Odd (?) behaviour from a newly RAW fed dog...

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Last week we moved Sam, our whippety lurcher with a history of digestive problems, onto RAW food.
It was a scary step, taking him off the vet-prescribed Royal Canin but I digress..

Right, he is happy with the pre-packaged mush, atm he is on the frozen pellets made by Nature's Menu, eats it happily and poos are formed and pick-up-able (the latter being a particularly pleasing development!)

Five days ago we introduced chicken wings, as a snack / light lunch type of meal (he needs to be on four smallish meals per day). The initial one he licked for a while whilst I held onto it but after a few he got the hang of crunching them and I would just give him one and leave him to it in the garden.
For the past three days he has burried the wing and then ignored it for anything up to a day, after which he digs it up, shakes the mud off it and runs around the garden with it, a sort of trophy lap, before settling down and eating it.

He has had no ill effects from this soil-additive to his food so am not overly worried. However, is this 'normal'? Is he suddenly harking back to some instinctive hunter-gatherer instinct?

Am not worried, more bemused and wanted to share...

It's raw, not RAW. It's not an acronym like BARF is.

Sounds completely normal to me. One of mine went through a distressing phase of burying things behind the sofa cushions and had to be reminded that raw meat stays inside the crate or outside only. They frequently catch mice and bury them for later, it's just instinct.

Mine does the same. Although I often have to point out where the bone/meat/bread/toy is buried as she is a pea-brain

How lovely to hear Sam has nice firm poos these days

Seriously, if I flash back to a few short months ago....reading your post makes me

Re raw (thank you toboldlygo, I had no idea!) I agree its normal. Mouse is far too greedy to bury anything for later (he takes after me in that respect, dh is the chocolate-hoarder ) but he does like to do the lap of honour bit. As for eating soil and various other interesting elements, Mouse does that all the time - so far with no effects!

perfectly normal - it helps soften them and give them a nice aged flavour i'd imagine sounds like it's going great!

switched to raw food here nearly two weeks ago for both the dog and the cat and both are doing fab on it. i wouldn't bother with the mush - meaty bones are the best way to meet their needs and it certainly sounds like he loves them.

Thanks toboldly, I saw it in capitals like that somewhere and thought that was what it was supposed to be. I stand corrected

Glad to hear it is normal. He is certainly enjoying it, I love watching him do the lap of honour thing, shaking his 'kill' ready for eating... Daft dog!

Thanks all - glad to hear the deranged dog is normal

Eli, I cannot tell you how pleased I am to have a bouncy Sam with formed poo! I am rapidly becoming a poo bore though and had to stop myself when I was getting into a bit too much detail in the staffroom the other day...

Hadn't considered the fact it would 'soften' the wing, but does make perfect sense.
He has just dug up and devoured the one he buried this morning. Yum, warm chicken wing with a side order of garden soil....

Tis very normal behavioour but also may mean he is getting too much to eat- if he was ravenous he would be more inclined to eat it.

So maybe give the bone meal at a time when he is more hungry and an easier to eat meal at the other times

Mine does this, but just to warn you, we had to put an end to it as she then started refusing to toilet in the same garden she was burying her food in. She now gets shut inside her crate for meals and the crate gets mopped out when the floor is mopped, to keep it clean - it does mean we can't have any bedding in there though (kind you she would only eat it anyway).

Fair point about him perhaps getting too much - thing is he did this today, and then spent the rest of the afternoon following me around waiting for food, before digging up his wing...
May cut down on his mush meals a bit (was giving him the amount stated on the packet) and look at perhaps swapping his meals around..

Also good point feesh about the garden, did yours even refuse to wee in the garden? (Sam does not poo in our garden, he does all his pooing on his morning and lunchtime walks) but will wee in the garden in the afternoon and before bed...

with raw food the guide is 2-3% of their ideal weight. also it's the meaty bones that they really need rather than the mush which isn't natural. if he's loving the bones i'd not bother reordering anymore pricey mush.

i have a small for breed lab who is 25kg max and she gets aprox 500g a day. today she had over that but it was still only one chicken wing and a little bit of liver in the morning and half a small rare chicken (500g) for tea. don't know if that helps contextualise how much is normal.

so far she gets chicken on the bone, liver, the occasional egg which she loves and whole fish once a week.

by 'guideline' i mean that you feed them that initially and see how it goes - do they lose weight (fine if they are overweight but sadie is perfect for her size) or do they put on weight? adjust accordingly.

honestly very easy.

We only went for the 'mush' because it seems a gentle introduction to raw if you see what I mean?
But would definately like to increase the bone, he is a chewer (sticks, shoes, furniture) so I would like to direct his chewing towards his food if that makes sense...

So, chicken wings he likes and can do, what shall I try next?

Behind, yes she did refuse to wee in the garden. I posted about it on here, I got really stressy about it at the time, but after I'd spent a couple of hours sat outside in the garden with her and worked out what was going on, it was easy to solve! I also think we were over-feeding her back then.

bigger portions of chicken i'd say behind - leg quarters would be good. are you giving any liver? pigs liver is very cheap and they do need a bit of offal in their diet.

i would love to feed mine chicken carcasses but unfortunately i cannot bloody source the things. not many butchers around who still actually 'butcher' on site and the few who do have their regulars who take the bones it seems. done research online searching raw food providers and the vast majority of them are more expensive than going to tescos and expect you to order a years worth as well. i did find one that was cheap but unfortunately i'm just outside of their delivery area.

what kind of dog is it and how much does he weigh?

thanks feenie - I can imagine that would be stressfull, glad you solved it eventually, will keep an eye on Sam.

Swallowed - Sam is a whippety lurcher, approx 15kg, approx 3 years old. He had a terrible bout of haemorrhagic gastroenteritis at the end of October, only 8 weeks after adopting him, which, despite being in the vets on a drip, turned into sceptacaemia and liver failure. He needed three blood plasma transfusions, two types of antibiotic, various other potions and was not expected to pull through. He did and we were sent home with steroids, antibiotics, pro-biotics and told to only feed him the vet prescribed Royal Canin gastrointestinal tinned food.
Together with the vet we weaned him off the antibiotics by December and by the end of January he was finally off the steroids too (although he relapsed late February but 7 days of a low dose of steroid sorted that out.)

Despite the expensive prescription food and the daily (expensive) probiotic paste his poos were never really easy to pick up and towards the end of the day all he could produce was korma sauce.

Last month I dropped the stupidly expensive (£12 every 5 days) and started using slippery elm instead. The difference in poo was noticeable within 24 hours.
Next on my hitlist was the Royal Canin.
So, enter raw feeding. I finally (after seeing 4 different vets whilst Sam was ill) found an old-school vet who (quietly, whilst the door of the consultation room was firmly shut) agreed that raw feeding may well benefit Sam.

And I started last week.
So far so good, he likes it, and I have not needed to use the slippery elm to keep his poo 'formed'.

Sorry, this has turned into a bit of an essay But I appreciate your advice

pro biotics, I dropped the stupidly expensive pro biotics....

Wish there was an edit function ....

good - glad you took the risk and it paid off.

if 15kg then really he only needs between 300 and 450g a day - i'd go for 450g if he's a skinny chap and could do with filling out a bit. that's what, 3 chicken wings and a bit of liver? so yes it does sound like you are big time over feeding him.

if you're doing 3 meals a day (think you said that but i can't see it now) you could give a wing in the morning and another at lunchtime then a wing and some liver in the evening. even if you fed well over and gave half a kilo a day that's still only a leg quarter and a couple of wings you know?

my lab is pretty active and 25kg but still only gets 600g a day max - plus the odd scrounged apple core or ds's dropped cereal.

Yes, I think I was completely underestimating the weight of the chicken wing (and weighing it did not occur to me )

Will look at chicken leg quarters, liver, and weigh a bit more carefully...

Thank you for all your advise

you're welcome - only started a couple of weeks ago myself so i love going on about it am so glad i changed over. i've got the cat on raw as well and he loves it.

Be really really careful with the liver with a dog

1. new to barf
2. with history of tummy problems

The stomach acids get stronger and more balanced while being on BARF and the dogs can tolerate offal easily. One of my dogs can not eat a meal of offal but gets his weekly allowance through a very small amount each day as training treats.

Also if he is licking the chicken wing and not crunching it up hold on to the end of it so that he can not take it away until it is chewed. Some dogs find chewing hard after eating kibble for so long.

I personally would not move onto legs etc until the dog is comfortable with chewing completely a chicken wing.

Oh no minimu, he is crunching the chicken wing very well, no worries there...

was going to read up more on liver / offal etc before giving it to him anyway, so thanks for heads-up

Great - sounds like he is loving his new menu

Probably best stick to just chicken for the first 2 weeks. My lab has been on raw for a 4 months and the yahoo Rawfeeding group has been a great source of information.
Dog just had a huge 720g turkey drumstick for the first time, £1.46 at Tesco, very meaty with lots of chewy tendony bit. Kept him busy for nearly half an hour. Wish I'd got more, they'll probably all be gone tomorrow.

Went to see the people who make www.naturalinstinct.com/ today as their factory outlet is a 25 minute drive from our house. Had an impromptu tour of the kitchen where all dog food is made and spoke to one of the owners in depth about Sam and his gastric history.

We are sticking to chicken only, for another week. Then she recommends introducing Salmon. She said to give lamb a miss for now as it's fat content is too high and dogs with bowel issues tend to struggle with fatty meats.
She said not to go too heavy on the bones to start with as his guts need to become accustomed to raw as we are to assume he will always be a bit sensitive. (which is pretty much what our pro-raw vet said)
They sell both bones and pre mixed mush so I don't think the advise was biased) She recommended sticking with the chicken wings and also to look at chicken legs.

She said that there are differnet raw feeding theories, some subscribe to Barf which means no veg, just meat and bones.
They themselves subsribe to the prey model way of thinking, which means their food includes fruit and vegetables in a ground down consistency to mimick the stomach contents of what a wild dog's prey would have been (mostly herbivores).

She did say that for Sam to get the best out of raw feeding it would be wise to stop giving him bonios etc and to instead give him something from my fridge / fruitbowl such as a carrot or a piece of apple.

She also recommended adding some live natural yoghurt twice a week to keep his gut flora happy (again, this was already recommended by the vet) and treats can include cottage cheese dolloped onto his food once in a while...

Either way, we have bought some of their 'mush' (dh was eying up turkey necks and the half-of-a-lambs-heads but that will come at a later time...)

Sam so far seems happy on his new diet. He is still pooing four times a day but the first three are sausage shaped and easily picked up and this is a massive improvement, so so far so good...