Raw Food Diet, Day 5- Preparing the Feast

Sometimes my humans leave me and my brother at home and go outside and come back with a huge feast of raw meat. I have no idea where they get this feast because when I go outside looking for it, it is not there. Kind of suspicious, don't you think? Anyway, today my humans arrived home with the feast and laid it out on the kitchen island putting it in little baggies instead of in my mouth. Being in the presence of this amount of raw meat put me into a meat rage. I picked a fight with my brother, thrashed my stuffed lemur toy, and barked like a beast until I was put in time-out. When I was released from time-out, the raw feast was neatly packed away into the meat locker -- I presume for future consumption. My question is, why can't we eat now? And why do I always have to wear that weird dish towel snood on my head while I am feasting on raw meat and bones? And why do I have to go into my feasting cage? This preparation for feasting is making me crazy. First packing it all up, and then when it is actually time to feast, pulling it out, weighing it, scooping yogurt into my bowl, shoveling some blended veggies on top, throwing some digestive enzymes in there, breaking up chicken wings.

Just feed me, humans! I am a hungry boy!

Feed me,

Stanislaw

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cleaning hints:

It is often far more economical to purchase your meats at wholesalers and butchers. For those that feed larger dogs and/or have lots of freezer space, purchasing things like chicken wings by the crate (usually about 40lbs at a time) can save lots of money. More money saved means more meat, so let your humans know!

When your people come home with these large meat purchases, please try to contain yourself. I could barely stand still but my brother -- he practically became a wild animal. Keep in mind that if you are to feast properly in the future, your people must get everything set and organized. Some humans like to spread the meat parts on cookie sheets and freeze them, so that they may all be placed in a bag together and they can easily pick out one wing or neck at a time without having them frozen into a solid mass. My humans don't have the space for this, so they will set everything out on the island, and with their little kitchen scale they will measure out daily rations for each of us. A day or meal's-worth of chicken wings for me will go into a baggie with a big "A" on it, while Stanislaw's get a big "S" on the package. Our humans will set our next day's feeding in the refrigerator the morning before so that it may thaw. It is very important to never microwave bone-in meats. This can be extremely dangerous to you. If food isn't quite defrosted by dinner time, I have seen my humans place the frozen pieces in some hot water and give it a little time to warm up. It doesn't take long, but it feels like forever to me!

Because my brother and I have long, floppy, hairy ears, we must wear our little dish towel snoods every time we eat so that we don't drag anything through our raw feast. Commercial snoods are available, but if you don't have one at home, they're easy to make with an old, soft dish towel, gently wrapped around the ears and secured with a hair elastic. Make sure these are washed regularly, as they often catch lots of feasting residue.

We have our snoods put on and then we are each put into our own tiny "feasting cage." These are little areas that not only separate us and stop us from arguing over our tasty dinners, but they also prevent us from taking our raw wings and necks to our favorite chewing spots -- the sofa and arm chair. Underneath our little area is a vinyl table cloth that makes clean-up really easy, and doesn't absorb any goodness that may have fallen. This means some tasty lickings for you after you're done eating.

When we are done with our meal, our mom wipes our mouths with unscented, hypoallergenic baby wipes to make sure that we don't carry any feasting juices away from our eating areas. I know I love nothing more than a post-feast, celebratory thrashing on the sofa, and so I get an extra good wipe-down every meal. Once we're clean and set free from our cages, our humans will disinfect the tablecloth and clean up anything that came in contact with the raw meat. Make sure they use a cleaner that kills salmonella and e. coli, otherwise your humans might get sick. Can you imagine that? I can't believe they don't feast with us, let alone avoid the germs! Our bowls are cleaned after each meal with an antibacterial dish soap, and sometimes our mom will spray down the meat locker handles (refrigerator), faucet handle, garbage and our cage bars with lysol just to make sure there are no creepy crawlies growing on there.