One big change we made at McKinky Manor about a year ago was to raw feed our dogs. I first heard about it through some other raw-feeders on a website I frequent. It is something I strongly suggest to people who are up for it. Why raw feed? Well, for one, kibble is probably one of the worse things you can feed your dog (especially brands like Purina or Beneful). It's made up of bone meal, and grains and vegetables. Take a look at your dog's teeth and compare it to ours. We have flat molars for chewing vegetables, but also canines for tearing into meat...we are omnivorous. Dogs have NO flat teeth -- their teeth are designed for ripping and tearing...carnivores. So basically any grains and veggies they eat will go straight through them and they get little to no nutrients from kibble. That being said, we've been known to feed the girls pumpkin or squash if they seem to be a little...ahem...backed up. The fiber is great for moving things along. We have found that with raw feeding, the dogs rarely need to be bathed, they don't smell like "dog," they are much more energetic, and raw feeding is even said to extend the lifespan of the dog. Best of all, we never have to brush their teeth. As kibble-fed dogs get older, their teeth become brown and start rotting and falling out. They get gum disease. Marley and Abby's teeth are SO white now it's unbelievable. The bones that they eat scrape all the gunk off of their teeth and are natural teeth cleaners.

Marley and Abby are fed about 2% of their weight (they are each about 50 lbs, so we feed them each approximately 1lb of meat each day). The recommended amount is 2-4% of their body weight, but after a few weeks, you get a better idea of what amount is best for them (ie. if they start getting chunky around the hips, you cut back on the food).

At first, I was really grossed out by handling raw meat, but you really get used to it. And we've found that it's about the same cost as buying good quality brand food, it just doesn't get a lot of marketing. We get it in bulk at the Farmer's Market and freeze it, and the great thing about that is they will cut it up at the market for us, so that takes out a lot of the handling of the meat. If you freeze it after you get home, there is far less juice (juicier meats usually = not as fresh). When we get home, we separate the meat into baggies for each day for our 2 dogs, that way we just grab a bag for the day, and dump the meat out rather than handling it then as well. They eat chicken, eggs, turkey, beef, bison, sardines, tilapia, goat, lamb...whatever is on sale! They must have all of the nutrients from the animal (if they were in the wild, they would eat the whole thing), so we give them all the different parts -- meat, bone, liver, kidney, heart, etc. They eat their fish whole (guts and all). RAW chicken bones are prefectly fine for dogs to eat -- they are very rubbery. Cooked chicken bones are NOT okay -- they are dry and can splinter off in the digestive system, causing damage.

Our dogs don't keep food in the bowl either, so we feed them outside (they don't care about dirt or leaves on the meat). They LOVE it, although it took them a little while to get used to it (raw meat doesn't smell as strong as kibble). Here are a couple of really good websites:
http://www.rawlearning.com/
http://www.rawfeddogs.net/