Seeing ribs on my bullies with their short coats, super muscle tone, and athletic builds is one thing; seeing them on a longer short-coat like Dre is another. We could also see his hip bones at one point. He wasn't even fun to snuggle with. Now you can see some tuck, but it's not overly tight. I'm pretty happy with his body condition right now.
That said, I wanted to document what we've done this week that's different.
On Wednesday, he threw up twice. I decided that we might need stronger probiotics than the yogurt and whatever is in the Missing Link. So we're adding kefir to his diet. Kefir is like a cousin to yogurt, but it's much more potent in terms of its probiotic qualities. If this continues to seem useful, I'll take up an offer from a friend to get some of her kefir grains to culture my own. We usually make our own yogurt, but this is a much simpler process.
We have also been substituting a few ounces of turkey with a packet of ground lamb that I picked up last week at the abattoir. So far so good. The turkey Bravo that he's been eating has gone up in price (as of today) to about $2.75/lb. when it costs more to feed one of the dogs than one of the humans, it's time to reevaluate. If it's what we need to do, we will. But I think it's time to start trying out some other things. I'd like to try slowly adding some heart, both beef and chicken, maybe gizzards, and chicken frames, particularly the chicken blend I buy at the farmers market, as it looks to be very low fat.
His problems seemed to arise when given salmon oil or chicken legs-- fatty cuts of chicken. He did great on chicken breast only. So while hearts can be very rich for some dogs, they are also lean, packed with vitamins, and frankly... cheap. I'd love to reach a point where I can substitute maybe half his turkey with other things, both for the variety and the cost savings.
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