The poop factor

Before I forget to point this out... Don't worry. This post isn't illustrated. (though, maybe an illustrated poop guide would be a good idea... ;-) )

Because of Andre's issues, I always make sure he has a bowel movement in the mornings before I leave the house. When he went this morning, it was... well... a lot. And it was, er... moist. And really, really stinky. I mean, it was voluminous. That's the only way I can describe it.

I was shocked. Until I remembered the insane number of store-bought, non-grain-free treats that he ate this weekend. He went to the farmers market with me. He went to Petco with me. He rode in the car. We trained in the yard. And I lazily didn't boil any turkey. So he got bagged treats.

And this reminded me of one of the biggest reasons that I love raw. Aside from all the health benefits we see in our dogs, their poop is spectacular. I mean really.

It is small-- more nutrient dense food, more digestible, more useable means less waste.

It is dry and quite firm. Again, there's just not a lot of waste and there's not a lot of fiber sucking up moisture. If it's too dry or too firm, it's easy to add extra organ meat or add some canned pumpkin or other veggies, or reduce the amount of bone to help things along.

And it doesn't stink. If you don't clean up after a kibble-fed dog right away, especially when it's 95 degrees in the shade, the yard gets pretty unbearable pretty quickly. You might also find yourself stepping in it (ew) days later and tracking it everywhere. Raw fed dogs have very low odor bowel movements, and because they're dry and small, they dry up to hard rock then crumbled up status fairly immediately. There's no tracking poop everywhere if you can't clean it up right away. There have been times that I've gone into the yard to catch up on clean up, and can't find anything to pick up.

It's a glorious world of poop. Every time I've had a kibble-fed dog, I'm reminded of just how good we have it...