Her Diet: Organs' Intake

A proper raw diet consist of meats, meaty bones and organs. I totally agree with this. However, lately, I realised something.  

(Whole prey would be ideal, but it's not so possible to obtain locally. What I mean by whole prey here, is animals with eyes, furs etc intact.) 

After 2 years of raw feeding, I realised my Rossi gal do not take well to organs. 

Organs, though a very small part of the raw diet, are an essential part of the diet. The recommended organs' intake is 10% of the diet (5% liver, the other 5% other organs like kidney, spleen, sweetbreads etc).

I did not consider the possibility of her not taking well to organs, as they are an integral part of the diet and the quantity required is very small. Besides, I was only feeding her slightly under 5% of organs (liver+kidney), which is very little actually. I feed her mainly lamb & organic pork liver, along with lamb kidney, as treats in the frozen form. I have also fed her organs from rabbit, duck and chicken before.  

How did I realise she does not do well on organs?

Well, Rossi gal still gets hot spots/rashes every now and then. There are various factors in which hot spots/rashes could occur (which I would not go into). For Rossi gal, hot weather could also be a contributing factor. Furthermore, she has very sensitive skin since young & is more prone to hot spots/rashes too.

Then one day, she had another bout of hot spots/rashes & each time she had them, I found that they took quite a while to subside. Just recently, she experienced some runny poo, my bad. She had not eaten Venison for a long time. Usually, when I introduce a new meat or give her a meat that she had not eaten for a long time, I have to include the meat slowly in the diet & let her adjust to it. But this time, I was too ambitious, I gave her quite a big portion of Venison into her meal, thinking she could take it. I was wrong. It resulted in her having runny poo.

Thus, I had to stop all her organs for the time being. I only gave her usual lamb meat and her chicken & lamb bones. Within 1+ week of stopping organs, daddy and I began to notice her hot spots/rashes subsided significantly. Those areas that she was prone to having hot spots/rashes, had much lesser hot spots/rashes. I find them healing much faster than before too.

All these while, I have been wondering why she kept having recurring hot spots/rashes. And now, by stopping her organs' intake, her hot spots/rashes' condition improved significantly, which led me to think if she does not do so well on organs.

This incident also caused daddy to remind me of a much earlier time when he told me to stop her organ intake for some reason, which we could not recall. And for that period of time when her organs intake was stopped, the hot spots/rashes on her skin also subsided quite fast. The hot spots/rashes on her were minimal too.

Therefore, after rounds of discussion and analysis with daddy, as well as some conversations I had with a couple of frens, daddy & I are pretty sure that our Rossi gal do not take well to organs.

There are likely to be fellow rawbies out there, who would not agree with our observation and state that this is just not possible. why would there be dogs who are unable to take organs? I guess, they would say, their dogs are having raw organs & they are doing fine...organs are a must-have in the diet, non-negotiable...*try organs from other animals...Blah blah blah.

Well, what's not possible? Anything is possible. Every dog is different. I do believe there are exceptional cases, whereby there are certain stuff that some just dun do well on, but it seems the most of the others do just fine on it.

Some dogs can take much organs without issues, but mine just cannot. It's just like  how some dogs can just take meats from any sources without issues, but my Rossi gal cannot. I have tried on several occasions, feeding her lamb meat from other butchers and she just does not do well on it. But when I feed her lamb meat from her usual butcher, she is fine.

With these said, I would not stop her organs' intake totally. I would still give her organs, just that the quantity & frequency would definitely be significantly lesser than before. And I would have to monitor her skin at the same time, to determine the quantity and frequency more suitable for her.

I will do whatever works for my Rossi gal & not what anyone else thinks I should do for her. I will do things in the way I feel is best for her, not in the way anyone else thinks I should. What works for your dog, might not necessarily work for mine.

*In the local butcheries, I see mainly beef, pork, lamb & chicken organs (liver & kidney). There are also rabbit and duck organs, but the whole thing would have to be purchased to obtain their organs. Rossi gal cannot take beef, but she has tried the others though.