diarrhea in huskies

Question
can you tell me more about raw food for my huskies? I have one that has chronic diarrhea  and have heard that giving my huskies a raw food diet would help her a great deal.

Answer
It is not something that I do on a regular basis for my dogs, but it can be a great help.  Sibernet-L is a listserv that has several raw feeders on the mailing list that are an AMAZING help.  I would suggest a subscription there and emailing the group about your desire for more info.  It is a very active and helpful mailing list (I suggest subscribing on DIGEST mode unless you can monitor your email account 8-10 hours a day).  They I think would give substantial help.

As for some advice for now, keep in mind that diarrhea can be caused by over-feeding your dog and Siberians are well known for having extremely efficient metabolisms that often don't require as much food as most other dogs and substantially less than what is often recommended on the back of a bag of food.  To give you an idea, I feed my dogs one cup of food per day, and that's it.  The bag I think recommends 4-5 cups.  Try reducing the feeding some and keep an eye on stools - you should notice them firm up some if that's the problem.

Also, Siberians do well and sometimes require a higher protein/fat diet than other dogs.  In fact, one of the most well known kennel lines in the United States had some substantial problems with diarrhea until they found that adding a tablespoon or so of raw meat with the kibble seemed to calm the stomachs down.  if you do go to raw feeding, start small and just slowly work it in with the kibble feeding.  Maybe reduce the kibble amount some and add a little raw meat every once in a while.  My personal preference is that it can be expensive, so I decide to supplement instead of complete raw food diet.

Hope that helps some, and I would definitely try the kibble reduction if you are feeding anything more than about a cup or two of food per day.  You might see some improvement there.  Feel free to write back with any questions and if you decide to go the raw route or need more info on it, check out Sibernet.