Dog shivers with cold after eating raw

[shingigz]

My 6 lb chihuahua has wet food in the morning, and Natures Menu raw nuggets in the evening.  I defrost the raw nuggets in the morning by putting them in the fridge until his dinner at 7 pm.  I take them out of the fridge for an hour before serving, but they are still over-cold.  Some of the varieties are still a little icy after the hour, and some are mushy, but he scoffs them all up and enjoys them all.  He shivers for a while after the food hits his stomach.  I feel mean.  Does anyone have the same problem at this time of year?  I'm thinking of going back to all-wet until the spring.

[Dottie]

I can understand why he is shivering due to ingestion of cold food. The feeling of chill after a cold drink or food occurs in humans too. I can only suggest that the food is taken out of the refrigerator  earlier or maybe scald it with a small amount of hot water. My dogs have fresh cooked food and the first meal is straight from the refrigerator but it is just 60% meat and is a small amount. I haven’t seen them shivering.  The remaining food is served at room temperature as I leave it in the kitchen in a covered container.

[shingigz]

I am wary of leaving raw, defrosted, or mostly-defrosted, food outside of the fridge for more than an hour due to bacteria multiplying, and I keep my home cooler than most people seem to so the food will not get warm enough to prevent him from shivering.  He's so tiny and, though long-haired, his stomach is relatively hairless, so he does soon feel the cold.

I'll try adding small amount of hot water to soften and warm the nuggets that retain ice crystals.  Maybe I could get away with leaving those out for two hours at this time of the year...  I'll try doing that first.  If this doesn't work I'll go back to wet for the winter and do what I do with his refrigerated wet-food breakfast on cold mornings, which is microwave it for 10 seconds on 40% power.  This works better than leaving the wet food out for an hour as then he can smell it while he is hungry, which frustrates him.

[Rebecca Forrest]

you could have a look at the pure dehydrated dog food , which is a good food, you put warm water into it to re hydrate it just a thought.

[shingigz]

Thanks.  I think the raw is better for him - just don't want him to have a cold tum - but I always appreciate suggestions and I would prefer him to have something warm to eat, ideally. 

Tonight I took his raw out of the fridge for two hours, and there has been no shivering.  It was the duck variety, which thaws quicker than some.  I reckon two hours is the equivalent of half an hour or so in the summer, in which case I may not need to worry about leaving it out for two hours in the winter months.   

[Tinyplanets]

My dog is usually okay with it straight from the fridge if it has been in for a couple of days  but if it seems very cold or is only just thawed, I add a little boiled and cooled to a warm temperature, water, just before I serve it.  I also tend to add cooked veg and sometimes rice or quinoa to the food which I mix in warm just before serving. That warms it a little too. I would be wary of leaving food sitting at room temperature for too long.

[shingigz]

The only vegetables I cook regularly are broccoli and cauliflower, but they would not be warm by the time I gave him his dinner.  A few weeks ago, I added a floret of broccoli (unsalted) to his dinner and he vomited heavily the following morning (and I stood in it!), so it put me off doing this.  He loves to eat a small piece of uncooked broccoli or cauliflower every time I prepare it though which is four times a week.

My home is never hot in the winter, so I hope that two hours max outside the fridge (in winter) is not too long for food that has only been inside the fridge for 8 hours from frozen...  I don't think I can put hot water on some of the nuggets as they go extremely soft anyway when thawing/thawed, but for the venison nuggets which remain firmer and icy, I will try adding a dash to experiment.

[shingigz]

The Wolf Tucker website states that: "You should never defrost frozen meat products at room temperature as this encourages bacteria growth." And it later reaffirms: "Remember, you should never defrost raw meat at room temperature."

The Natures Menu website states that: "Our nuggets ... may take up to 2 hours at room temperature to defrost." 

The latter assumes that they are taken straight from the freezer though, as opposed to being placed in the fridge for several hours first.  I guess that the time of year and warmth of surroundings is critical, and that you should always err on the side of caution. 

I feed straight from the fridge in Spring, summer and autumn.  The shivering is a very recent occurrence which tells me the food is just too cold for his stomach at the moment and hasn't defrosted enough.

Having thought about it, I will leave his food out of the fridge in the winter months only for one hour max, and add a little hot water to any nuggets that still have ice crystals.