NEVER. AGAIN.

[juliet]

OK, so, after asking about pans to cook up Finlayfood in, I thought "come on, get over yourself, the pressure cooker has had meat cooked in it before" (it used to belong to my parents).

So I defrosted the bones[0], gave one raw to Fin, and chucked the rest in the pan to stew for 3 hrs.

Turns out that whilst I can handle Finlay tackling a nice raw bone whilst lying on the (linoleum, washable) floor next to me, I cannot really handle 3 HOURS of SMELLY HORRIBLE bones stewing on the stove. Ew ew ew ew. I am starting to feel a little unwell. Plus then you have to dispose of them (hopefully in Marna's bokashi compost) whereas if you just give him them raw, then he disposes of them in his stomach. WHICH IS MUCH TIDIER, being as how it is *inside* of Finlay & thus pleasingly invisible.

(It was a smallish bone this time, but still. Crunch crunch crunch industriously for half an hr, then CRUNCH CRUNCH and a funny gulping sound, and no more bone. I was kind of impressed.)

So. This time, I have a big pan of rice, lentils, carrot, & marrow (well, we weren't going to eat the damn marrow) in bone stock. Next time, he can have the bones neat, and the rice & lentils will be veggie.

ew ew ew ew ew. there are still bones in the sink, cooling off. EW.

[0] free from the traceable-meat organic butcher at Borough Market.

Comments

[laughingrat]

Ah yes, the trouble with pet carnivores. Well, you're definitely doing right by him by giving him healthy whole foods!

[juliet]

Previously we've been feeding him organic dry kibble, but I'm not entirely happy with that so want to try to change at least *some* of his diet to stuff with a smaller environmental footprint, broadly speaking. Plus, the closer what he's eating (in terms of food quality, ethics, & traceability) is to what I'm prepared to eat myself, the happier I am.

But yeah. I reckon separating out the "high-quality bones" part of this from the "cooking stuff up" part is a better plan :)

[bootpunk.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. Our dogs were vegetarian (but no doubt with added animal protein to their feed) for the last few years I spent at my folks'. We did give them the very occasional bone to chew on. But by and large they got by (and very well indeed) on their pseudo-vege diet.

[juliet]

Yeah, dogs aren't obligate carnivores so it's perfectly possible to feed them a veggie or primarily veggie diet. (Vegan is a bit harder b/c they do have quite high protein requirements compared to humans.) I wasn't v impressed with any of the veggie/organic veggie dry kibble on the market, though. So, time to self-construct!

(The thought with the bones was that the previous time he had one, he got only a tiny way into it before we had to take it away; so I figured we could avoid wasting it by turning it into stock. BAD PLAN.)

[friend-of-tofu.livejournal.com]

Hm, I think at that point I would just be giving him large vegetable (carrots, daikon, etc) to gnaw on, and sticks! I would certainly not want to be boiling bones on my stove, so I'm impressed you stuck it.

[juliet]

Much to my irritation he doesn't like raw vegetables! Wretched animal.

(I wouldn't be prepared to buy bones; but the ones we get are given away for free b/c butchers can't sell their 'waste' bones as they're not graded for either human or animal consumption. So it's Finlay or the landfill...)

[friend-of-tofu.livejournal.com]

Bah! Naughty dog.

I don't have any problem with re-using waste products at all, I think it's good to get him a bone in that instance. It was the bone boiling I was making faces at! Were you boiling them for sterilisation purposes?

(Can you crush them later to use in the allotment?)

[juliet]

What happened was: we got a bunch of bones from the organic butcher, & froze them to dish out later, & then they all froze in a lump so all had to be defrosted at once. So I figured to use them post-defrosting (since you oughtn't to refreeze meat) by making stock. (Plus I was expecting him to leave some bits of bone behind & wanted to use those.)

Next time we freeze separately :)

They've gone in Marna's bokashi compost which can take meat & dairy.

[friend-of-tofu.livejournal.com]

Argh! Oh well, rookie mistake I guess, you know now.

What would you use bone stock *for*, though?

What is this bokashi compost? Is it like an industrial composter, wot councils use?

[juliet]

For making Finlay-food! After 3 hrs I fished the bones out, put in rice, lentils, & a couple of diced carrots & a marrow cut into chunks, & cooked it all up for another 45 min or so. I now have 5 x Finlay-sized dinners in boxes in the freezer. (Another time I can use veggie stock & thus a bigger pan & make a week's worth.) He likes this much more than kibble.

Bokashi compost - basically it uses micro-organisms of some variety to pickle the waste & turn it into compost faster. You can put cooked food, meat, & dairy in as well as the standard compost-type stuff, & it doesn't smell/attract flies so can happen inside.

[friend-of-tofu.livejournal.com]

Wow, awesome, I didn't know about bokashi! Very interesting, thank you. I wonder - and perhaps M would know? - would the bokashi composting system work for otherwise uncompostable veg, like onions, chilis, citrus, etc?

Sorry, I misunderstood how the F-food was being made. Sounds like a really good way of using up leftovers and reducing waste, if you ask me. Does he like lentils then?

[juliet]

Onions & citrus are compostable! Just not good for worms & not good in large quantities. (We put them in the allotment compost with no bother.) Bokashi copes with everything AFAIK.

Finlay + lentils = Finlay + gromph gromph noises :)

[friend-of-tofu.livejournal.com]

Oh right. I avoid putting them in my compost cos I've read advice about not doing so, they mess up the ph balance, etc. That said, I only have a dalek bin, and I don't think it's composting very well even without such things :-(

Thanks for the advice, as always.

[adjectivegail]

Am doing this on phone so appols for brevity but please reassure me that giving him bones is okay?! I basically killed family dog with one, about a year ago when it splintered in her stomach. would hate you to have to go through similar. xxxxx

[juliet]

My research indicates that raw bones are fine, but cooked ones of any sort are definitely not. (News to me; I thought that that was only chicken bones.) For a big dog, you want biggish bones b/c with small bones (e.g. chicken wings, even raw, for a dog of Finlay's size) they're more likely to try to gromph the whole thing down in one rather than settling down to chew.

(edit:) Sorry, I meant to add - I'm really sorry to hear about your family dog. That sounds awful.