Stella and Chewy's

For the past year, Lady has been thriving on raw food. We went back and forth from frozen raw to freeze dried raw and have gone through different brands including Steve's Real Food, Primal and Stella and Chewy's. They are all great and Lady loved them all but she seemed to do best on Stella and Chewy's.

There are many cases of dogs' conditions improving on raw and while Lady saw the most common conditions - less stool and less smelling poop - I also noticed a few other things as well. 

When we first adopted Lady I noticed that she grazed on grass a lot. Even after I switched her from Natural Balance to a home cooked meal, whenever she was in the backyard, she would often times graze. I know this is fairly normal for dogs but I wondered if maybe she was trying to fulfill something that was missing from her diet. I am not quite sure if my hunch was correct but when we switched her over to a raw diet she stopped grazing. Also, when we used to bathe her the first few times there would be clumps of fur that she would shed. After switching to a raw diet there was no such shedding.

I was a bit worried if she was too old to be eating raw food (she is 15) but I was able to speak to someone at our local natural pet store who talked about her own dog and how she planned on giving her raw even when she is old, unless she showed signs of not being able to digest it well. I gained the confidence to do the same. I also was able to speak to a holistic vet/acupuncturist who seemed to agree that it was a good plan (although he does encourage his clients to give their dogs vegetables and homemade stews). 

A few weeks ago though, I noticed that Lady wasn't as enthusiastic about raw food as she had been in the past year. She would literally dig right in and lick her bowl clean but she was slower to start her food and would leave small chunks of food behind.

I have been testing out other types of food with her lately, canned food and human grade food, but I am wondering if she is just being finicky and holding out for something better. She used to get a taste of canned food because that was the only thing that she would take her medicine in (she has now figured out that I stuff pills in there and won't touch it when I try to feed it to her from my hands - and I can't stuff the pills inside the wet food for her to lick up from her bowl because she will do just that, lick up the food and leave the pill behind. She is truly a master at it). But she shows signs of boredom with canned food as well. She will be so enthusiastic the first couple of times and then just stand in front of her food or just walk away in the days following. I recently read an article and am pretty much convinced that she is spoiled (the last couple of days, she eventually came back to her food and ate it, although she did leave a portion of the food where vegetables were stuck to it. Man does she hate her vegetables..)

In any case, I would love for Lady to continue to be on raw food and perhaps we may revisit once I get in the habit of not panicking and switching up her food every time she doesn't eat.

Lady's absolutely favorite flavor was Phenomenal Pheasant but Stella and Chewy's no longer makes it. Her other favorite flavor is Absolutely Rabbit.

Below are links to some of the raw food that we have tried. 

 // Stella and Chewy's

 // Primal

 // Steve's Real Food

*This is not a sponsored post