You know, until reading the posts just now, it never even occurred to me that the BARF diet might be a good choice for my mom's dog. He's a Pom/Chihuahua mix foster (hopefully a permanent adoption soon) that was taken from a woman in Sanford, NC last year during a HUGE puppy mill bust. The woman had almost 400 dogs, if memory serves me, all of them in deplorable condition. A large number had to be put down immediately, and the majority of the rest have been left with serious problems. Blind, no teeth, no jaw, three legs, tumors, birth defects, etc...
Anyway, back to my point. We knew about this bust (and this little guy, Toby) because we volunteered at the shelter where they were housing about 50 of the dogs, and when ALDF gave the okay to foster out the dogs until the court case went through (still hasn't happened), we took Toby. My mother fell in love with him, though, so he lives with her now.
He has been plagued with problems from day 1, and the vet has finally said definitively (as I suspected from the beginning) that he has an immune deficiency that causes his body to attack itself periodically. When I got him, he had an infection that was eating the pads of his feet, and something has eaten away at his ears to the point that he's missing chunks that will never grow back. Horrible skin problems...everything. It's a constant battle to keep him eating, let alone healthy; although I must admit, my mother has done WONDERS with him, both physically and "emotionally".
What do you all think? Do you think it would be worth trying a raw diet? He's only about 5lbs...VERY SMALL...so of course bones would have to be carefully monitored. Might help, though, eh? Right now, he's on Prednisone daily (for forever) and antibiotics just about once a month, and they help only marginally.