Cooking for our pugs and chihuahuas

[mollysmommy]

sorry it took so long for me to get back.... Molly is 'supposed to be' 4 months, last week the vet said that she was most likely younger than that (guess i was hornswaggled by her parents owners). she was 5lbs at the vet a week ago but looks abit chunkier now that i've been endulging her a bit more since he said she was underweight. gotta fine tune this dieting thing. also have to make sure that i wait for her food to soften in water as she had an 'episode' saturday night, thinking (with input from the most helpful people here) that she choked from gulping her food without chewing, as usual. so any input on feeding for this little is really helpful. i really like the idea of feeding four times a day and hope i can swing it with working 8 hours, but at least it is very close to home. maybe she won't be starving being fed more often and won't gulp as fast.... now if i could only get her to chew.

[Smart Pugs]

We too had a 'episode' with one of our pugs gagging and not being able to breath (while eating kibble) that's why we changed to 'wet food'
I have never seen one of our pugs 'chew' (or our chihuahuas they ALL gulp too) We find 4 meals a day works really well for our lot

[mollysmommy]

alrighty... i have enought of mollys castor and pollux kibble to last about a week and a half. what can i do to use this to transition to a raw diet... i also am going to get the book mentioned above, but in the meantime... what are the basics?
and if i get her chicken necks, won't she choke on them? i've always been told no chicken bones for dogs.

[Kat]

If your going to home cook for your dogs you need to make sure they get all the proper vitamins and minerals. I tried home cooking out for about a month but it was too much work, and she didnt do that well on it. I ended up switch her to prey model raw. The two vitamin and mineral supplements I used were the best ones I could find in my area, but the honest kitchen made her poop too much, so I did prefer using just the powder from biovites.

BioVITES Dog Vitamins | BiologicVET Dog Supplements

Grain Free Dog Food | Dehydrated Dog Food | Homemade | Preference | The Honest Kitchen

For the biovites I doubled the dose once a week just to make sure she was getting a balanced diet within the week. I contacted the company and that it what they suggested for me to do.

[Kat]

alrighty... i have enought of mollys castor and pollux kibble to last about a week and a half. what can i do to use this to transition to a raw diet... i also am going to get the book mentioned above, but in the meantime... what are the basics?
and if i get her chicken necks, won't she choke on them? i've always been told no chicken bones for dogs.

As long as your dog is not a gulper, chicken necks are ok. As long as they crunch through them enough it is fine. I started out with chicken wings when I switched to PMR. And of course you want to take any excess skin and fat off in the beginning or they might get the runs. This website was one of the ones I read when I was making the switch to raw... How to Get Started | Prey Model Raw

[pugtown]

sorry it took so long for me to get back........ now if i could only get her to chew.

Dogs don't chew. They may attempt to crush a piece of food, crunch down on it a time or two, but they don't actually chew. Maybe a slow feeder bowl or a really wide bowl with some soup cans or something that she can't eat that way she has to find all the kibbles to eat. Some folks will use a muffin tin for feeding.

[pugtown]

alrighty... i have enought of mollys castor and pollux kibble to last about a week and a half. what can i do to use this to transition to a raw diet... i also am going to get the book mentioned above, but in the meantime... what are the basics?
and if i get her chicken necks, won't she choke on them? i've always been told no chicken bones for dogs.

Grandma Lucy's and Honest Kitchen have premixes that you can just add raw or cooked meat. Turkey necks are better at my house. The chicken necks were way too easy and went too fast.