What our dogs eat and don’t eat, and why

Dogs will eat anything they get used too.

Our dogs can a will eat and enjoy, anything they get accustomed too as long as they have more than one opportunity to try it. This is one of the main reasons dog food manufacturers instruct you to gradually switch over your dogs food, from the old brand of dog food to the new brand. Some of our dogs will eat anything put in front of them. And some of our dogs will turn their nose up at any new or different brand of dog food.

The other reason we are told to slowly change our dogs food, when trying a different brand. Is a lot of dogs will get diarrhea when they first try eating something new. We will then think something is wrong with the new food, or our dog has some kind of new health issue. Most likely they just need some more time to get used to the new stuff.

The vast majority of dogs, have a cast iron stomach. Remember our dogs are a carnivore species. A dogs digestive enzymes are very different than ours. That is why when we prepare foods for ourselves, it has to be cooked to certain temperatures before eating to avoid getting sick. While our dogs can eat anything they like uncooked or raw. And a lot of our dogs prefer their meat, ah lets just say a little aged. They will bury it then dig it up a week or two later, then eat it when its nice and ripe.

Here at spirit animal sanctuary, our dogs get fed a significant amount of raw meat. The local butchers and meat processors, donate roughly five to six thousand pounds of meat a year to us. Our guys will not touch the dry feed ( regular dog food), when raw meat is available to them. When we first started getting leftover meat I used to pick up the old stuff and burn it, much to the dismay of the dogs waiting for it to ripen up, I might add.

They have eaten raw meat in all different stages of decomposition often eating totally rancid meat only after it was crawling with maggots.  Ehh !! that even disgusted me, and they even eat the maggots. And not one of our dogs has ever, ever, ever gotten sick from eating what they were meant to eat. And I tell you it pisses me off when I bring them brand new fresh meat and they still eat the old meat. Not all the time mind you, I guess they like a little variety.

The point of the raw meat thing is a lot of the new dogs that come to our sanctuary, initially when first given the raw meat to try, will not eat it. The reason for this is simple, they never had the opportunity or they didn’t have enough chances to get used to it. After a short period of time, they all wind up preferring to eat the raw meat as apposed to the dry dog food.

Each litter of puppies that we studied to gain a true understanding of pack structures and behaviors. Were given raw meat to eat as soon as their milk teeth emerged at about three weeks of age. And being the wild animals that they are, devoured the meat.

The point of this whole thing, our dogs need time to get used to whatever we decide to feed them. Whether we prefer a more natural raw diet for them, or we like buying dog food in bags or cans.

And by the way, one of the packs of dogs we raised here will only eat the meat or the dry dog food, they will not touch any of my food ( sandwiches, cookies, cake, candy, etc.) that I try to share with them. Although they do like ice cream, but then again everybody loves ice cream.

Our dogs enjoying the fine cuisine.

( Left click pictures to enlarge, click back button to return )

Prepared by our Chefs

Patient customers

chow time

chow time

The Meat

Beef

Snack's

Snack's

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