I'm moving into a house where I can finally get a little buddy... HORRAY!!!!!!

I was wondering, does anyone know of any great websites for raw fed dogs? (rawfedcats.com is awesome, for example)

Also, vaccinations. My gut is telling me to avoid them at all costs. I sure as heck would not take a needle, so why would a little man need thimerosol, aluminum, dead animal tissue and all that other garbage injected? And are there any legal issues with vaccination vs. non-vaccination?

Thanks! <3

You can't cross the border with an unvaxed animal, that's all I know about that.
R U sure you're ready for a carnivorous pet? It's kind of gross to handle their food, plus you'll have flesh in your kitchen, touching your implements etc. Just... be ready, get yourself mentally aligned. I haven't found this an easy thing to do. The dogs had a tail from road kill they dragged home yesterday and we were gagging and trying not to puke over that, ugh. Their food, it's not ever going to be my department.

Here are 2 blog posts on the subject. Best of luck to you in your healthy dog adventures .

Original recipe
[trinityacres.wordpress.com]

Tweaked
[trinityacres.wordpress.com]

Vaccinations - depends on the diseases "available" where you live. Some infectious diseases are so bad, and so fatal, if you've never had dogs before you can't imagine having a little man who was only yesterday full of life and joy, but today he suddenly, in a matter of hours, turns very badly and irreversibly ill, and you look at him, and the realisation that he is not making it just doesn't want to sink in, and he looks back at you, with the eyes full of pain and not understanding. There are few things that could be worse. Once we took our young dog to the vet for a check up, the older dog stayed at home. In 11 days the older dog became ill with infectious disease. In the books, the incubation period for that disease was 11 days, which means we brought it back from the vet. Perhaps an ill dog was at the vet before us, and left infection around. The younger dog was vaccinated against this disease, but the older wasn't.

>Banana ice-cream rocks!<



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/27/2012 10:16PM by chat.

Yes, we lost a cat to distemper in just this manner. It was a horrific, heart breaking scenario that I would never care to repeat. Our lovely, lively little feline succumbed to a dreadfully painful disease in a very short period of time. I'm sure it felt like forever to him though, he suffered awfully before I finally convinced the man that we needed to take him in to be put down. Very hard to deal with, that one. I simply do not have pets any more as I don't feel qualified to make the vax decision for them. The dogs are not mine, just live in close proximity.

Thanks for your input!

From my understanding, in humans, anyway, vaccinations actually prolong the extinction of disease in a population, and their ability to immunize is questionable at best.

I know I've been heavily programmed, but I wonder, are there some real documentation and studies showing the case would be different for animals?

I'd also hate to live with an animal that developed behavioral problems, brain damage, or something else because I was brainwashed by the industry and jabbed him. I would never stick a needle in a human being...

The whole meat thing is disgusting, but I've read about ways for storage, maintaining the kitchen, etc., where impact is minimal. Also, I'd be looking for a small dog, so it's maybe a few bites vs. the whole gazelle. It also feels a lot less weird and disgusting because, by nature, dogs and cats are designed to eat that way... whereas humans are not. To deny them their nature would not be vegan, IMHO. I've also made contact with a few places where I could source the highest quality and most ethical food possible...

There's not a completely black and white 100% vegan solution to the keeping carnivorous pets issue, unless you lived in the country, let them run wild and eat 100% what they catch outside for meat... but now I digress.

We live in the country and could never let the dogs run free to feed themselves, they'd be in the animal pound in no time flat. Neighbours do not take kindly to dogs rummaging their livestock and penned chickens and such are the easiest source of ready prey. A hungry dog can be a dangerous dog too. Cats? Ok. We've had many barn cats who fed themselves nearly entirely but they are not all that friendly if you leave them to become wild hunters. Providing food for a meat eating pet is one of the strongest things that links you together, it's pretty essential I'd say.
You can buy premade raw feed for your dog but it will be more costly than making it yourself. Depends on how much it's worth to you to handle or not have to handle meat for your pet.