The Move Down Under

Well Gemma has made it to New Zealand safe and sound. As I had been reading for the past 18 months she faired better than us from the big flight. I have written about her move on our blog at http://mishgeorgenz.wordpress.com/

In summary, all I read was correct. The dog is fine after the flight, Auckland airport is quite a faff, the dog recovers very quickly - far more quickly than us humans.

Gemma's trip to London

We were invited to London on Saturday night to a birthday party in Fulham. We stayed in a very small flat in Pimlico. Gemma had a really big day on the Saturday as we had stayed in the caravan on Friday night and 50 other caravans had turned up for a rally. So poor Gemma had lost her field for the weekend. We drove up to London and the SatNav took us right through the centre, past Harrods. Gemma enjoyed the views from the front seat of the Bongo. Once we arrived Christine and I took her to a park for a poo stop. She is in St George's park with me in the photo. After the park stop we went to Pimlico tube station to see if the trains were running okay and to show Gemma the station.

After the party we took the tube home and as you can see Gemma was a bit overexcited by it. She had not been very happy at the party so we didn't stay late. She hadn't had a nap all day and had woken at 4.30 in the caravan because of the birds and the light. We finally made it back to the flat where Gemma quickly took her place on the bed, that we had had to pull out of a cupboard! Before leaving on Sunday we walked down to the Thames to have an explore. There is a photo of Gemma with Mish on the way back from this walk. We drove back via King's road. The butcher across from the cafe where we had breakfast was very happy to give me a huge bag of bones. Shame he son't closer to us as he told me to come in any time to get bones. While we were finishing our breakfast a woman came past with so many little dogs it was a real sight. I told her I admired her as we find one small dog quite enough to deal with!

As a way of taking Gemma's mind off the big trip I gave her one of the huge bones once we arrived back at the caravan. She took time with it and really chilled out in the sun.

Rabbits

I finally found something that Gemma won't eat on her new diet. I previously tried her with Rabbit and she turned her nose up but I thought it might have been because there was still a bit of fur on the meat. But I tried a really tasty looking piece yesterday but she won't go near it. I need to get the camera out for some more photos as Gemma is looking so nice and trim. The only treats she has now are dried sprats and she doesn't hound me for treats nearly so much. I think the new diet is much more satisfying for her.

Different Menus

Gemma has been on the full raw meaty diet now for a few months and thoroughly enjoying it. I thought that we were never going to find anything that she didn't like eating. However the latest new morsel of raw rabbit wasn't too popular. In the end I had to throw it away as she refused to eat it. She picked it up and considered it then dropped it. The other meal that she didn't take to much although she did eat it was a raw white fish mix. At the moment she is having minced lamb and tripe. She seems to find it okay but the smell is vile so I might not be getting that again. On the way back from a trip to Rye we stopped off at a butchers in Hastings who kindly chopped up a huge bag of bones for her. There were lamb and beef bones and a couple of marrow bones. The butcher was really excited to hear of a dog eating raw meat and bones. When we opened the bag at home we realised that although he had chopped the bones up some of them were still far too big for her. She could eat them but in the end the meal was really too much for such a small dog. Especially one who is trying to lose weight.

We have now invested in a meat cleaver so we can control the size of her meals much easier. Generally I have found that she prefers the bones not to be too big and I think this is reasonable for a dog with such a small mouth. She is happy to put quite a lot of effort into eating her dinner but at times I can just tell she needs a break from it and would prefer an easy meal (don't we all). One of the lamb bones from the Hastings butcher took her a whole hour to eat. She loved every minute of it but she could hardly move afterwards! I have worked out that she eats the raw minced fruit and vege only if it is dressed with something meaty. She probably would prefer to go without and only eat meat and fish but I think she needs some vege. One popular new addition to her diet is raw sprats. They are about 3 inches long and she has about 5 of them for a dinner. She really likes them and they make a nice change.

Overall we both agree that she appears to be healthier and happier on this diet. She has certainly lost weight and moves around easier now. One thing that I didn't realise is that she sleeps a lot more than she used to. I am guessing that her system needs the rest to digest the raw food. The great thing about the diet is much less poo and it is hard, not very smelly and not so vile to deal with. Not such foul dog breath and no trips to the vets for anal gland squeezing, yah! She seems to be much more excited at meal times as she never knows what she is going to get. It's great to be able to offer such a variety of food instead of only being able to choose from 3 or 4 different commercial dog food flavours.

Meaty Bones

The first day of raw meaty bones for dinner which consisted of half a chicken carcass. Gemma took to it very enthusiastically. She didn't like it in her bowl so I had to put it on the floor. We will need to sort out an eating area rather than just the bowl. I have read that raw food diets can be a bit messy. There was definitely no mess left over! She sniffed and sniffed afterwards to see if there was anything she had missed. Then just to be safe she gave the floor a lick. I purchased 7 chicken carcasses and 3 containers of frozen crushed fruit/vege mix for just over £3. This is so much cheaper than commercial food. Apparently for small dogs the raw food diet is cheaper but probably not so for larger dogs. She will have the chicken carcasses for a couple of weeks then I'll go back to Nurturing by Nature to discuss other types of bones that we could give her as part of a varied diet.

Snowy Beach

Okay, not to do with Raw Food Diets but might be of interest. Earlier in the winter when it snowed we had a wonderful walk down to the beach. It was very strange seeing our beach covered in snow. Gemma had to have her coat on which she is never very impressed with although I think she quite enjoys being warm and snug in it. Last winter she went to go for a paddle in her favourite pond at Hengistbury Head but it had iced over so she had to learn to ice skate very quickly. She almost made it to the other side before the ice cracked and she had a wee dip. She loved it all and is so confident now it is great to see.

Saturday

Went to Nurturing by Nature today to get Gemma's next step meals. Frozen minced lamb (with some chicken). Also dried sprats for low cal treats (yum but stinky!). She has her first day today without any 'dog food' at all. To lose weight she can only have about 90 to 100gms of food all day. This will be a bit of a shock but hopefully the extra taste might counterbalance the small portion. Will keep you posted. She starts on the lamb mix on Wednesday, a week after beginning the new regime.