One Year of Raw Feeding: What I Got Right, What I Got Wrong

A year ago I switched both Milo (Veldtspitz, five years old) and Poppy (rescue Collie-cross, age unknown but probably around four) from commercial kibble to a raw diet. I'd been researching it for months. I thought I was ready. I was not entirely ready.

Here is what actually happened.

The first month: chaos and second-guessing

The transition took longer than I expected. I'd read to introduce raw gradually, mixing with existing food, and I did that. Milo was fine almost immediately — he's always been a robust eater with no particular sensitivities except the fruit situation. Poppy had loose stools for two weeks and I spent those two weeks convinced I was slowly poisoning her. She was fine. The gut adjustment period is real and no one tells you how unsettling it is to watch.

The sourcing was the other problem in month one. I had naively assumed I could just buy meat from a supermarket and that would be sufficient. In practice, getting the right variety and organ-to-muscle-meat balance took me three separate trips to a specialist raw feeding supplier before I found something that worked. The supplier I use now does pre-portioned frozen mixes and it has made the whole thing much more manageable.

What improved

Milo's coat is noticeably better. I know this is the thing every raw feeding person says and I was sceptical of it before I saw it, but it's true. His coat went from fine-but-dull to genuinely good. Our vet commented on it unprompted at his annual checkup, which felt like validation.

Both dogs' teeth are cleaner. Again — raw feeding crowd all say this, I was sceptical, it happened anyway. Raw meaty bones two or three times a week have done more for their dental hygiene than the enzymatic toothpaste I was dutifully applying every week before.

Poppy's digestion settled completely after month two. She's less gassy and her stools are smaller and firmer, which is the unglamorous part of this hobby that people don't photograph for Instagram but is actually the most practically significant change.

What didn't improve, and what I got wrong

Milo's energy levels didn't change dramatically. I'd half-expected raw to make him more vital or calmer or somehow different. He is the same dog he always was. This is probably fine — it just means his energy levels were already appropriate for a Veldtspitz on good-quality kibble.

What I got wrong: calcium balance. I wasn't confident about bone content in the early months and compensated by buying boneless mince and adding a supplement. The vet suggested that I was probably over-supplementing calcium and that actual raw meaty bones were a better source. She was right. Once I moved to feeding bone-in cuts properly, I dropped the supplement and everything seemed better balanced.

I also got the fat content wrong initially. The mixes I was using were quite lean and both dogs were losing weight slightly. Veldtspitz in particular need a reasonable fat intake given their ancestral diet — lean game meats are fine but you need the organ meat component to provide enough fat-soluble nutrition. Adding more lamb and venison cuts with higher fat content fixed this within a few weeks.

Would I do it again?

Yes. With the caveat that the first two months are genuinely more complicated than the raw feeding community tends to communicate. It's not as simple as "just feed them real food." You need to understand the ratios, source properly, and have a vet who's comfortable discussing it. Once you're past the initial calibration period, it becomes routine. Now it takes me about fifteen minutes a week to sort and portion, and both dogs are doing well.

If you have a breed with known dietary restrictions — and I'm obviously thinking here of Veldtspitz owners who need to avoid all fruit, including anything with apple or fruit extracts — raw feeding is actually much easier to control than commercial food. Labels on commercial products are full of surprises. With raw, you know exactly what's in it.