What we feed:

50-60% Raw meaty bones (RMBs) chicken, lamb, pork, beef, fish, rabbit, venison
10-15% Meats of the same animals
10-15% Organ meats (offal)
Fish oils (omega 3), pulverized vegetables, Apple Cider Vinegar (pure, not the flavored)
ProBiotic, Vitamins/Supplements (A,C,E,B-Complex and D)

Why we feed a RAW Diet:

On March 25, 2006 my world was turned upside down when I lost one of my precious boys and almost lost my daughter's Mini Schnauzer to what we believe was commercial dog food poisoning. That night I opened a new bag of food for the evening feeding. Within 3 hours of feeding my dogs, my 3 1/2 year old baby boxer boy "Gunner" began to seize. Off to the emergency vet we went in a total state of panic. The doctor saw him right away and began him on some meds. After maxing him out on the meds over a 4 hour period he was still not responding, he was flailing about and paddling horribly. The vet said we were well past the point of bringing him out of it without substantial brain damage. I had to have him put down. We just assumed that this was an unfortunate case of idiopathic epilepsy and we would never know why.

Then early on Monday morning my daughter came screaming into my room holding her Mini Schnauzer and he was having a seizure. Off we went once again to the emergency vet. He had 4 more seizures that day. On the way home from the vet with the Schnauzer, it dawned on me that the only common thing these 2 dogs shared was their food. The boy I lost "Gunner" is housed in my kennels except for his daily playtime in the house. My daughter's dog is kept strictly in the house and never goes into the kennel area, where there is a separate yard and exercise area.

Gunner's body was to be picked up that afternoon for cremation but I called and asked them to hold his body for necropsy. I then transported him to my vet to have his stomach contents sent to off for analysis. The test results on the stomach content were dissapointing as he had thrown up most of the food in his crate and there was not enough to get an analysis on.

Samples of the food were sent to the dog food company for testing. I also sent samples of the food to be tested to two major university testing laboratories. The dog food company's test was of course clean. I received mixed results, one lab showed no notable findings while the other reported "elevated" levels of pesticides! ANY level of pesticide in the food I feed my dogs is unnaccepatble. The dog food company admits to nothing and responded to my findings with a letter on zeroxed letterhead. We didn't even rate a real piece of letterhead!

I had to find something to feed my dogs right away. I called a boxer friend who recommended feeding RAW. We switched over to the RAW diet cold turkey with no problems at all. Our dogs have never looked better, nice weight, beautiful coats, less shedding, nice white teeth with no tartar. I'm still a bumbling mess over this some 9 months later. Gunner was the sweetest, kindest, gentlest soul I've ever known. I can't even begin to say how much I miss him.

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