Elli had a little lamb, a little beef, a little yam...

Reviewing Week One of the dinner time raw diet:

Last week I started feeding Elli a raw dinner. Ian too, but he's been staying at Grammy's house for the last week during Elli's fertile time (both to prevent an Oops! and to keep his brain from seeping completely out of his penis), so I don't know how he has done with it. Mom hasn't reported any mishaps, so I'm assuming no news is good news.

So far Elli's had boneless chicken thigh (lightly seared on the outside but not cooked through), beef ribs with meat, lamb with some bone in, and stew beef. She's also had some brown rice cooked in chicken broth, sweet potato, peas, yogurt, blueberries, apples and cottage cheese.

Elli certainly seems to be enjoying the new meal plan, especially the lamb: my husband had cut the lamb steak up into about six pieces for her, then went into the living room. She trotted in with a piece, ate it, then went back into the kitchen for another, and brought that into the living room. After about the third piece, she started to bring the chunks in and "hunt" them -- she'd set it down, pounce at it, bark a couple of times, pick it up and throw it in the air, pounce on it again, and then finally eat it. She did the same with chunks 5 and 6. Elli Mae, Mighty Hunter of (already dead) Lamb!!! If only my husband had thought to grab the camera!

The only down side I've seen so far was a little diarrhea Saturday morning, but that cleared up by midday when she had a normal stool. Then at about 3:30 this morning I heard her whining, which is unusual, so I got up and took her out and she had some diarrhea again. She is otherwise fine though, bright-eyed, bushy-tailed and full of the devil, so I'm going to attribute it to an adjustment period and not go into a panic or anything.

I always have plenty of bones around the house and the dogs are pretty voracious chewers, but having the ribs to gnaw on has kept Elli chewing for much of the past few days, so she's got some gorgeous pearly whites going. Another benefit to the new diet: I don't need to do any teeth-brushing. Not that the corgis are bad about it -- they just sort of look at me when I'm done like, "Huh. That was weird." But it's nice not to have to do it!

So in review, I'd say the results are mainly positive. If I have many more nights of getting up at 3:30 I may revise that opinion, but so far so good.

And, plus: Lamb Hunter!!

I hope this doesn't bode ill for any potential herding career. o_O