wrote and then posted it
as a quote from me?? You there, Chard??

She's full of nothing but misinformation.

"chardonnay9" wrote in message
m...

I don't pick it up either but I don't leave food out when I'm not home
either. Choking hazard.

But you *do* leave food out when you're home? I cannot imagine having
raw meat sitting around my house. Ugh.

But I don't feed vegetables, especially raw ones. Dogs don't get any
nutrition from them, you have to cook them to death to break down the
cell walls. No need to anyway. Dogs are carnivores and do great on
meat, bones and organ meat.

Dogs are actually omniverous. And they *like* fruits and veggies (will
drool for them, even), so I prefer to let them eat them.

BTW, I'm reading your website and it says you crate the one dog all
day. I don't feel that is a good thing for any dog, especially one
that has had such a bad life. Get on with allowing her to have more
freedom if you can't be around to let her out every few hours.

That can be tricky with some dogs. I don't know what Shari's situation
is, but if a dog has separation anxiety, crating can be a literal life
saver. It can also be necessary if you have multiple dogs and one or
more is dog aggressive. And then there are dogs with pica. Leaving
them out, unattended, could be deadly.

--
Shelly
http://www.cat-sidh.net (the Mother Ship)
http://esther.cat-sidh.net (Letters to Esther)

"chardonnay9" wrote in message
m...

I don't pick it up either but I don't leave food out when I'm not home
either. Choking hazard.

But you *do* leave food out when you're home? I cannot imagine having
raw meat sitting around my house. Ugh.

But I don't feed vegetables, especially raw ones. Dogs don't get any
nutrition from them, you have to cook them to death to break down the
cell walls. No need to anyway. Dogs are carnivores and do great on
meat, bones and organ meat.

Dogs are actually omniverous. And they *like* fruits and veggies (will
drool for them, even), so I prefer to let them eat them.

BTW, I'm reading your website and it says you crate the one dog all
day. I don't feel that is a good thing for any dog, especially one
that has had such a bad life. Get on with allowing her to have more
freedom if you can't be around to let her out every few hours.

That can be tricky with some dogs. I don't know what Shari's situation
is, but if a dog has separation anxiety, crating can be a literal life
saver. It can also be necessary if you have multiple dogs and one or
more is dog aggressive. And then there are dogs with pica. Leaving
them out, unattended, could be deadly.

--
Shelly
http://www.cat-sidh.net (the Mother Ship)
http://esther.cat-sidh.net (Letters to Esther)

"chardonnay9" wrote in message
m...

I don't pick it up either but I don't leave food out when I'm not home
either. Choking hazard.

But you *do* leave food out when you're home? I cannot imagine having
raw meat sitting around my house. Ugh.

But I don't feed vegetables, especially raw ones. Dogs don't get any
nutrition from them, you have to cook them to death to break down the
cell walls. No need to anyway. Dogs are carnivores and do great on
meat, bones and organ meat.

Dogs are actually omniverous. And they *like* fruits and veggies (will
drool for them, even), so I prefer to let them eat them.

BTW, I'm reading your website and it says you crate the one dog all
day. I don't feel that is a good thing for any dog, especially one
that has had such a bad life. Get on with allowing her to have more
freedom if you can't be around to let her out every few hours.

That can be tricky with some dogs. I don't know what Shari's situation
is, but if a dog has separation anxiety, crating can be a literal life
saver. It can also be necessary if you have multiple dogs and one or
more is dog aggressive. And then there are dogs with pica. Leaving
them out, unattended, could be deadly.

--
Shelly
http://www.cat-sidh.net (the Mother Ship)
http://esther.cat-sidh.net (Letters to Esther)

"chardonnay9" wrote in message
m...

I don't pick it up either but I don't leave food out when I'm not home
either. Choking hazard.

But you *do* leave food out when you're home? I cannot imagine having
raw meat sitting around my house. Ugh.

But I don't feed vegetables, especially raw ones. Dogs don't get any
nutrition from them, you have to cook them to death to break down the
cell walls. No need to anyway. Dogs are carnivores and do great on
meat, bones and organ meat.

Dogs are actually omniverous. And they *like* fruits and veggies (will
drool for them, even), so I prefer to let them eat them.

BTW, I'm reading your website and it says you crate the one dog all
day. I don't feel that is a good thing for any dog, especially one
that has had such a bad life. Get on with allowing her to have more
freedom if you can't be around to let her out every few hours.

That can be tricky with some dogs. I don't know what Shari's situation
is, but if a dog has separation anxiety, crating can be a literal life
saver. It can also be necessary if you have multiple dogs and one or
more is dog aggressive. And then there are dogs with pica. Leaving
them out, unattended, could be deadly.

--
Shelly
http://www.cat-sidh.net (the Mother Ship)
http://esther.cat-sidh.net (Letters to Esther)

Sharon Too wrote:
But I don't feed vegetables, especially raw ones. Dogs don't get any
nutrition from them, you have to cook them to death to break down the cell
walls. No need to anyway. Dogs are carnivores and do great on meat, bones
and organ meat.

Ok boys and girls. Let's have that fiber lesson again. Dogs DO need fiber.
And, yes, in the wild they get plenty from the stomach contents of the kilss
as wells as the grass they nibble at.


And any grass comes through whole, not digested. It's not needed. There
is no proven need for fiber in a dog's diet. It's only use is as an
agent to help them rid themselves of parasites.

Ever eat corn on the cob? Everyone knows it comes out whole and
undigested,even on people. So why is corn the number one ingredient in
most dog kibble?

Oh, and here is proof that they don't eat the stomach contents of their
prey unless it's something too small to bother with and since it's
documented that almost all their prey is large animals that would mean
they really don't get any fiber.

http://jn.nutrition.org/cgi/content/full/136/7/1923S

In article ,
chardonnay9 wrote:
And any grass comes through whole, not digested.

That's actually not true. But, if you'd like to provide
some evidence to support your flat-out wrong and unsupported
assertion, you can perform an experiment by collecting some
grass, weighing it, feeding it to your dog, and weighing
what comes out in the poop. Or rather, you can feed it to
your imaginary dog and weigh what comes out in his imaginary
poop.

Ever eat corn on the cob? Everyone knows it comes out whole and
undigested,even on people.

Not true.

So why is corn the number one ingredient in
most dog kibble?

Hi, you just made something up again.
--
Melinda Shore - Software longa, hardware brevis -

Prouder than ever to be a member of the reality-based community

"chardonnay9" wrote in message
m...

Ever eat corn on the cob? Everyone knows it comes out whole and
undigested,even on people.

Didn't your parents teach you to chew your food? Or do you not have
teeth? That must make eating corn on the cob difficult.

So why is corn the number one ingredient in most dog kibble?

Is it? There's no corn whatsoever in my dog's food. There's quite a
bit of it in super low end food, but I don't know what porportion of the
market share those brands occupy. Do you?

Oh, and here is proof that they don't eat the stomach contents of
their prey unless it's something too small to bother with and since
it's documented that almost all their prey is large animals that would
mean they really don't get any fiber.

That article says nothing about scavenging vegetable matter from the
environment. Most dogs I've known love to eat grass, as well as fruits
and veggies straight from the garden. (And we won't mention how some
dogs actually drool for potatoes, apples, and carrots.)

--
Shelly
http://www.cat-sidh.net (the Mother Ship)
http://esther.cat-sidh.net (Letters to Esther)

"chardonnay9" wrote in message
m...
Oh, and here is proof that they don't eat the stomach contents of their
prey unless it's something too small to bother with and since it's
documented that almost all their prey is large animals that would mean
they really don't get any fiber.

http://jn.nutrition.org/cgi/content/full/136/7/1923S

You really don't read what you cite, do you? That is about wolves. I'm
pretty sure that my schnauzers aren't wolves - nor could they hunt in the
wild as a pack of wolves would.

Now to bring proof down to something closer to dogs, let's look at the diet
of wild coyotes. By people who actually looked at stomach contents and
scat. As opposed to just making stuff up as you have been known to do.

All of these cites indicate that coyotes eat primarily smaller animals -
mostly because they simply can't bring down a deer. Deer meat found in
their stomachs is almost always from carrion. Their meat comes from animals
such as rabbits and mice and others as small as insects. And they also eat
fruit and grasses.

http://www.theconservationagency.org...s_2006apri.htm

or
http://www.bio.davidson.edu/people/v...Holmberg2.html

or
http://hdl.handle.net/1811/25135

Oh - and I *watch* coyotes on a nearly daily basis eat exactly what these
places say they eat.

Judy