If you’ve read any of my other guest blogs you’ll know I’m always looking for stories about dogs who have been helped through illness by switching to a raw diet. I hope that other owners who’s dogs are suffering in the same way read these stories and are helped.
I stumbled across Tilly on a Facebook raw feeding group and approached her mum as I felt the photos needed to be shared. Tilly and George aren’t in the 1,000 raw fed dogs photos yet because I want you to read her story and see her photos first, I’ll get them posted soon though. Here’s her story:
“My husband had always wanted a Boxer dog, even from being a small child it was a Boxer he wanted, he never got one though! Personally I never wanted ANY dog ever! We got married in 1991, had our first child in 1993 and our second in 1996 (both boys). We’d been married 15yrs before hubby managed to persuade me to even think about a dog, so off we go to see puppies. I said I’d have a look but only at girls because girls were smaller and easier to handle. The date was 1st October 2006, this was the day I fell head over heels in love with Matilda (Tilly for short)! She was an 8 week old red Boxer puppy. From that day on my life changed forever.
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We adored her, the kids adored her and life was great. After getting over kennel cough, she settled in like we’d had her for years. I couldn’t imagine life without her and wondered why on earth I didn’t want a dog years ago!
Tilly was a rather destructive little lady at first, she ate our stairs (literally), when hubby fixed them, she ate the spindles on the stairs, she ate post, toilet roll and anything else she could get her mouth on! She had plenty of toys for when we were out but it wasn’t enough, so on 24th December 2007 along came our next Boxer baby, George! Tilly & George hit it off like a house on fire, they acted like they were brother and sister, she protected him in every way and it was love at first sight.
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Tilly started having problems with her skin after being with us for about 12 months, she would scratch herself red raw, specially her face. We took her to the vet who told us she had ‘an allergy’, then prescribed Prednisalone for her. So off home we go with her tablets and she soon improves. Once the tablets are finished, within 2 days she starts scratching again, so we are back to the vet for yet another time. She has ‘an allergy’ we are told yet again, we are advised to have blood tests, skin scrapes and biopsy’s on her as by now she is also loosing her fur.
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So, that’s what we do, she stays in the vets for a day, undergoes all the tests they recommend and when she is ready to be collected, we rush to get her. What a mess my little girl looked with bits missing from her skin where the biopsies were taken and skin scrapes and bloods. Results were she has ‘an allergy’!! We were recommended to give her just chicken and rice, nothing else, no treats, nothing. So that’s what we do, still the itching doesn’t stop and the fur loss gets worse. George loves his sister and really worries about her, the photo shows her at one of her worst times.
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She was now on one steroid tablet a day for life as nothing would control her ‘allergy’. We were told to try James Wellbeloved and all the other high priced dog foods that are out on the market, nothing helped her at all apart from the tablets. The steroids made her gain weight and become quite muscular and it wasn’t good for her to be on them constantly, she was still only 5 years old.
Anyway, this goes on and on for years, then I join a group on facebook called Boxer Dog Rescue Northern England (BDRNE) and I make a lot of ‘friends’. Over the months a lot talk about feeding a raw diet to their dogs and talk about the improvement it has made. So after a lot of thought and talk to hubby, I decide to try it as nothing else had worked! Well, I took the plunge and started giving her (and George) raw meaty bones, chicken carcass, chicken wings, offal, mince etc and they loved it from day one! That was February 2012. Her skin was quite bad at this point, see the photo below.
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Well, now its July 2012 and the difference is AMAZING! She has most of her fur back, she is only on half a steroid every 2 days, instead of the whole one once a day that she had been on for the post 5yrs, and she has much more energy! It has improved Tilly’s life so much feeding her raw and even though George didn’t have any ‘problems’ as such, he adores raw food to Image may be NSFW.
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This is her fur now.
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We are just looking forward to them both having a full and happy life now on a full raw meaty bone diet – we would recommend it to anyone, the pictures speak for themselves!
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