My Story

I understand very well how difficult it is to find a correct information about proper and sustainable feeding for the dogs online, I went through that 4 years ago.

Since I experienced such problematic, I decided to create a blog myself in order to help, support and suggest a healthy and well balanced lifestyle for our furry family members. And help owners to create a balanced diet for their furry family members (including possible problematics in digestion).

Please note that all my advises are written from my own experience. Dogs are just like humans, have their individual balanced food needs, everything depends on the genetics, at what age puppies were removed from their mother, in what surrounding they were living before they came to your family and of course chronically pathologies (kidney problems, heart conditions, sensitive digestive tract, etc.).

I was preparing for a long time to get a dog. By that time i lived in Switzerland and i was sure that the breeders are taking a very good care about the health of their dogs and their puppies. When i came to look for a sibling of Rocky, he ran out and immodestly got my heart. The part that worried me is that he was a mini breed (and i know that they can be very sensitive almost about anything, new food, stress, and so on).

I was so happy that i found him, that i didn’t worry about asking the breeder about his roots (i was sure that i can call her again, it is very normal practice to have a follow up). When the next day Rocky started having diarhea i headed to the vet. There i found out that Rocky was one of the rare cases in Switzerland of how dogs are turned into business. He was taken to Switzerland illegal and i assume at a very young age (less than 3 months).

I did anti parasite treatments and also he had to go through antibiotic treatment. For a 3 months old puppy with a weight of 600 grams all of this was of course very heavy on his organism. With a vet i learned about how to feed him properly when he starts getting digestive problems (we had to use medical canned or dry food Gastrointestinal). By that period of time i knew nothing about industrial pet food and didn’t even consider to read, because it was helping. Lucky for me i wasn’t using it very often. Most of the time Rocky was eating canned homemade food made with high source of proteins, veggies, berries, fruits and some grains.

Everything was going well until Rocky passed a 6 years. Mini breeds are very temperament and stressed breeds. Very often at the age of 6 they start developing heart problems and this what have happened in our case in 2019.

Before COVID started in 2019, i came with Rocky to my parents to Russia. There problems started even more. New food, canned food he was used to was not possible neither to buy nor to order. Rocky started having digestive problems again. I was very lucky that i got recommended a veterinarian who diagnosed a 2nd stage of heart disease in Rocky.

We started the treatment. Cardiologist told me that dogs with such disease have unpredictable span of life even on medications, maybe 1-2 years, maybe 5, everything is very individual. I was very upset, Rocky was with me everywhere I go from the day I took him from the breeder. We traveled through the whole Europe, some parts of Russia and he was following me on all of my work exhibitions. All my business partners knew him and loved him. He always had his stylische pullovers created by our friend and designer Vincenzo Brandonisio and he knew how to behave around people. Of course for me such news were very dramatic.

That was the moment when i decided to change my life 360 degree and do all i can to make life of Rocky more healthy and more happy. I started to read about BARF feeding. As you can imagine, feeding a German Shepard raw and feeding mini chihuahua raw can be two different things, mainly due to the raw bones which are a very important part of dogs’ diet, this is how they get their Calcium and Phosphorus ration in an appropriate quantities.

Rocky weights 2.2 kg, he is very sportive and always had this weight, but chewing on a bone without my control was not possible due to teeth problems, so i had to find a way how to make his diet balanced according to his needs.

Difficulty was a transaction period, after being few months on Gastrointestinal Petfood we had to start slowly (here you can read on how to make transition from kibble to raw).

This pulled me in so much, that i started reading, learning, experimenting, observing, taking small steps to a balanced diet for dogs with sensitive digestion and food allergies.

Glad to say, Rocky is 11 years old now, of course he is still on his daily medications, but his analysis are like if he has no heart conditions. Of course new valve cannot regrow back, but his heart is not swollen and lungs too, and no inflammations. Our cardiologist was observing us all this period and he saw a huge progress from the moment i started feeding Rocky raw diet (witching 6 months his condition changed to a positive dynamic).

I started noticing that he became more active, his fur became much shinier and silky, he is acting like if he is 5. My second mini chihuahua, Umka, is also on a raw diet (she was lucky, her transition period was very short because i took her one year before we found out Rocky’s heart problem).

With Umka i also noticed significant differences in her appearance. She is a little chubby and more bulky than her siblings and she is always hungry, always. So i had to adopt a diet for her that will make her feel fuller without using useless components (industrial dog food is filled with filler that have only one purpose make a dog full, owners spend more money and by something we think is balanced, but in reality its like for us eating a carton spiced up by vitamins, minerals and aromas that actually include burned sugar).

With proper diet Umka got less chubby and got very lean shapes. She is not very proportional because her chest is very bulky her back legs are short, so with more weight it was difficult for her to jump or run.