Hi All

I gave both dogs a whole fresh Mackeral each earlier today. I thought it would be a healthy treat for them. Instead I have spent the afternoon cleaning up regurgitated fish :( YUK! Puppy managed to wolf down most of hers for a second time by the time I had realised she had been sick. Of course, it reappeared a little while later but I managed to get to it first that time.

Where did I go wrong? They love the tinned stuff and have never had any problems with it. I have fed them other fish in the past (mainly fresh salmon and fresh sardines) and they have been fine. Could it have been the fact the the fish was whole (head/tail/guts etc)? The fish was definatley fresh and smelt fine. Both dogs seem fine now but I'm not sure whether to feed them as normal now or skip the next meal (neither of them actually had time to digest any mackeral)?

Does anybody have any idea why the mackeral disagreed with them so badly?

Cheers.

Maybe they like their mackeral served at body temperature! ;)

PMSL!! Sorry but been there got the T-shirt and the stain on the carpet :D
Neither of my 2 can keep fresh mackerel down but are fine with tinned so I stick with that. The younger can cope with raw sprats and salmon trimmings but not the elder so he just has tinned.

Anne

OK...I'll take it as a hard lesson learned! I'm certainly not going to try to give them it again....the smell of regurgitated fish is going to haunt me for a long time!!!

Er I did warn you (in my post of 25.9.05 on the supplement thread) :)

Some dogs never take to raw fish, some never take to particular types ~(for mine it is salmon~).

Tinned is safer ;)

Oh dear. Mackerel is a very oily fish, maybe that didn't help.

Val

ps - I love it.........but not raw !!

>Er I did warn you (in my post of 25.9.05 on the supplement thread

Damn! I missed your reply on that thread, Tohme :rolleyes: Really wish I had seen it before the event as what you have described is exactly what happened :( I am convinced I can still smell regurgitated fish despite disinfecting every inch of the place with Safe4 and Odorkill.

Its a shame it didn't agree with them as my parents live in a fishing village and I can get great quality fish straight off the boats for next to nothing. Guess we'll just have to eat it ourselves. Anyone know any good recipes for mackeral and herring? I've also got some trout in the freezer - should I even risk giving them that?

I am just about to switch the dogs to a Raw diet (having done as much research as I can) and I was hoping to be able to feed a good variety of fish as its so readily available and cheap for me. Looks like its back to the drawing board as far as my meal plans go.......

You could always steam the fish,it doesnt HAVE to be raw does it? They will still gain benefits from it wether it's cooked or not :)

shaynlola, just feed tinned fish it is much easier, more convenient and less messy/smelly! :D

I feed both to my dogs.

You're right, of course tohme! :) I think I learned my lesson yesterday.

Tinned it is from now on :D

also it should be gutted....head/tail etc is fine but it MUST be gutted.

Dont worry i found out the hard way too :-( pmsl i also got ahead of myself & bought about 20 of them fresh as they were on specail offer at tesco's at the time :D roflmao they never had another fresh one after that i stick to tinned fish now too .
It has really made me chuckle today knowing that someone else has done exactly the same as me :D

Have had the same fishy experience as you and lived through it! Having started on a raw diet I had given my dogs 2 whole sardines each and all had gone very well. I thought I would get a crate of oily fish as a good source of,omega 3's.(10 kilos to be exact) Well 1/2 a herring each went down well but a few hours later came back (several times) up all over the livingroom floor! It got stuck between floorboards and I ended up having to scrape it out with a screwdriver, not a pleasant job! By the end of the night they had all thrown up and I was a bit put out as I had a whole crate of the damn things. I introduced it again very slowly, dividing one fish between 5 dogs, building up to 1/2 fish then a whole one and now they are happily eating 2 at a time with no ill effects.

If I were you I would persevere as it is worth it in the long run to get these essential omega 3's in their diet. At least you wouldnt have to supplement with salmon oil, and it seems silly to give up so soon as you have a cheap source of fish so near, wish I was as lucky as even though I live near the coast it is still pretty expensive.

If you are feeding a raw diet based on prey model then it is best to feed whole, head, tail, guts the lot. Please do not EVER feed it cooked unless you can be sure you have got a ALL the bones out, as it is cooked bones (not raw) which can cause problems.

Good luck and I can fully recommend the raw diet, wish I had done it years ago.

Labsrus

So which is it,guts in or out? :)

Thanks for the info, Labsrus :) I'll definately bear it in mind.

As I said, I am just starting out on the Raw feeding (having done A LOT of reading) and Sunday's nightmare kind of knocked my confidence a bit as I felt awful for making the dogs ill. I will persevere though as I have found a very helpful and co-operative farm butcher and I'm sure I can make it work....I'll just be very careful what fish I give them in the future!

oops! =)

The first time I gave ours fish, Rex went out into the garden and started rolling on it. Even after a bath he still stank!