Ruger's Mom,
I have a 2+ year old vizsla male who I adopted at around 12 months old AND a GSP who is about 9 months old. The vizsla was on a raw diet for awhile and the GSP was a "poop eater" early in her life so I'll try and talk about both issues, pardon the unavoidably long winded email...
Raw Diet - We switched our V to a raw diet after being raised on kibble. He took to it immediately, but there were a few issues that caused us to switch him back.
1. Cost & Convenience - We bought our pre-prepared raw food in bulk from a local distributor. Buying in bulk saved cash, but it meant freezing a majority of it and then having to defrost it when necessary.
2. Vitamin/Supplements - Apparent a raw diet, even with choice meats and veggies, does NOT contain all the vitamins/minerals/etc that your dog needs to stay healthy. We had to sprinkle a supplement in to each meal to make sure he got what he needed.
3. Weight Gain - We had LOTS of trouble getting him to keep his weight up. He always looked gaunt. Most raw diets recommend you weigh meals, we eventually started feeding him way more than recommended, even still he was only around 45lbs AND now we found ourselves spending more $ on food.
In the end I decided it wasn't worth all the time/effort/money, especially since I don't think there are any/many visible effects. Most dogs live long, healthy lives off a kibble diet. That being said, ONCE YOU START YOUR DOG ON A RAW DIET IT CAN REAK HAVOC ON THEIR BODY TO SWITCH THEM OFF IT. We battled "the runs" with our guy for months after switching him back to kibble. And now he's on prescription kibble cause that's the only thing that agrees with his stomach.
My recommendation is find a good Organic/Natural brand and mix in some High Calorie food with it. That's what we do and we've seen great results, but again everyone's dog is different some times it takes awhile to figure out what's best for yours.
Poop Eating - Unfortunately there's no easy answer here, we had virtually the same issue, our GSP would eat poop, but only her own. Two suggestions, neither of which are a whole lot of fun:
1. The more you allow him/her to eat it the more he/she will. We got in a bad habit of letting our girl out in the yard on her own AND only cleaning up the yard once a week. Letting her out alone let her roam and gave her plenty of opportunity to eat whatever she came across. If you leave poop in the yard your dog will find it. It takes some effort, but clean up your yard as much as you can AND think about only letting your dog out on leash to go to the bathroom and come back in.
2. Our vet, at some point, recommended sprinkling meat tenderizer in her food. Supposedly it tastes fine on the way down, but once it comes out it's extremely bad tasting and not appealing to them. Might be worth a shot, here's the brand he recommended.
http://www.farawayfoods.com/adolph.html
Good luck, let me know if this helps and if you have more questions.
I have a 2+ year old vizsla male who I adopted at around 12 months old AND a GSP who is about 9 months old. The vizsla was on a raw diet for awhile and the GSP was a "poop eater" early in her life so I'll try and talk about both issues, pardon the unavoidably long winded email...
Raw Diet - We switched our V to a raw diet after being raised on kibble. He took to it immediately, but there were a few issues that caused us to switch him back.
1. Cost & Convenience - We bought our pre-prepared raw food in bulk from a local distributor. Buying in bulk saved cash, but it meant freezing a majority of it and then having to defrost it when necessary.
2. Vitamin/Supplements - Apparent a raw diet, even with choice meats and veggies, does NOT contain all the vitamins/minerals/etc that your dog needs to stay healthy. We had to sprinkle a supplement in to each meal to make sure he got what he needed.
3. Weight Gain - We had LOTS of trouble getting him to keep his weight up. He always looked gaunt. Most raw diets recommend you weigh meals, we eventually started feeding him way more than recommended, even still he was only around 45lbs AND now we found ourselves spending more $ on food.
In the end I decided it wasn't worth all the time/effort/money, especially since I don't think there are any/many visible effects. Most dogs live long, healthy lives off a kibble diet. That being said, ONCE YOU START YOUR DOG ON A RAW DIET IT CAN REAK HAVOC ON THEIR BODY TO SWITCH THEM OFF IT. We battled "the runs" with our guy for months after switching him back to kibble. And now he's on prescription kibble cause that's the only thing that agrees with his stomach.
My recommendation is find a good Organic/Natural brand and mix in some High Calorie food with it. That's what we do and we've seen great results, but again everyone's dog is different some times it takes awhile to figure out what's best for yours.
Poop Eating - Unfortunately there's no easy answer here, we had virtually the same issue, our GSP would eat poop, but only her own. Two suggestions, neither of which are a whole lot of fun:
1. The more you allow him/her to eat it the more he/she will. We got in a bad habit of letting our girl out in the yard on her own AND only cleaning up the yard once a week. Letting her out alone let her roam and gave her plenty of opportunity to eat whatever she came across. If you leave poop in the yard your dog will find it. It takes some effort, but clean up your yard as much as you can AND think about only letting your dog out on leash to go to the bathroom and come back in.
2. Our vet, at some point, recommended sprinkling meat tenderizer in her food. Supposedly it tastes fine on the way down, but once it comes out it's extremely bad tasting and not appealing to them. Might be worth a shot, here's the brand he recommended.
http://www.farawayfoods.com/adolph.html
Good luck, let me know if this helps and if you have more questions.
