Update On My Minkenry Pointer Lurcher

[Minkenry 1,044]

 

 

Cracking post ... Personally I would want my pup carrying a bit more weight ......

Also, my dog perfectly fits the description of a dog at an ideal body weight.....

 

"How do you know if your dog is too fat or thin? You should be able to easily feel your dog's ribs and even see the outline of the last few floating ribs at the end of the ribcage that attaches to the vertebrae of the spine closest to the hips. You should not be able to see ALL the ribs, or the hip bones, or the vertebrae of the spine, just the outline of the last few floating ribs. If you stand above your dog, he should have a definite waist between his hips and ribcage. Remember that dogs are built differently from each other, so some may have a naturally stocky body that will not give you a waist no matter what you do."

You are obviously the type of fella that doesn't like taking advice ... If I was bringing on my first mink I would be listening to everything you had to say so that I could learn and do the best by my mink ... But what do I know I've only had lurcher for nearly 40 years ....

 

As has been said the description you have quoted is for a fully grown dog ... HOWEVER that description just doesn't work when it comes to lurchers as the amount of different breeds that goes into the mix will dictate what the dog looks like ... Have a look at all the working lurchers on here and you wil soon realise that your description doesnot fit them all ....

 

As for feeding I doubt very much that you feed your dog better than I feed mine the simple fact that your allowing your pup to graze all day on dry food tells me you don't understand the digestive system and the nutritional needs of a dog ....

 

Anyway I genuinely wish you the best of luck with your young dog and I hope it does what you want from it .......

 

 

I'd love to fatten her up more, but she doesn't put weight regardless of what I do. How would you suggest I feed her?

 

Right now she gets 3% to 3.5% of her body weight in raw each day, split between two different meals morning and night. Then like I mentioned, she gets unlimited access to high quality kibble throughout the day and night. I work all day, so I can't add a third meal of raw, that's why I've been giving her access to the kibble during the day.

 

What would you recommend for a better diet/feeding schedule?

Edited June 3, 2016 by Minkenry

[socks 32,253]

What exactly is her diet made up of at the moment .....

[skycat 6,173]

Forget giving percentages of body weight in a feed. Feed the pup as much as she wants to eat at a sitting (a raw meal should take 5-20 minutes depending on how much bone she has to crunch up). Make sure the protein is first class: red meat: beef/venison/lamb etc. Also make sure that there is enough fat: hard animal fat is best, the sort you get off beef and lamb. Heart/liver should also form a small part of the diet. Chicken is OK, but I'd sooner be putting more red muscle meat into a pup: more iron and Vitamin B etc.

If you are going to feed kibble, make sure that meat is the primary ingredient listed on the side of the bag. The ingredients are always listed by percentage. So if a cereal such as wheat is the first ingredient listed, the kibble won't contain much meat at all. Also watch out for cheap fillers in kibble: soya, beet pulp, rice.

 

The problem with free feeding kibble is that the pup may well be filling itself up on a less biologically appropriate food, so when it comes to proper meal times her system is already clogged up with kibble, which by its very nature, contains cereals, even the quality stuff. Canines aren't designed to 'graze' all day. All my pups were on two meals a day by the age of 12 weeks. They ate their meals enthusiastically, and they certainly were never underweight.

 

Whilst I don't like to see podgy lurcher pups, I do like to see them with a bit of extra covering, but some are lanky from the moment they are weaned. They get extra skinny when they put on a growth spurt, which yours may well be doing at the moment. It's hard to see properly from photos, but most dogs actually look fatter in photos than in real life, and whilst yours has a good shine to her coat, and seems to have plenty of strong bone in her legs, it wouldn't hurt for her to stack a bit more weight on, and the only way you can do that healthily is to restrict her access to food between meals, and make sure she gets the body building foods she need at meal times. Protein for growth. Fat for energy. In theory dogs don't carbs at all, but most of us feed a bit.

[Lamper121 239]

Forget giving percentages of body weight in a feed. Feed the pup as much as she wants to eat at a sitting (a raw meal should take 5-20 minutes depending on how much bone she has to crunch up). Make sure the protein is first class: red meat: beef/venison/lamb etc. Also make sure that there is enough fat: hard animal fat is best, the sort you get off beef and lamb. Heart/liver should also form a small part of the diet. Chicken is OK, but I'd sooner be putting more red muscle meat into a pup: more iron and Vitamin B etc.

If you are going to feed kibble, make sure that meat is the primary ingredient listed on the side of the bag. The ingredients are always listed by percentage. So if a cereal such as wheat is the first ingredient listed, the kibble won't contain much meat at all. Also watch out for cheap fillers in kibble: soya, beet pulp, rice.

 

The problem with free feeding kibble is that the pup may well be filling itself up on a less biologically appropriate food, so when it comes to proper meal times her system is already clogged up with kibble, which by its very nature, contains cereals, even the quality stuff. Canines aren't designed to 'graze' all day. All my pups were on two meals a day by the age of 12 weeks. They ate their meals enthusiastically, and they certainly were never underweight.

 

Whilst I don't like to see podgy lurcher pups, I do like to see them with a bit of extra covering, but some are lanky from the moment they are weaned. They get extra skinny when they put on a growth spurt, which yours may well be doing at the moment. It's hard to see properly from photos, but most dogs actually look fatter in photos than in real life, and whilst yours has a good shine to her coat, and seems to have plenty of strong bone in her legs, it wouldn't hurt for her to stack a bit more weight on, and the only way you can do that healthily is to restrict her access to food between meals, and make sure she gets the body building foods she need at meal times. Protein for growth. Fat for energy. In theory dogs don't carbs at all, but most of us feed a bit.

[Lamper121 239]

Forget giving percentages of body weight in a feed. Feed the pup as much as she wants to eat at a sitting (a raw meal should take 5-20 minutes depending on how much bone she has to crunch up). Make sure the protein is first class: red meat: beef/venison/lamb etc. Also make sure that there is enough fat: hard animal fat is best, the sort you get off beef and lamb. Heart/liver should also form a small part of the diet. Chicken is OK, but I'd sooner be putting more red muscle meat into a pup: more iron and Vitamin B etc.

If you are going to feed kibble, make sure that meat is the primary ingredient listed on the side of the bag. The ingredients are always listed by percentage. So if a cereal such as wheat is the first ingredient listed, the kibble won't contain much meat at all. Also watch out for cheap fillers in kibble: soya, beet pulp, rice.

 

The problem with free feeding kibble is that the pup may well be filling itself up on a less biologically appropriate food, so when it comes to proper meal times her system is already clogged up with kibble, which by its very nature, contains cereals, even the quality stuff. Canines aren't designed to 'graze' all day. All my pups were on two meals a day by the age of 12 weeks. They ate their meals enthusiastically, and they certainly were never underweight.

 

Whilst I don't like to see podgy lurcher pups, I do like to see them with a bit of extra covering, but some are lanky from the moment they are weaned. They get extra skinny when they put on a growth spurt, which yours may well be doing at the moment. It's hard to see properly from photos, but most dogs actually look fatter in photos than in real life, and whilst yours has a good shine to her coat, and seems to have plenty of strong bone in her legs, it wouldn't hurt for her to stack a bit more weight on, and the only way you can do that healthily is to restrict her access to food between meals, and make sure she gets the body building foods she need at meal times. Protein for growth. Fat for energy. In theory dogs don't carbs at all, but most of us feed a bit.

Totally agree on not allowing them to graze, this never brings results IMO

[Minkenry 1,044]

What exactly is her diet made up of at the moment .....

 

I am feeding mostly muskrat, with an occasional meal of beef, and a few junks of chicken fat or skin added every now and then. I feed the whole muskrat, meat, bone, liver, kidneys, etc. minus the pelt, stomach, and intestines. Muskrat meat is a rich red meat that has a good amount of fat, and lots of protein. Muskrats are a clean and mostly vegetarian, much more like a rabbit than an actual rat. I freeze it for over a month to kill of any potential parasites, just to be safe. This is the nutritional content of raw muskrat meat...

 

http://www.nutritionvalue.org/Game_meat,_raw,_muskrat_nutritional_value.html

[socks 32,253]

The muskrat looks a decent meat ... I don't know how much your pup weighs so I don't know how much you are feeding but I would be feeding around two to three pound of meat per day split into two or three meals ... Having a bowl of dry down all day means the pup isn't hungry enough to be eating the meat which is by far the better meal ... A pup of that age can easily Cole with eating a meal in the morning then another in the evening without having anything down inbetween times .... Also dogs derive their energy from fats so as the pup grows and starts working harder be sure to up the fat content in its diet so that it's not burning up vital nutrients from its meals .....

[Minkenry 1,044]

Forget giving percentages of body weight in a feed. Feed the pup as much as she wants to eat at a sitting (a raw meal should take 5-20 minutes depending on how much bone she has to crunch up). Make sure the protein is first class: red meat: beef/venison/lamb etc. Also make sure that there is enough fat: hard animal fat is best, the sort you get off beef and lamb. Heart/liver should also form a small part of the diet. Chicken is OK, but I'd sooner be putting more red muscle meat into a pup: more iron and Vitamin B etc.

If you are going to feed kibble, make sure that meat is the primary ingredient listed on the side of the bag. The ingredients are always listed by percentage. So if a cereal such as wheat is the first ingredient listed, the kibble won't contain much meat at all. Also watch out for cheap fillers in kibble: soya, beet pulp, rice.

 

The problem with free feeding kibble is that the pup may well be filling itself up on a less biologically appropriate food, so when it comes to proper meal times her system is already clogged up with kibble, which by its very nature, contains cereals, even the quality stuff. Canines aren't designed to 'graze' all day. All my pups were on two meals a day by the age of 12 weeks. They ate their meals enthusiastically, and they certainly were never underweight.

 

Whilst I don't like to see podgy lurcher pups, I do like to see them with a bit of extra covering, but some are lanky from the moment they are weaned. They get extra skinny when they put on a growth spurt, which yours may well be doing at the moment. It's hard to see properly from photos, but most dogs actually look fatter in photos than in real life, and whilst yours has a good shine to her coat, and seems to have plenty of strong bone in her legs, it wouldn't hurt for her to stack a bit more weight on, and the only way you can do that healthily is to restrict her access to food between meals, and make sure she gets the body building foods she need at meal times. Protein for growth. Fat for energy. In theory dogs don't carbs at all, but most of us feed a bit.

 

Ok great, so I'll cut out offering kibble throughout the day and only feed her during the two meal times morning and night. I'll also increase the amount of meat I feed her in each meal.

[Minkenry 1,044]

The muskrat looks a decent meat ... I don't know how much your pup weighs so I don't know how much you are feeding but I would be feeding around two to three pound of meat per day split into two or three meals ... Having a bowl of dry down all day means the pup isn't hungry enough to be eating the meat which is by far the better meal ... A pup of that age can easily Cole with eating a meal in the morning then another in the evening without having anything down inbetween times .... Also dogs derive their energy from fats so as the pup grows and starts working harder be sure to up the fat content in its diet so that it's not burning up vital nutrients from its meals .....

 

Yeah, for the last several months I've actually been saving and freezing any extra fat trimmings from chicken, fatty domestic rabbits, ducks, etc. I've butchered for mink or human consumption, so that I would have it for my dog when I got one. I've been feeding her small chunks of that every now and then, to help increase the fat content of her diet. Do you think I should increase the amount and frequency of giving her these chunks of fat?

[socks 32,253]

I would be feeding fat everyday to make up around 20% of the meal .....

[billhardy 2,342]

Some very good advice given here just take head and follow it ,meat fat and bone in every type available amounts has much has ya can get in em the body needs the break between meals , this allows the stomach to do the job it's designed ta do .and y'all find the flesh diet will hang in em,atb bunnys.

[skycat 6,173]

Fat gives energy, and pups use a lot of energy. If the meat you are feeding her isn't very fatty, then you should be feeding her extra fat every day. If you think 'whole carcase' when you feed raw, and by that I mean a carcase in the prime of its life, there will be a percentage of fat, more muscle meat than anything else, and a percentage of bone and organ meat: heart/liver/kidneys.

If we fed nothing but rabbit (european rabbit that is) an active or growing dog would not get enough fat. People get what is called 'rabbit starvation' if they try to live on nothing but rabbit, or other very lean meat that is very low in fat. There are documented instances of people getting ill and dying from this. Wolves and the like don't suffer from this because they eat a balanced diet, including the brain of their kills which contains a lot of fat, as well as fat from around the internal organs, as well as all sorts of semi-digested vegetable matter from the gut contents.

Domestic rabbits have a much higher fat content than wild rabbits. But feeding a raw diet to dogs is all about balance. Try to feed a bit of everything, not necessarily every day, and as Socks has just said, increase the fat, if the meat is lean, to around 20% per day. That way the pup uses all the protein for growing and the fat for energy, though of course it isn't as simple as that. A carnivorous animal uses nearly everything it eats, which is why their faeces are very small which is another reason they don't need to graze little and often like herbivores. Pups need masses of food , but their systems are designed to eat a lot at one meal, and then spend time digesting it, which is why you shouldn't exercise hard for at least four hours after feeding, especially in the adult running dog that has to do way more than any wild animal would do.

[Lenmcharristar 9,727]

 

 

Cracking post ... Personally I would want my pup carrying a bit more weight ......

Also, my dog perfectly fits the description of a dog at an ideal body weight.....

 

"How do you know if your dog is too fat or thin? You should be able to easily feel your dog's ribs and even see the outline of the last few floating ribs at the end of the ribcage that attaches to the vertebrae of the spine closest to the hips. You should not be able to see ALL the ribs, or the hip bones, or the vertebrae of the spine, just the outline of the last few floating ribs. If you stand above your dog, he should have a definite waist between his hips and ribcage. Remember that dogs are built differently from each other, so some may have a naturally stocky body that will not give you a waist no matter what you do."

You are obviously the type of fella that doesn't like taking advice ... If I was bringing on my first mink I would be listening to everything you had to say so that I could learn and do the best by my mink ... But what do I know I've only had lurcher for nearly 40 years ....

As has been said the description you have quoted is for a fully grown dog ... HOWEVER that description just doesn't work when it comes to lurchers as the amount of different breeds that goes into the mix will dictate what the dog looks like ... Have a look at all the working lurchers on here and you wil soon realise that your description doesnot fit them all ....

As for feeding I doubt very much that you feed your dog better than I feed mine the simple fact that your allowing your pup to graze all day on dry food tells me you don't understand the digestive system and the nutritional needs of a dog ....

Anyway I genuinely wish you the best of luck with your young dog and I hope it does what you want from it .......

holy Christ that dog must be the longest living dog on the planet at 40 yrs old, what's the key of such a long life??? Lololol

[punner 36]

Cracking thread i have alot to learn i think. i only do bit off lamping and mooching but sounds like i should hire a dietician n personal trainer for my dogs ffs mine fed table scraps and in top nick and i dnt wreck my head over [BANNED TEXT] to feed and they are fit and healthy and please me.u can spend too much time over thinking things?

[bedx 51]

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