Hi.

I am bringing home a toy breed puppy in a few weeks time; she is currently being fed on Royal Canin.
I am considering gradually changing her over to a BARF/raw diet, as I have heard only good things about the diet.

I am just wondering - how do I change her over onto the raw diet?
Where do I get the foods from?
and how do I work out how much to give for her meals?
Are there any books I could read, to give me further information?

She will be eight weeks old when I bring her home. Any advice would be great, thank you.

> how do I change her over onto the raw diet?

She will be quite young to change homes for a Toy dog at only 8 weeks, but you can still make the change. I would start by adding a bit of raw tripe to her kibble. Then try some raw chicken, beef, lamb etc to vary things. Gradually phase out the RC. Don't forget to give her some bone content each day. A raw chicken neck is fine. Not sure how many dogs you have but if it's only one Toy dog you could source her food on the high street, either from butchers, pet shops (if they have a freezer), or Tesco etc. The link below to the DAF forum has some really good info, just use the search on there. They also deliver depending on where you live. You could search on this forum too, there is lots of info.

http://www.daf-petfood.co.uk/forum/

There are lots of books - look on Amazon where you can look inside some of the books to see if you like the style.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Natural-Nutrition-Dogs-Cats-Ultimate/dp/1561706361

Good luck, I'm sure your little dog will thrive on raw food.

If you pm me your email address I'll send you a barf guide, it's how I feed mine (I've got Labs and help look after spaniels too). 

I swapped over a cocker pup a few months back, and he's doing great on raw; I introduced him to chicken wings but held on to the end to make him chew them, rather than swallow whole.  It's easiest if you sit them with their back to you, and hold the wing in the side of their mouth, that way you avoid your fingers getting chewed too! 

Some dogs need the skin breaking so it smells more appealing, I've never had that happen yet, all the dogs I've raw fed value raw food much higher than kibble, and feeding time can be a bit of a frenzy with a few dogs, it's a carefully organised exercise to raw feed ten dogs without any scuffles breaking out! 

I'm sure I've read that toy breeds are more prone to posseting (sp?) food, which is where they gulp a bit to the back of the mouth without chewing properly, and then get another mouthful.  This is usually prompted by being fed in competition, or if they think something's going to be taken away. 

Good luck with your pup, shout if you want my raw feeding guide :)

Great advice already given, I'll add my two peneth. :)

Tom Lonsdale I find is the best author on a raw diet, his books are avaliable on Amazon/eBay. Ian Billinghurst is another option if you want to include veg/dairy/grains, but the books are a bit confusing at times I think. It is a very good idea to read up on the diet first, so as you have a good understanding of the diet before you take the plunge.

Personally I'd do a straight swap onto raw, I'm not a fan of mixing raw and dry with pups, but that's personal opinion. Start with one protien source (chicken probably being the best), try minces first and after a few days try bones (chicken wings are idea for toy breeds). After a week or so of that try adding another meat (rabbitt is good), and so on. Leave offal to last, and when trying her on liver and kidney remember TINY amounts to start with, they are very rich. DO NOT rush into trying too much variety, too soon. Big mistake, and will more than likely upset the pup.

If you want to do a gradual swap over, I'd feed raw in the AM and dry in the PM, and slowly cut down the dry and up the raw. If she is not keen on the raw try flash frying some mince to get her interested, then reduce how much you cook it until she is having it completly raw. Also, some comercially fed pups aren't keen on cold raw at first, so perhaps remove it from the fridge for a few hours prior to feeding would be a good idea.

She will need 10% of her ACTUAL body weight, or 3% of her EXPECTED body weight in raw. Calculate here. http://www.raw4dogs.com/calculate.htm
I prefer the 10% rule, as you can update this weekly. You can then tweek the amounts you feed going by if your pup gains/loses weight.

I use The Dog Food Company for food (http://www.thedogfoodcompany.co.uk/products.html), but if you have a toy pup you may want to try one of the fully prepared raw diets such as natural instict (http://www.naturalinstinct.com/), as it may not be too expensive with a small dog and the hard work is all done for you. Also, I'm sure they'd give you advise on what varietys to start on etc.

Having said all this, I would probably not change the pup to raw for a week or 2, just to let her settle in with you and find her feet.

Good luck. :)

I've got my fussy toy puppy on Prize Choice, a frozen raw food, I put some Shapes biscuits in with it to balance it a bit (haven't had the courage to try an actual mixer biscuit yet in case she goes off it) and she is loving it!

As someone else has mentioned - do double check the breed advice regarding homing age.  I've read many breeders here saying that some toy breeds should not be homed until 12 weeks.  It's also worth talking to your breeder about raw feeding to get specific breed advice.

I have adult dogs (medium sized) on 100% raw but I opted to keep my puppy on 50:50 until he was at least 6 months old and, whilst I am now reducing the kibble percentages, I do aim to keep some in his diet up to 12 months.  At 6 months he's currently on 130g kibble to 350g raw meat twice a day.  I think I'm hedging my bets really BUT it seems to suit him very well and he has always had firm kickable poo (which as you'll soon understand is a great help with pups!!).

I would never mix dry with raw prior to this pup but I reasoned that as I'm soaking his kibble anyway I might as well sling it in together.  The warm water from the soggy kibble really activates the smell of raw meat so it's like feeding a velociraptor.  He is slower with wings and other bones but has got faster with practise - I fed him a wing within a week or so of coming home and started adding raw meat from day one. 

One thing I really noticed with the pup is that kibble made him sleepy in a way that a fully raw meal didn't.  I don't necessarily advocate drugging puppies with food (:)) but it certainly made a difference to way he slept after a meal and was another reason why I continued to combine !!  Oh dear, now I just sound like a bad 'dog parent'.  I'll be dosing the kids with booze next - it's a slippery slope...

Thank you for the links Esme, I will check, and probably order the book.

Never heard of a toy breed doing that before; i'll have to find out about it.

The breeder doesn't feed raw, she only feeds RC. She's never fed any adults/pups barf, or raw. She advised me to find a forum, where people could help me, and to discuss it with my vet. However, my vet doesn't promote feeding raw, or barf - only JWB.

I was looking online at Natures Menu, does anybody feed this, or recommend this? Can it be fed on its own, or does it have to be mixed with another raw food, or vegs, rice, ect.?

The other question I have is, do you find it expensive to feed raw?

And dogs a babe; my mother said when I was a baby, they used to dose me with something they got from the chemist to make me sleep! I apparently wouldn't go to bed until about 2am, then I was up at 6am again, ready to go!

I have a raw fed toy breed , - went straight over to raw but she was alttle olderm personaly I don't use any commercial raw foods s -i prefer the food to be as natural as possible my reasoning being if you want to feed raw keep it untouched. As others have said you can easily source what you need for one toy locally from supermarkets etc*s for cost I feed. A large gsd and my little one who eats about 60g per day for about. 1 1. 50 per  day so her food must be less than 50p per day
Good luck

Also meant to ask; if you feed veg, is it cooked or raw?
Can potatoes be given, and can dogs have potato peelings raw or cooked?

Tom Lonsdale I find is the best author on a raw diet

Me too Gizmoo... Tom Lonsdale is straight to the point...easy to understand...and doesn't put you off before you've even made a start...and importantly doesn't keep changing his mind about things in subsequent books. You know where you are with Tom Lonsdale...and can then get on with the wonderful of adventure of feeding Raw :)

Also meant to ask; if you feed veg, is it cooked or raw? Can potatoes be given, and can dogs have potato peelings raw or cooked?

Tom Lonsdale says in his book that our cooked table scraps are likely to do no harm and may do some good...on the basis that a)they are free and b)they are more like the vegetation already ingested by a herbivore prey animal...and found in the gut. (Green tripe contains...and is...a natural example of already ingested vegetation)

So if you had some left over stew for example....then just remove any onion (toxic to dogs)...make sure there is no cooked bone in it... and see if they like it :)

> Can potatoes be given, and can dogs have potato peelings raw or cooked?

I've used potato peelings in the liquidised veg I give my dog but wouldn't include whole raw potato. Cooked potato is fine. Anything except onions & grapes really!

Just want to mention I only just started giving the pureed veg - I used to give just meat and bones - but I've noticed a definite improvement in the poo department - no more jelly poo!

I don't feed potatoes at all because they are from the nightshade family, and  it's been said they may exacerbate arthritis and other inflammatory conditions. Sweet potatoes are fine (Morning glory family).

I feed veg raw. They say raw veg must be mushed to break down the cells, and make the nutrients avaliable. I don't do that anymore though lol I used to, but I now feed veg raw and whole, I don't do it for nutritional value because I'm no longer convinced they NEED it. They have veg because they like it. Also they sometimes have leftover cooked veg if we ever have any.

Tom Lonsdale is straight to the point...easy to understand...and doesn't put you off before you've even made a start

A friend of mine has chatted with him on a couple of occasions, and said he is fab to talk to. :) I like his way of thinking better than Billinghurst, but I did start on the Billinghurst diet. I'm just not keen on quite a few of his theories the more I looked into it!

Yes I too don't think dogs really NEED veg but if they like it and they get on well with it then it certainly does no harm.  I sometimes find it useful to help see bone all the way through!

I feed the odd raw chunk for their entertainment (love to chomp a carrot) otherwise I blitz the peelings and freeze in small portions.  I feed leftover cooked veg too when I have them.  I only ever feed cooked potato and even then rarely as we don't get much left over...

A handy tip is to put veg peelings in the food processor after chopping liver as it really helps to clean the bowl :)