He isn't being sick...it's the other end :(

He had the chicken wings on Saturday for his tea and started being ill the next morning. Then it stopped, the he had tripe for his tea on Sunday night and started being ill again in the night.

He has his tea around 5pm.

> my lab has 1lb of food per meal. This works out at about 6 chicken wings. Does this sound too much?

Yes - or rather it would be too much for my 30kg dogs.  Not in terms of weight, but it's too much bone for mine to handle comfortably in one sitting and results in constipation or painful poo.

For this reason I don't feed wings as a meal.  I would give a reduced portion of mince and then let them have a wing or two as a 'chaser'.  Also if I needed to be out at their dinner time I give them a wing or two before I leave, to stave off the hunger pangs, then feed them a bit later in the evening.  I do feed chicken portions as a meal - the higher meat content works well, and I will give a turkey neck.  However I always try and follow high bone meals with veg, liver and/or some kibble at the next meal as this seems to help the bone through!

My girls are fine with that amount and don't have any issues with their poo.

I would suggest to go back to a bland diet white fish and rice for a couple of days and the do a more gradual introduction of the raw food. It may well be a bug rather than the food that is causing the runny poo but a few days to get things back to normal would be sensible. Try adding some live natural yoghurt as well with the rice and fish.

LJS, should I use just plain white boiled rice? Can he have it warm, or should i wait until it is cold to feed him it?

Yes plain boiled rice and you can feed it warm or cold.

Don't forget that if you're cooking rice for your dog it needs to be overcooked in order to break down the starch and increase digestibility, otherwise it'll go straight through.  Aim to cook until it resembles porridge and the majority of grains have lost their structure.  When cooled it will set and can be cut like cake

If you are cooking more than one portion or rice at a time you must take care to store it properly.  Rice can cause food poisoning very easily if left around at room temperature and, whilst a dogs digestion will be better able to manage than ours, a poorly dog doesn't need anything else to cope with.  Cool the rice rapidly and refrigerate as soon as possible. 

Some people recommend potato rather than rice (better tolerated) so you might want to try that instead, alternatively try something like Chappie.  It's quite a good invalid food and most dogs are happy to try it.  It's worth mentioning too that an otherwise fit and healthy dog might benefit from starving for up to 24 hours to allow the gut time to settle before feeding a light meal.

Dodgy tummies can take a while to settle but do try and encourage him to drink in the meantime.  Hope all is ok

Thank you dogs a babe...some useful advice that I will definitely use.

I only give him a really small portion of food this morning and he has been ok so far.

I use mashed potato and green tripe for yucky tums and it works a treat.
Aileen

Another one here who prefers potato to rice. I usually do a couple of days of white fish and potato to sort out upset tums.

Rice was the only thing my Lab who had severe colitis could tolerate.

Anything else just went through her like a dose of salts !

I feel like i've hot a brick wall over the last few days. My lab was sick last night after eating his dinner (he didn't eat it again). His poo's are also not as hard as I thought they would be.

Help!

How many rice/potato and fish meals have you given him ?

I starved him for 12 hours, he was fine. Then a rice meal (he was fine after that), then a normal beef meal (which he threw up - the whole meal so I gave him a rice meal instead), then he was fine after the rice.

He's a lab, and before I switched him to a raw diet he'd pinched lots of different things out of the kitchen - a whole gammon joint, 6 yorkshire puddings, pan of spaghetti, whole garlic bagette, 12 fairy cakes - and nothing made him ill.

ps...i'm now alot wiser to his stealing.

i think i'd have carried on with the rice/chicken/potato for a bit longer then re-introduced the raw chicken.

He's back on the rice now, and i'll keep him on it for a few days.

Do some dogs disagree with a raw diet?

Is there such a thing as a dried raw diet where the meat is dried rather than fresh?

Yes stick with the rice for at least 3 days the gradually try him back in the raw bit stick with one type supplemented by his normal food or the rice and then after a few days gradually try and add different types of raw.

It sometimes does take a few weeks to do the change so don't rush it and be very patient.

Give it a rest before starting again.  I'd opt for three days on a low stress diet - rice, potato, pasta etc with chicken or fish THEN go back to his pre raw diet for one week.  After that I'd start giving him one chicken wing every day to see how he copes.  Give the wing at a time of day when you are around to observe, help him outside etc if he looks like being sick, and at a time when he is relaxed with time to digest it properly.

If you are at home in the afternoon you could try giving it as lunch, and an extra to his usual meals morning and evening.  Sandwiching it between two other meals you know he can tolerate will give you an indication of what might be causing the problems.

A raw diet doesn't suit every dog, or every owner :)

He seems to be fine with minced chicken, but not with chicken wings, beef or tripe. But surely a chicken only diet is not a balanced diet?

I feel so sad that he's having a really bad time with it :(

> But surely a chicken only diet is not a balanced diet?

No it's not which is why I suggest you go back to his pre raw diet and take it more slowly.  I'm not sure he's fully recovered yet from what caused the sickness or looseness in the first place so don't rush to conclusions just yet - he may well be fine on all these foods but simply needs more time.

Don't panic :)

Our puppy was terribly ill in France recently because of something he'd eaten (not a clue what) and I just gave him some overcooked rice and little bit of chicken though I had to starve him for 24 hours on the vet's advice too.

Hope doggy's ok now!

> Is there such a thing as a dried raw diet where the meat is dried rather than fresh?

There is: http://www.bernpetfoods.co.uk/acatalog/ZiwiPeak_Daily_Dog_Cuisine.html

It is expensive but you feed far less than a comparable kibble.

Right, had my lab on rice for a few days and now have him on rice for one meal and chicken for the other. He is perfectly happy now, no sickess at all. I know he's cannot stay on chicken and rice forever so I plan to slowly start introducing some beef (which previously made him sick). Am I doing the right thing?

Yes but start with a quarter you would normally want to feed and increase over a few days.

Then gradually if his tum is fine introduce a new type do the same then continue to add different foods over a couple of weeks until you have a good variety. Might be worth continuing with a little natural
yogurt as well for a few weeks.

Good luck :-)

Thank you LJS. I'll try him with beef first and when he's ok with that i'll start to add in tripe.

I'm not sure how successful they are, but I've recently seen some 'pro biotic' bars that you can give to dogs. I imagine they are just dried yoghurt with a few other bits added in, but might be handy for you to buy a few to keep 'just in case'?

http://www.groomers-online.com/product.php/3072/canovel-probiotic-yoghurt-treat-bar-