How to Start Your Dog on a Raw Dog Food Diet

Looking to help your furry friend be as happy and healthy as can be? If so, you need to start them on a raw dog food diet. While your pup has probably gotten used to eating processed chow, it’s not how things were meant to be. Dogs are natural predators and would eat fresh prey if they were left in the wild. With this new diet, they’ll have more energy, lose weight, and even have a shinier coat. There’s nothing much better than having a pup that’s excited to be by your side – and raw dog food can help you achieve that.

What a Raw Diet Entails

While your dog would probably love it, just feeding them steak for every meal won’t exactly fulfill their nutritional needs. They still need a bit of veggies and fruits to balance things out. In addition, it’s a good idea to minimize their fat and carbohydrate intake, as they really don’t need these components.

Generally, you’ll want to develop meals that are 33 to 50 percent lean meat, 10 to 30 percent organ meat, and 15 percent bones or eggshells. For any leftover percentages, throw in fruits and vegetables. Additionally, feed them fish once a week or supplement with fish oil to give them essential fatty acids.

Lean meat provides the high-quality protein your dog needs to function. Each dog has different protein daily value requirements depending on their breed and age. If you’re feeding a puppy, sporting dog, or other high-energy breed, opt for the higher end of the range. Older dogs and dogs with kidney problems need less protein. Feel free to use a variety of meat sources, including bison, beef, chicken, turkey, lamb, duck, or egg. Whatever you do, just don’t give them the same thing every day, as each of these meats has slightly different nutrients that will help balance your pup’s diet. 

As for organ meats, these can range from liver to tripe. Just be sure to never give them too much liver (10 percent of their diet), as this can cause them to overdose on vitamin A. 

Raw Dog Food Recipe

To stay healthy, dogs should each about two to three percent of their body weight per day, which should equate to about a 1/2 pound of food per 25 pounds of weight. When you’re preparing all of this, it helps to make it batches so you’ll always have some on hand. For a one pound recipe, take 12 ounces of meat, 4 ounces of fruits and veggies, 2 teaspoons of fish oil, and a nice sprinkling of bones or eggs. 

Be sure to cube the meat and chop up the vegetables to make it easier for your dog to eat. The mixture will taste so good that they might forget to chew.

Buying Raw Diet Foods

We get it – prepping your dog’s meal twice a day can be pretty time consuming. It might even be more intense than the cooking you do for yourself. Luckily, there are a few great brands of food available that give you all of these fresh ingredients without any of the work. 

Primal is a good brand because it uses only USDA-certified meats, organic product, and contains none of those icky preservatives or additives. You might also want to look into Orijen, as they have crafted raw dog foods specifically for dogs living in certain regions of the world. Finally, Darwin’s is also a good choice, as they customize the size of your food order depending on the size of your dog.

If your furry friend could talk, they’d probably have lots of things to say, like “Play with me!” or “Give me a belly rub!” However, after satisfying these needs, they might complain about their dry, tasteless kibble. Satisfy their craving for deliciousness by giving them the raw dog food they were born to eat.