I feed my yorkies Stella and Chewies! it's the best... it's a freeze dried raw food... there are several flavors but my girls are obsessed with the beef flavor... and it's really healthy for them... If you look on the back... practically the first 15 ingredients are "beef" (or your protein) and vegetables! I'm really happy with it!

I would really prefer to feed Stella & Chewy's freezed dried instead of "wet" raw but I was afraid of the high fat content. I read the post about converting dry to wet but isn't 18% fat too high for our yorkies? Would really appreciate someone confirming that that amount of fat is ok. It would be much easier because I hate feeding cold food to my Zoey.

If you take Prey Model as an example, you will see that no carbs are being fed at all; no vegetables, no fillers, no preservatives, no adding back in of lost vitamins or minerals. Therefore, you are left with: meat (protein + fat) totaling ~80%, bone totaling ~10%, and organ totaling ~10%.

The dog uses fat for their energy source, as opposed to carbs in processed dog food. So, I feel, it is not necessarily a parallel comparison to use high quality raw fat content versus cooked processed fat content. You may wish to do research in the way the dog processes and metabolizes raw fat as compared to cooked fat.

The amount of fat content will depend upon which meats are being fed. The ultimate extreme being rabbit (extremely low fat) versus pork, for example. So, fat content will vary in ratio to type of protein being fed.

The 18% fat cited on the NV page, to me, does not seem overly high at all, however, I have no experience feeding commercial raw. After reviewing the rest of the formulas, both the chicken and organic chicken are the lowest. The fat percentage shown would be affected by the following:

1. Type of protein and amount of fat allowed to remain.
2. Amount of bone.
3. Amount of vegetables. In this case, 5%.

So, either NV is using more meat and less fat or more bone (or a combination thereof) to result in that 18% figure. If your Yorkie's coat feels silky soft, has a velvety texture, skin shows no signs of dryness, energy level is normal, and poo's are normal, then I would expect the fat content to be ok.

One more issue I should have noted. The 5% figure regarding added vegetables has not been converted to a dry matter basis. As a rule of thumb, just multiply that amount by ~3 to 4 and you will end up pretty close to the correct dry matter conversion.

So, the 5% vegetables is around 15ish %.

I've been feeding Sasha Primal for almost 2 years now and she does wonderful on it. She gets Primal for breakfast and Blue Buffalo Wilderness kibble for dinner. As I was browsing through this thread, I happened to notice another member mention that their vet recommended never to feed raw and kibble together. For me personally, I've never had an issue doing this with Sasha and she has looked and felt her absolute best going this feeding route. I'm sure some dogs can't handle it as every dog is different but I've never had a problem.

What is not recommended is feeding raw and kibble *at the same time*, i.e. in the same bowl, without a minimum of about 8 or so hours in between.

I personally fed Acana Wild Prairie with about 25% boneless raw meats added without a problem, however, as you stated, every dog is different.

I've fed BARF raw for a couple of years until last year when we switched to prey model raw. I prefer the prey model - poops are small and not smelly, the dogs are satisfied, healthy and toned and their coats and eyes look great. They love the physical act of eating large pieces of meat.

The tummy can digest both raw and non-raw food at the same time. The tummy doesn't categorize things according to it's raw status; the tummy recognizes whether the substance is a carb, a protein, a fat, a toxin - and then processes and churns accordingly....moving the substances into the small intestine as they're ready.

An analogy for humans would be sushi...it's raw, and it's non-raw...and our tummy handles it as it handles other carbs, proteins, fats - in whatever form they arrive into the tummy.

Thanks for all the input re fat content - wet vs dry. I think I will try Stella & Chewy's again for Zoey. As I stated before I really dislike giving her cold food and she can't wait for it to warm up some.
Cherie

Yes and no.

Keeping with a human analogy, vegetables are processed within days whereas meat is processed within weeks. For dogs and cats, meat is processed within 10-18 hours and dry kibble is processed in 48-72 hours.

The problem with feeding raw and dry is that dry does take longer to process which can lead to blocking the raw digestion which, when both combined, can lead to bacteria build-up.

So, yes, while the tummy can process raw and non-raw at the same time, it doesn't necessarily mean it's safe to do so.

To be honest with you, I decided to follow Lew Olson's advice and fed boneless + Acana but not bone-in + Acana. So I would avoid feeding, for example, a chicken wing added to kibble. I have no idea whether ground bone in commercial raw makes a difference. As you stated, best would be to feed raw in the morning and kibble in the evening when feeding a combo.

We can agree to disagree :).

Even if 2 foods have differing digestion times (whether they're raw or not), the stomach doesn't delay all digestion based upon the slowest food. It releases its enzymes that correlate with the specific food type, and food moves into the small intestine as it's ready to proceed in the process. Digestion doesn't get 'blocked' by one food that is slower, and then the slower food causes some sort of bacteria crisis. If that were the case, we'd sure have a lot of sick people and animals whenever they ate foods w/ differing digestion times, lol! Also, I'd think we see a totally different food pyramid that had to do w/ digestion times, rather than with types of foods.

My thought is the same as smoking - one night of smoking doesn't get you sick.

Definitely agree to disagree though. :) Respectively said, nonetheless! Thank you for not for not be condescending and rude. So unfortunate to see how people get so defensive online these days... :thumbdown

Ah gotcha! My bad! Must have read that wrong. That makes a lot of sense then.

Wow, what you said is very reassuring that we really *can* have good convos here, you've restored my faith :). Thank you for that. You're a class act. I agree, that the defensiveness can be so destructive. Thanks for being so open minded - I'm gonna disagree with you more often, bc it's pleasant. :D

LOL! Well, I disagree you should disagree with me more often! ;)