What do your dogs eat?

[Jenny]

What do you feed your dogs? We've always used bagged food, but not the Wal Mart / consumer pet food stuff. We've used the better brands. Most of the time they've done great, but sometimes the quality control is poor. We've flown out a whole planeload of dog food that we'd been using a long time, then suddenly had our dogs get skinny and their hair falls out in the middle of winter. Not good! We know one old homesteader who feeds his dogs whatever he eats, whenever he eats ----- mostly sourdough pancakes, spuds, beans, cornbread, and the occasional bear, beaver, porcupine, etc. So, what about you and yours?

[wolfwoman]

Jenny,
I have eight dogs and we have changed bagged foods a couple times, it all depends on how they react to the food if I stay with it. I think when you have more than 2-3 dogs you're going to find that there are going to be some that react differently than others, just like different people react differently to different foods.

I think the most important think when using a bagged food is to look at the ingredients. When the first ingredient says chicken, lamb or beef then you're ok. If it says by-product or corn whatever, then it's mostly filler. This even goes for the more spendy foods.

So to answer your question, I feed my dogs right now the Kirkland brand from Costco, Chicken and Rice mix. However, that's not all they get, mixed in with thier food (it's soaked in water like the mushers do) are all the leftovers from the house. Twice a week I supplement with rice in their food also. So basically, they eat everything we do, but because there isn't enough 'leftovers' to feed 8 dogs, they get the bagged too. If I had my choice I'd be feeding them like the old homesteader you know!! As it goes, they do get the bones from whatever it is we happen to hunt or have given to us.

If you'd like to see them, you can go to www.alaskaspiritcrafts.com and click on the Dog Days link. They're mostly MacKenzie River Husky, with a bit of lab thrown in.

Wolfwoman

[Washkeeton]

Hmmm food. Jenny when your dogs lost all their coats was it warm or cold. All mine lost their coats this past december just after the 40 degree warm spell we had.

Loosing weight can be from many different things. Worms, tape or round. Tape worms can come from raw meat like moose, carabou, bear, etc. Round worms can come from walking through infected poop and licking their paws, eating the eggs and then the worms multiply. Eating their own poop. (mine like poop cicles that they can eat in the middle of the winter.) and or giardia. Things to ponder. Increased activity, continuing with the same amount of food, and having colder temps. When the temps go down and the activity increases food amount should increase until they are not loosing weight. Even in the bush you should be worming either yearly or bi yearly. I hit in the spring with the stuff for round worm and panacure (for every thing) in the fall with shots. ( I am having brain cramps right now on med names.)

The way it was put to me is there is way to much nutrition lost on cooking meat and it causes bones to become brittle and shard. If you feed your dogs anything feed them raw meat and bones. Then I was told that the state of alaska took all the bic lighters away from the wolves because not only were they having fun cooking but they became a hazzard with them(lol)

Food, I use store bought dog food. I am using the nutra nugguts lamb and rice. Most musher vets will tell you if you use the bag food look for one that the first 4 ingredients are meat or meat by products, then the fillers. Corn is very irritating to dogs and will cause them to get very little nutrition out of the dog food you feed, causes bloating and lots of gas. They poop twice as much also. if you have to have a filler make it rice. Less irritating on the dogs bowel.
When we were actually running the dogs daily and stuff and living up in fairbanks where it got to 70 below. We were feeding anamate(corn fillers) high protien at 37.00 per bag. we mixed that with raw meat rations that we would either get the ground beef 50 lb block or the ground chicken 50 lb blocks. cut them up with an ax and mix average 1/2 to 1 lb per dog. melt all of it together and make a slurry out of it with warm water. When i could get my hands on a beaver carcus I would chop the head off and toss in the trash.(front teeth cant be digested by the dogs. Will slice up their insides) Would chop up the rest of the carcus and feed small amounts to the dogs. The colder the temps the more oil. I added Oil at 70 below to their food also. Fed at night and saved 4 cups of food and made a spiked water for morning. Here i can cheat, I can water 2.5 hours before i feed cause it isnt that cold. You water in the morning cause it increases the metabolism and causes them to stay warmer. You feed the heavy food at night for the same reason while they are relaxing their body is working hard to digest there by keeping them warmer also.

Mushers on the trails make snacks out of raw meat and things like beaver carcuses. they make a small bit size piece of stuff. A lot of them use the eukenuba and such for the food to bed down but for the morning they get spiked water, and a high protien snack. (they mix salmon, beaver, or what ever else they can get.) There is a Champane mix of raw meat that the mushers also use. Blocks come in 50 lbs like the chicken and beef I used. I was helping a couple prepare food for the food drop spots for the quest one time. Man that is a lot of work starting months in advance.

Working with my friend that had the Canadian Eskimo dogs, he bought bags of white fish and fed them 2 frozen white fish at night gave spiked water in the morning. He would chop up beaver carcuses and feed them chunks of it, he fed salmon if he could get it, moose, and what ever else. I know occasionally he fed them some kind of dry ? food. It was not the regular chunky food like comes in the store. I have no clue exactly what it was but the dogs did well on it. He also bought the chunks of frozen meat and fed them chunks of it. Like a wolf that comes back to its food he would throw out frozen chunks and they would thrive. he either put down straw or would cut off spruce limbs and make a place, the dogs did real well on that. I like giving a house even if the dog doesnt use it. Bush dogs used for a trap line need to be use to living with out a house. My leader from Jim Lanier has a house but on the trail they put out straw and let them sleep on it. He chooses to sleep on the ground. Give him straw and he pees on it and sleeps on the ground. Go figure. Sorry so long. Wash

[Jenny]

Thanks for the info. When our dogs suddenly lost their hair and lost weight, it was cold. Not like Fairbanks, but the temps had been holding right around 0. The problems resolved when we fed them from the old bags. We've had that happen a few times, so we always keep a few bags of whatever we're feeding on hand until we see what the new stuff will do. If we have problems, we can give them the old stuff until we can get more flown out. We were buying from Rae's Harness Shop ----- I think that's the name. Can't remember what we were using the first time, but it was on suggestion from someone working there. Did great on the first plane load. Then when we got more several months later, that's when the dogs had trouble. When I called, the owner answered and told me they've had trouble with quality control on that brand. So we switched. Can't remember if it was Iams or Eukenuba. Dogs did great on the first load. Then, as soon as they started on the next load, they got bald and skinny again in the middle of winter. Switched to the old stuff and they did great again. When I called Rae's again to find out why this would be happening, they told me the company had recently been bought out by Purina and the quality was the same as consumer pet food stuff sold for indoor dogs. She said lots of folks had been complaining about the same problems. For awhile there it seemed like we couldn't win for losing. This was about 6 or 7 years ago, I think. At that time, we didn't have a snow machine or 4-wheeler, but the dogs weren't working terribly hard. We cook and heat with wood, so they just pulled that, water, and some freight when we had supplies flown out to us. We haven't had any dogs in over 2 years. During the summer, we usually just fed them at night. We have a creek just down the hill from our house, so they'd go down there as soon as we let them go in the morning. Like I said, they mostly pets that work sometimes. They're not pros; neither are we. We just love having dogs around, and they are very helpful around here. In the winter, we gave them a slurry of warm water and some food. We'd offer water again, especially if they ate snow and acted thirsty, but most wouldn't drink much during the day. Their main meal was at night for the reasons you mentioned. And, of course, if they were working harder, they'd get more. We've just been trying to decide if we want to go with store bought food, or have them on the "old homesteader diet"

As for sleeping, most of our dogs have preferred to sleep on top of their houses. They'll guard their fresh hay with their lives from our goats, who always think it's a waste giving it to the dogs. But, the dogs rarely use it. Mostly in the summer. Here, it's usually cool and rainy.



Wolfwoman: Loved your pictures. You have quite a handsome family ;D Also, I enjoyed your website. Beautiful work! ;D We don't have much for leftovers, especially with 3 little boys But we've always given them some of what we eat and bones when we have meat.

Thanks to both of you for lots of great info!

Jenny

[Washkeeton]

They should have heads uped the folks buying the food. That was not a good thing to have it change in the middle. They wernt being given enough nutrients and that makes since. I never thought that option but boy that would have tripped me because those dogs were at risk for freezing to death cause of the food change. Personally, shhhh, I dont like Rays harness shop. My opinion only.

Check with cold spot feeds and see what they can do for you if you do get back into dogs. Cold spot is the largest mushing supplier in the "world". A lot of your foreigners buy from them and lots train up in fairbanks for the bigger races because they can get stuff from them.

I havent been into their new mega store. I was there when they had the piddley squat little back woods wearhouse, mud driveway and out house out back. I got a head lamp from them for my son this christmas. The folks I spoke to were very nice. If you want to deal out of anchorage let me know. I will give you some places if i can find them again. Animal food wearhouse(pet zoo) in the valley palmer/wasilla hwy has the expensive food they also have most of the stuff for the goats, chickens and such. This one also has the mushing stuff that they get from Cold spot in Fairbanks that they sell down here.

I have seven sled dogs and a minature schnauser that thinks he is the dog lot king. lol

A year ago this january we had 25 sled dogs here. My daughter was actively running them then. She wanted to move out and couldnt find a place to move to with them so she had to give them up. I kept all the original team from fairbanks that are retired now. (10 and 11 yr olds) and the 2 leaders we got, and 2 puppies. One has great potiential to be a leader. I am going to try to get my daughter to take her out with our leaders and run her this spring and summer. I think she has the smarts. I also got a free, non running ATV, to run them on in the spring, summer, and fall.

Mine love the new straw when it is put in their houses. they lay on it and roll on it and play in it and dig and play and then go to sleep. They will even pass up food to play in the new straw. If I straw them when I am feeding. The food will freeze to the dishes. They forget that they were fed cause they love to play in the straw so much.

Wash

[Jenny]

Oh, I forgot about Animal Food Wearhouse. We started buying from them when we had trouble with the food at Ray's. They used to make regular deliveries to Anchorage, so we had them deliver to the air taxi. Think it only cost $10 extra at the time. I was thinking they recently opened a store in Anchorage, too. Not sure about that. On the Kirkland food, Chuck said we tried some of that about 10 years ago with our dogs. At the time we were living on the road system, so we only bought a few bags. They didn't lose their hair, but always acted like they were starvving, so we ran into town and bought something else.

When we get another dog or two, I'll check with Cold Spot. Wouldn't be worth it to have a plane flown out from Fairbanks, or to pay extra for delivery to Anchorage, but if they make regular runs anyway, they may not charge much for an extra stop at the air taxi.

I can just picture your dogs. Makes me laugh to think about them.

[Washkeeton]

I have pictures but i cant get any thing to post on any forum. I have pictures of running the dogs in fairbanks, I have pics of the bush cabin we lived in, I have pics of the dog lot and the new fence I put up this past summer. I built a six foot fence around the dog lot this year cause the dogs are not safe and I dont want my son running through the dog lot playing and getting hurt by the dogs. So I built a seperation. My little one is six. If I can get some things to post I will post some of the stuff I have done here at this house.

[wolfwoman]

On the food thing, pups have been on the Kirkland Chicken and Rice for about a month now and seem to be doing great so far, AND less output if ya know what I mean!!! LOL

[miztiki]

I feed my dogs raw based on the whole prey model. Been trying to switch the cats over but the one won't have anything to do with it. The other will eat prey it catches but rarely will eat meat that I give him. Finicky cats!

[smwon]

For a while, when I had dogs (normal everyday non-working)... I made my own food. Just raw meat/fish/fowl (whatever I had), whole grains well-cooked, some veggies (usually green or orange), nutritional yeast (sometimes wheat germ), garlic, egg and oil... is was mixed in a certain ratio. They liked and did well on it.

[Freeholdfarm]

My older dog, Scout, was raised on raw, old-fashioned rolled oats soaked in fresh raw goat milk. He did really well on that (is above average weight for his breed), and didn't have worms, either! (Had him tested to see if he needed to be wormed.)

Right now what I usually feed him and the new pup, Bonnie, is a mid-price dogfood with raw goat milk poured over it. They do well on this, too -- I think the key is the raw milk, and it's high-butterfat, high-milk solids milk because of the breeds of goats I have. I have been feeding them some raw, too, as I butcher an old duck or hen.

My goal is to get to mainly raw food for them, with a bit of table scraps and raw milk. But right now I don't have enough raw meat/butcher scraps available and I'm not going to buy that kind of stuff.

Kathleen

[Jenny]

The raw diet sure would be great. I think the fishing is about the only thing I miss about Dillingham. With all the great subsistence fishing, you could feed all the dogs you want and it wouldn't cost a cent! The most dogs we've ever had since Chuck and I have been married is 4, but Chuck ran dogs in his single days. Just for fun, not racing or anything. We'd both love to get back to that (well, he'd love to get BACK to it, and I'd love to try it), but not enough wild food here to feed a bunch of dogs.