Our Story
At the store we have Mr. David, Mo and Devil Kitty the resident Cats. On any given day you may see Noodle or Shiloh (our Grand-dog) around the store greeting customers. Actually, Noodle greets the customers and Shiloh - well if you’ve met her, you understand how special she is. Shiloh does her own thing when meeting new people.
We began raw feeding back in the early 80’s. Of course, we didn’t know that was really what it was then. We had bought our first Great Dane puppy (Hannah) and her breeder gave us a specific care and diet sheet and told us to follow all the directions. Included as part of the diet was “Green Tripe” (ground whole unbleached ruminant stomachs) and “Pet Mince”.(various “leftovers” of the meat industry, including fat, bones, skin, organs, lungs, meat and trimmings, ground together). Both of these things were readily available at the pet stores in the UK back then (prior to Mad Cow being an issue).
Hannah grew steadily, and slowly and developed into a beautiful, robust and healthy Dane, who rarely needed a vet visit until her very later years (she passed to the Bridge at the age of 12 years). Hannah stayed on a raw diet until we moved to the States with her, where “Green Tripe” and “Pet Mince” weren’t in the pet stores. Everyone in America fed “kibble” and we wanted the best kind for her. We started on a road of ever mundane results with kibble feeding until we added a new Dane puppy to the family.
This girl had one problem after another, immune system issues, general health issues of a fairly minor nature and at six months was showing the signs of Hip Dysplasia. I was frustrated at the lack of results with this puppy, and the constant rounds of antibiotics, prednisone and toxic dips the traditional vet was offering to “fix” the problems that were not working at all (just suppressing the symptoms).
Around that time the “trendy” BARF diet began to be talked about in the US. Dr Ian Billinghurst, an Australian vet, was revolutionizing the lives of pets and their owners by talking about taking back control of their pets’ diets and feeding them a Bones And Raw Food diet (or Biologically Appropriate Raw Food diet). Suddenly the logic hit me and we went “back to raw”. I was a bit hesitant at first, as I had never done the whole chicken parts previously, only ground food. I can remember being nervous about feeding chicken frames thinking they were “too sharp” and keeping them stored in my freezer for a couple of weeks until I felt that my dogs could probably handle them.
Hannah was SO happy to have her “real food” back. The puppy was easy to switch and within weeks her coat was better looking, the UTI’s stopped and she appeared to be getting healthier. A couple of really NICE side effects of the raw food was beautifully clean teeth and fresher breath (well, they are still dogs after all ) and their poop was no longer a huge pile of waste grains and fillers. They were passing neatly digested firm, small stools that didn’t make you gag (of course there is some smell, it is still poop :-) )
Oh, I need to mention the cats too. They used to be hooked on kibble. I started to think, hmm, if this is so great for the dogs, what about the cats? I began switching them over and they liked it. They still preferred kibble given a choice, but who doesn’t sometimes pick a donut over an apple? Grain, fat, salt and sugar are all highly addictive, and when they are all in one product its kind of hard to resist!
The biggest change I noticed in the cat change over to raw was the litter boxes. With five cats, I keep four litter boxes. They used to all be in the utility room where the cats also slept at night. In the morning my husband had to go through there to get to his car. We used to call it “running the gauntlet” because it would smell so bad first thing in the morning even though I was changing all four litter boxes out completely every day! Within a week of switching them totally over to raw, the smell was different. I would love to say my cats poop doesn’t stink, but the reality is, it’s still poop! But the urine isn’t so awful, and the poop smell isn’t like it was because their poops are smaller and more digested (less waste) and I can now do my litter boxes twice a week without any problems.*
In late 1999 I began a small rescue group for Great Danes in local shelters. I put all the rescue dogs straight onto raw food when they arrived and we had some amazing results. The dogs gained weight steadily and smoothly, their coats and teeth improved immensely and we were able to not have to pay for dental cleanings. Our first rescue vet thought we were getting dentals done at another clinic because the dogs’ teeth were so clean within a week. He eventually took me to one side and said, I can give you a good price on the dentals too if you want? I explained we didn’t DO dentals, just Raw! And he was amazed that the teeth could be changed so much in such a short time with such a simple remedy.
The raw diet also brought spectacular results with anemic dogs (most rescue dogs came in infested with internal and external parasites and almost all were anemic at their first visit). Whenever we would get a new dog into the program that was sorry looking, thin, sick, whatever, my vet began to say to me after a while, take him/her home and do the Voo Doo that You Do! We rarely planned medical steps on that first visit, as we knew that dog would look very different within a week or two of raw food and more natural care.
Over time I found that the dogs all did great on the raw diet, but it could be hard to convince a new adopter to continue on the raw once the dogs went home. I had several very willing families that could see that was the best way for their dogs, but others either didn’t have the time or the resources to keep up with it. Raw feeding isn’t difficult for Dane owners, but “more” – with a Giant breed dog, you can feed between 2 lb and 8lb of food per DAY (for a growing puppy), so to keep things more affordable, it is best to find “bulk” cases of things to buy. This leads to needing somewhere to defrost and re-bag (usually a shower or bathtub) and the desire to haul and bag and clean up that much mess.
In July of 2002, I began ordering a raw diet product that would make the keeping up with the diet thing much more accessible and affordable for the average pet owner. I ordered it for my own dogs with some extra for the rescues to go home with. From there I could see there was a bigger need for the local pet owners needing options other than the grocery store or ordering and shipping small orders via the internet (because the frozen shipping costs are HORRIBLE!).
*(Since originally writing this, three of the cats have passed away, the two oldest made it to their 20th birthday, so I am hoping the young ones that started raw at a very young age will live to be even older). We have also changed to scoopable litter - more affordable with two cats, so the boxes are now scooped daily.