With many people now turning to a more nutritious, raw diet for their dogs, we feel that it's important that people are well educated and make some good decisions around this, in an easy to understand format.
First off, understanding the percentages.
The total allowance that your dog should recieve, is between 2-3% of their adult body weight. If you know how much your dog weighs, you can easily Google what 2% of their body weight is, which will then tell you how much you need to feed. Please do be aware that this is only relevant to dogs over 12months of age, and that puppies will need different percentages. Puppies at 2months old will need around 10%, and that will decrease over the first year until adult levels. If your dog is overweight, then reduce the quantities, and if they are underweight then be sure to increase this. Every dog is an individual, so don't be afraid to adjust these percentages according to initial weight, activity levels and genetics of the dog. Some dogs simply need more or less food, just the same as humans. However, for those who are unsure, 2-3% is a good starting point to begin with.
Now, what's more important. Of that total food allowance you have calculated, you need to be looking at an 80/10/10 rule. This means, 80% muscle meat, 10% offal and 10% bone. Again, once you have began on this, please do adjust accordingly as each dog will differ with an exact.
Muscle meat, in simple terms, is all of the parts of an animal that most people would eat. Things such as the breast and legs (no bone) - the meaty parts of an animal in a sense. You should then be looking to offer around 3 - 5 different types of proteins. For example, you could mix between tripe, chicken, beef and lamb over a fortnightly basis. So long as there is a good mix over a 14 day period, you can be confident that your dog is receiving the correct variety of nutrients to stay healthy.
Many people will recommend that your dog gets fish once a week. The recommendation on this, is one days quantity in one week. So, if your dog usually has 1kg a day, they should only have 1kg of fish a week.
Next, there should be an overall 10% of offal included in the diet. This should be made up of at least 5% liver, and the remaining 5% should be a mix. A good example of this would be to feed the remaining 5% a mix of kidney, spleen and any other offal that you can get hold of! Do be aware that too much offal will cause your dog to have the runs, so if you find your dogs poo very sloppy, then you will need to decrease these percentages.
Finally, the remaining 10% should be made up of bone. This can be anything from chicken thighs/drumsticks, ribs, ducks feet to whole carcasses. If you are concerned about the cloaking hazard presented, then you can always feed ground bone, which most raw food suppliers will sell. However, as long as the bones are raw and you have taught your dog to chew, there should not be an issue. Giving your dog too much bone will cause their poo to become white and chalk like. If you find that this is the case then be sure to decrease quantities.
For more information on how to transition your dog from a kibble based diet to raw, as well as the benefits of doing so, check out our next blog!
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