Rossi's First Raw Meaty Bone

Rossi gal enjoys her raw diet much more than I have anticipated. I have been giving her raw meat mixed with raw blended veggies. It is so much convenient to give raw, saves a lot of my cooking time.


With her doing fine on the raw meat and veggies, I decide that it's time to introduce raw bones to her diet, so I got her some Lamb Rack. The lamb rack looks so good that I'm tempted to eat it myself, but of course, I would have to cook it for my own consumption.

Lamb Rack

                                                                     
Initially, when I presented the lamb rack to her, she didnt know what to do with it. She kept licking the meat over and over again, which I thought was cute, but at the same time, kinda sad too. She was made to chew, tear and relish raw meat and bones, but when presented with a meaty bone, she didnt know how to dismantle it the way she should. (*No thanks to  decades of brilliant marketing and brainwashing by the dry food industry that inadvertently contributed to this.)

To help her get started, I tore off the skin and part of the meat. With the strip of torn skin and meat tangling before her, she proceeded to bite them off the bone and chew them up. Now she knew what she had to do to get to the meat and began tearing off the meat from the bone.


When she ate up most of the meat and was left with the bone, she was again unsure what she should do with it. I guided her by encouraging her to bite the bone. She examined the bone and sniffed it thoroughly. Slowly, she took a tentative bite at the bone and chewed off a small part of the bone. She began to taste it. For a moment, I thought she was going to spit it, but she didnt. Instead, with a few swift movements of her mouth, she ate up the bone bits.


From here, there was no turning back. She began attacking the bone with a new vigour, grinding the bone with the sides of her teeth and pulling off whatever bits of meat left with her front teeth. I could hear the sound of her crunching those bones. I was so proud of her. Of course, I was holding on to the bone to prevent her from swallowing the whole bone. I wanted her to chew and crunch the bone. Bones are a good source of calcium and other minerals. The grinding, chewing and crunching action also helps to exercise her jaws and clean her teeth.


I used to be very uncomfortable with the idea of giving her raw meat and bones, worrying about bacteria, choking and etc. But after much reading up various raw diet books and online articles, I realise that as long as I give her meat from a trusted source, store and handle the meat properly and for bone wise, monitor her while she is taking the bone, it shouldnt be a problem. With the understanding and belief in the benefits of raw, there is nothing to lose, but everything to gain for my Rossi gal, so I gave it a shot.


When I first started her on raw, I really didnt know how she would take to it. But now, seeing her doing well on raw and enjoying it, I'm very glad that I took the plunge.