Postings by MT TOP's Secret Agent, C.G.C. 's Family

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Riversedge- of Chaos- "Erebus" 1246799     Barked: Thu May 23, '13 11:21pm PST  Haven't personally owned one, but I met a guy involved in the same sorts of Ren Faire events that my family used to do with two of them. BEAUTIFUL dogs. He said that the chewing stage is a little more dramatic with dogs that big, "Most puppies eat shoes. Mine eat through my drywall and consumed an entire $1,000 sofa." I've also heard that their lifespans aren't much more than 4 years on average due to the prevalence, largely, of osteosarcoma. :-( To give an idea of cost of feeding, a normal, adult dog is generally going to eat 2-3% of its bodyweight per day. So, figure out what the cost is of 4-6 lbs of the type of food you usually feed and that's the cost of feeding alone. And, keep in mind, if your other half wants a puppy, it will eat around TWICE that much during its adolescence! So, yeah, pretty but costly... my posts | my page | msg me | my family's posts | gift me | become pals [notify]

Riversedge- of Chaos- "Erebus" 1246799     Barked: Thu Apr 4, '13 9:38am PST  I feed Erie mostly raw, with the occasional can of food or leftover supplement. He ate kibble when he came to me as a puppy and had consistent to occasional diarrhea, no matter what the quality of the food he was fed. We tried canned for a while, too, which was better, but still experienced occasional diarrhea and, no matter how much I fed him, he always scavenged around the apartment for more. He wasn't just normal "always hungry" dog, he behaved like he was RAVENOUS and hadn't eaten in days. Since he;s been on raw, he'll still sniff around the floor to see if I've dropped anything, and happily cleans up any spills when I cook, but he doesn't act like he's never seen food in his life anymore. He consistently has solid stools and, since I buy meat and bones scraps from a farm for about 40% less than the cost of high quality processed dog food, my wallet is happy, too! my posts | my page | msg me | my family's posts | gift me | become pals [notify]

Raw Food Diet > Need help in starting prey model diet

Riversedge- of Chaos- "Erebus" 1246799     Barked: Mon Apr 1, '13 7:58pm PST  Loose stool is normal when switching to a new food. I wouldn't worry about it unless it persists longer than a week or two, but definitely make sure she has enough water. my posts | my page | msg me | my family's posts | gift me | become pals [notify]

Dogster Lifestyle, News & Entertainment > Does the Dogster magazine take tips for the "Products We Love" features?

Riversedge- of Chaos- "Erebus" 1246799     Barked: Sun Mar 24, '13 10:58am PST  If so, you should totally do an article on Cycle Dog products (http://www.cycledog.com/) because I think they are awesome, ad they are based out of my favorite city Just throwin' it out there! my posts | my page | msg me | my family's posts | gift me | become pals [notify]

Home Prepared Food & Recipes > Questions about cheap home-cooked meals, please

Riversedge- of Chaos- "Erebus" 1246799     Barked: Wed Feb 27, '13 8:57pm PST  First, where the heck do you live and what do you eat that you spend $500/month on people food for two warm bodies? 0.0 I'm a college student, granted, so I'm on the "what's on sale" diet and I never eat out, but I manage to eat on $100/month max. Usually more like $80. And I live in the city. Sans Top Ramen, too. (Hate the stuff. Crock Pots, however, are magic, my friend!) Second, feeding raw/homecooked can be as expensive or as cheap as you make it, depending on how you prepare your meals and how you source your ingredients. Hint: do not buy meat from the grocery store, if you can avoid it. Many people save money by buying meat in bulk, portioning it out, and freezing it in a chest freezer. If you have the space for a chest freezer, more power to ya. I, personally, live in a studio apartment, so that's not doable for me. I rarely use my regular freezer for people food, though, so I purchase meat in one month increments (40 lbs-ish) and it fits quite nicely in regular, old box freezer that I have. I save money by buying meat from a farm. They sell me meat and bone scraps from the butchering process for $1.50/lb, and I am able to buy hormone-free meat for people food there, too! It saves me a lot of money to cut out the middle man, and since I don't live that far from rural/semi-rural areas, I don't have to travel far to get to the farm. I feed my Bernese Mountain Dog for about $60/month, which is the same price as a mid-grade processed food where I live. Before you get sticker shock, think about the actual quantities fed. A 35 lb bag of dog food, fed at 3 cups/day would last me about 3 weeks, which would mean that I would pay about $65 per month to feed my Berner a food that costs $50 a bag. There is more to pricing dog food than meets the eye!(My dog can't seem to process kibble, though, so raw/homecooked is all he can eat, anyway.) Here is a good website that helps cut the mystery out of raw feeding. Don't listen to pet food propaganda; if you can be trusted with your diet, you can be trusted to feed a dog! http://rawfeddogs.net/ my posts | my page | msg me | my family's posts | gift me | become pals [notify]

Riversedge- of Chaos- "Erebus" 1246799     Barked: Sat Feb 16, '13 8:45am PST  Am I operating on dated advice? I've always been told to avoid feeding puppy food to large breeds beyond about 6 months of age for the same reason a prior poster cited to KEEP feeding it to them, namely: joint problems. The increased level of calcium, I was told, that is normal for medium/average sized dogs is not good for a large breed puppy's growing joints. my posts | my page | msg me | my family's posts | gift me | become pals [notify]

Food & Nutrition > Anyone have experience with canine IBS?

Riversedge- of Chaos- "Erebus" 1246799     Barked: Sun Nov 4, '12 2:04pm PST  Thanks for the info, Maggie! I may look into that. Kali, yes Erie also never seems satisfied when he eats. We have three fruit-bearing trees in our backyard behind the dog run and, every opportunity he gets, he gets back there and gorges himself on unharvested plums. I pick up a lot of pit-laden poop. I have wondered if his body is craving more fiber in his diet, as it seems to help the consistency of his stools. He occasionally "lays a foul egg" so to speak, but he doesn't seem to have acute flatulence. my posts | my page | msg me | my family's posts | gift me | become pals [notify]

Choosing the Right Dog > What made you choose *your* breed?

Riversedge- of Chaos- "Erebus" 1246799     Barked: Sun Nov 4, '12 1:35am PST  My grandmother is a breeder, and my cousins, brother, and I grew up living on and off in her house. She has dabbled in a few different breeds at different times, but the Berners have always been around, ever since I was about 5. She used to have Saint Bernards before that (and a few Newfoundlands at one point), but then she discovered that Berners were all the fur, love, and gentle-giant-ness, without all that DROOL! Never looked back. While I have lived with a gazillion dogs in my life, I've personally had a Yorkie, a fluffy Cardigan Welsh Corgi, and two male Berners. While I am now inclined to believe that the whole purebred shtick in general is not good for our dogs (it's a genetically unsound method of categorizing and breeding animals that's based on a VERY dated, Victorian model), I love me some big, handsome alpine dogs. Hopefully someday they will just be big, fluffy, alpine dogs, rather than a specific breed, as this whole inbreeding thing is killing these babies off like flies. Roughly 50% of Berners die of cancer, most of histiosarcoma. my posts | my page | msg me | my family's posts | gift me | become pals [notify]

Food & Nutrition > Anyone have experience with canine IBS?

Riversedge- of Chaos- "Erebus" 1246799     Barked: Sun Nov 4, '12 1:23am PST  Perhaps you're right. I'll admit that it just seemed too ironic to have a dog with potentially the same issues that I've been suffering from for years. I have been part of the big rawfeeding group on Yahoo! for the past couple of weeks as I look into different options for Erie. It is heartening to see people with raw success stories who don't feed elaborate, expensive BARF diets like those that were popular when I first started reading about it ten years ago. The supposed complexity and expense of feeding raw is what initially scared me off of feeding it 100%. I have always supplemented with raw chicken, beef, and (I tried at one point) fish. The fish DID NOT go over well (major diarrhea!), but he always handles the beef and chicken well. my posts | my page | msg me | my family's posts | gift me | become pals [notify]

Riversedge- of Chaos- "Erebus" 1246799     Barked: Sat Nov 3, '12 1:18am PST  -- Frequent irregular and unpredictable bowel movements. Sometimes just loose stools, sometimes diarrhea, rarely with a bit of blood or mucous in it. Has lessened in frequency on the current diet, but they were a regular part of our lives in his first 7 months. He is current on dewormers, and was through all of that. -- Itchiness. He's current on flea preventatives, but if he has IBS, that could be explained by B-12 deficiency and resultant eczema, like I have. Haven't gone over his coat with a fine tooth comb yet to test this hypothesis, though. -- Occasional constant whining. More than puppy wants attention whining. He'll curl up in a ball and just whine, whine, whine, whatever his circumstances sometimes. If it is indicative of pain, he may be experiencing abdominal/intestinal cramping while his food digests. That's all I can think of at the moment, but it's 1:30 am here, so I may be back another day with more... my posts | my page | msg me | my family's posts | gift me | become pals [notify]

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