Raw for one, kibble for the other?

[Laurie, Wally & Charlotte]

Does anyone have experience in feeding a raw diet to one dog and kibble to the other?  Wally eats Primal's frozen raw food, primarily because of issues with yeast.  We're going to be getting a puppy soon (yea!) and are thinking about feeding him a dry kibble.  Convenience and cost are considerations. Thanks for your input.

[michele, puddy & milo]

Laurie - I do it with my cats. Our older one has digestive issues that seemed to be fixed by switching to Nature's Variety raw frozen patties. Because of the cost, when we got our second kitten, we tried her on a less expensive canned food. I have to separate them because the younger one will finish her's super fast and then run over to eat everyone else's food (including the dogs) - but other than that it has been no big deal for us. I suspect though that you will have a more difficult time with a kibble v. raw food unless you put some kind of topper on the kibble. Unless, maybe if you feed them totally separately.

[Amy, Cubbie & Ollie]

I think it will depend on the personality of your dogs.  Ollie will eat anything put in front of him regardless of what Cubbie is eating.  If I give Cubbie a topper I give some to Ollie too but that has more to do with my guilt than anything else.  Now on the other hand, if Ollie were the only dog to get something special, Cubbie would have a complete fit about it.  If you want to feed 2 different types of food, I would agree that it would be easiest to do so if they were separated from each other.

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

I know that Jane is feeding Honest Kitchen dehydrated raw to Murphy and has put Guinness back on a homecooked diet. When she first got Murph as a puppy, he was eating kibble and Guinness was eating a homecooked diet and there was no problem. I think Murph got a spoonful of the homecooked food on top of his kibble and that appeased him.You might try doing that with the pup, adding a little bit of the Primal as a topper for the kibble if the new puppy seems too interested in Wally's food.

[Jane, Guinness and Murphy]

That's exactly what we did for quite a while.  Murph had kibble and Guinness had home cooked food.  Because I put a little of the home cooking on top of the kibble, Murph thought he was getting the same thing.  Now Murph is on the dehydrated raw and Guinness is back on home cooking.  Murph definitely has noticed that Guinness is eating something different, but he knows that he can not go near that dish.  If Guinness doesn't finish I hold the dish and let Murph finish it. He will wait for me to offer it to him, even after Guinness has walked away. Both of my guys understand that I control the food, so we really have no issues.

[Jess and Pippin]

We do this too.  Kylie gets raw (older dog) and Pippin gets kibble (got him as a pup).  We had to tether Pippin when he was a new pup and feed Kylie away from him so he wouldn't charge her dish.  He eats much faster than Kylie, so he had a bad habit of gobbling his food and then going after hers.   Kylie is a  7 pound maltese who needed some help keeping Pippin away from her dinner.  It just took time and patience (and persistence and having the whole family on the same page) to train him to stay away from her food (went from tethering, to leashing, to having to sit beside Kylie and tell him no, and then gradually move them closer to each other) and now they eat side by side without too much supervision from us. We just trained Pippin right from the start that he was not allowed to eat from Kylie's dish.  I've never had to worry about toppers etc because Pip is a great eater.  We just made sure we put him on a good quality kibbled food.  Once the evening feeding is done, both dogs come to whoever fed them for a training session and a treat.  Great way to end dinner time.