Feeding a sensitive shepherd

This is our Zachary (left).  Actually, he's Clay's Zachary.  Clay let him lay on the sofa with him when we got him and they bonded immediately. 

We got him as a pup and he should have been adopted right away.  However, he looked like this (right) when we got him and no one wanted him.  In addition to being nothing but skin and bones, he had black splotches all over, some sort of fungal infection due to poor nutrition and unsanitary living conditions. 

The black spots cleared up quickly with a dip but it soon became apparent that both he and his father (we took in 3 from the same source), had some sort of digestive problem.  The prior owners had split and the husband ended up with the dogs but he didn't feed them much or take care of them.  Even when we increased their food, the pup and his father, Riker, had trouble gaining weight. 

We tested them for worms, of course, and did blood tests and other veterinary work up.  We tried the pancreatic enzyme supplement, because that is a typical shepherd problem, but still had two skinny dogs. 

I began to investigate and experiment with raw food diets.  Their stools firmed up and they began to put on weight.  Zachary grew, but we kept him because he was Clay's dog by that time.  Riker was adopted to a wonderful home who found a dry food (Life's Abundance) that worked well for him.  We used it for a while too, but it was about $60 a bag and had to be shipped via UPS.  I think the key factor about that dog food is that it is grain-free, no corn, wheat, rice, barley, etc.  Other grain-free foods came on the market and we found that a mixture of that, with some raw food, did the trick for Zachary. 

I'm writing about all this now because this weekend we re-stocked the raw food elements of Zach's diet.  Clay was conveniently out of town for this rather messy and unpleasant procedure.  We order chicken backs from a local store, 25 pounds at a time, and they need to be re-packaged to about 6 in a bag because he eats just one a day and I don't want to keep them in the refridgerator for more than 6 days.  They are fed raw. 

The other raw food part of Zach's diet is a prepared raw food made by Bravo.  It is basically ground up chicken frames, all the bones and other parts that remain after the useable parts of the chicken have been removed.  It comes frozen in 10 lb. rolls.  We thaw it out and re-package it.  It sort of looks like hamburger (no recognizable chicken parts), but it's wetter and more sloppy.  Yum. 

He gets about a cup of the dry food, a half cup or more of the raw food, and one chicken back each day.  He has to eat this concoction someplace private because he's a shy eater, he eats slowly, and our other dogs would steal the tasty bits from him.  The raw chicken back inevitably gets drug out of the bowl, so he eats outside.  It's all very carnivorous and disgusting to see, but it does the trick for his digestive system.