Ariella grew a lot the past couple weeks. Her weight today was 90 pounds on our "un-official" home bathroom scale. And her height was 27 inches.
This will probably be the last time I weigh her on our bathroom scale because I tweaked my back lifting her. I can carry a 100 pound bag of grain on my shoulder fairly easy but, an ever moving pup is another story, plus having to bend over enough at the hips to see around her body to read the scale.
I was thinking that once she is too big, I will see if the Vet will let me go in every couple weeks or so to weigh her. Besides it would be good training for her to go into the Vets office and not be poked with needles. Maybe she would start to like going in there.
Arie will be 6 months old on Monday.
Food
I've been feeding her more raw food lately. Raw chicken, and raw chicken hearts, livers and gizzards. Also we're still working on the road kill venison. Over a month ago I gave her too big of a piece of venison and she got diarrhea for a couple days, so I backed off on the raw food. But, have gradually been increasing it again and she is doing good with it. I still feed a little Purina Puppy Chow just to make sure she is getting enough vitamins.
I'm a little afraid to go to a full raw diet, as I'm trying to learn more about it. I've been looking at this website http://petgrub.com/ about a raw food diet for pets. But, I haven't heard anything from a different perspective yet. I don't like to go with something until I have heard the same thing from at least several other sources. However, in my thinking, the more natural a diet you can get would be most desirable.
I just don't want to make Ariella deficient in any thing with the high rate of growing that she does. But, at the same time I don't trust commercial food to not give her cancer with all of the preservatives and junk that they pack that stuff full of. I've had dogs in the past that came down with cancer and I just can't help but think it was directly attributed to the commercial food that I fed them.
I'm putting a lot of time and effort into raising this fascinating animal and I'm having a great time at it. She is a very neat dog. I'm still very impressed with the breed, and as far as I can tell from what I've seen on the Internet, Arie's temperament is exactly that of a Kangal Dog. It's amazing to see video from around the world of Kangal Dogs that behave just like she does. They are a unique breed.
Hi, I have a Kangal nearly the same age as yours. He was a gift from a village on the Turkey/Kurdistan border to our son, a medical officer in the U.S. Special Forces. Peshmerga, Pesh, is his name and we received him at about 5 months old on October 25th after staying in the Middle East until the heat index went down. They are indeed fascinating dogs and we love see yours in video because the behaviors are amazingly the same. We do not farm and Pesh is living as a companion pet. I'm interested in knowing what you finally did with diet. He has had loose stools come and go even on homemade cooked diet. I don't think their digestive systems like any richness in the diet and chicken does not seem to settle well with him. But he grows well and is lively and happy. We too feel very blessed with this surprise dog!
ReplyDeleteAlicia Johnson
Excelsior, MN (western suburb of Minneapolis)
Alicia,
ReplyDeleteI am still feeding her commercial dog food (Purina Puppy Chow) and raw meat. I am currently feeding her twice a day. One feeding is the Puppy Chow and the other is all raw venison.
I might have gone to an all raw diet by now but, her temperament is such that she does not like any of the livestock around her when she eats the raw meat. She literally attacks them if they even look in her direction. But, she does not do that with the dry commercial food.
She still is very playful so when left unattended I keep her with a male goat which has horns, so is able to defend himself when she wants to play. She stays with him at night and during the evening feeding I give her the Puppy Chow. If she has the raw meat she will attack even him. So it is more a matter of convenience at this point.
When I feed her the venison I put her in a separate pen by the sheep but, not with them. I still have to be careful not to over feed her otherwise she will get diarrhea. In fact just a few days ago I gave her too big a piece and she got soft stools.
I store the meat outside which is frozen solid. I’ve noticed if it takes her awhile to eat it then she does better with bigger pieces. It might take her an hour to chew up a frozen piece especially if it has a leg bone or something in it. That seems to work the best for keeping her stools firm.
We ran out of chicken parts a couple months back so all I have right now is venison. But, I stopped cooking any of the meat products some time ago after reading that cooked meat is not good for dogs. In a short time her system got used to the raw meat, and as far as I can tell the only reason she will get soft stools now is from eating too much too fast. When she had a problem a few days ago the meat had thawed out which she was able to down pretty quickly. So from now on I’ll have to be more careful.
This is still a learning experience for me. I pay close attention to her condition to make sure what I am doing isn’t effecting her adversely. So far she seems to be doing good. She is growing well. Her coat looks good and her eyes are bright. She has good energy. As long as that all checks out I will continue doing what I’m doing, although I’d like to eventually get her off commercial food altogether. But, like I said it currently is a matter of convenience due to her protectiveness over the meat.
Good luck with Pesh! I’d be interested in seeing a picture of him. My email is rnellis@forntiernet.net
Kangal Dogs are amazing animals! I like the breed very much!
Best Regards,
Russ