Transitioning Dogs and Cats to Raw Food
The single most common mistake when moving a pet onto raw food is doing it overnight. Their stomach acid, gut bacteria, and digestive enzymes are tuned to whatever they've been eating for the last few months — often kibble — and a hard switch usually means a couple of unpleasant days for both of you. The good news is the fix is simple: take 7 to 10 days, mix the two foods, and let their body catch up. Most dogs and cats are eating 100% raw by day ten with zero drama.
Here's the ramp we recommend, the small things that are normal to see, and the few signs that mean you should slow down.
A simple 10-day schedule
Think of this as the default. If your pet has a sensitive stomach you can stretch each phase by a day or two — there's no rush.
- Days 1 through 3 — about 25% new raw food, 75% of whatever they've been eating. Mix it together in the bowl, don't serve them in two halves.
- Days 4 through 6 — bump to a 50/50 split. Most pets are happily eating both proteins by now.
- Days 7 through 9 — flip it: 75% new, 25% old. You're nearly there.
- Day 10 onward — 100% raw, assuming stool and energy still look normal.
If anything looks off — soft stool that lasts more than a day, vomiting, or a pet just refusing to eat — drop back to the last ratio that agreed with them and hold there for a few extra days before moving up again. There's no penalty for going slow. The goal is "comfortably on raw," not "on raw by Friday."
Why the slow ramp actually matters
Stomach acid for a kibble-fed dog or cat is quite a bit weaker than what you'd find in their wild relatives. That's not a problem — kibble is mostly cooked starch and doesn't need much acid to break down — but raw protein and bone do. Give the body a week or so and the pH drops, the digestive enzymes catch up, and the gut microbiome shifts. Skip the ramp and you've put a bunch of unfamiliar protein into a digestive system that wasn't ready for it. Hence the bathroom drama.
Cats need a slightly different playbook
Cats are notorious. Most of them switch to raw the same way they do everything else — on their own terms. A few tactics that actually work:
- Warm the food slightly. Not cooked, just up to room temperature or a touch above. The aroma comes alive and that's usually what they're waiting for.
- Sprinkle a familiar topper — freeze-dried chicken, a pinch of their old kibble crushed, even a bit of tuna juice on day one. You can taper it off over the same 10 days.
- Don't free-feed during the transition. Pull the bowl after 20 minutes. A cat that knows food disappears tends to eat more enthusiastically than one who thinks the bowl is always there.
Dogs, by comparison, are easy. Most of them will inhale the new food on day one and look at you for more.
When to call your vet
Most transitions are uneventful, but a few situations are worth a phone call. If you see persistent vomiting (more than once or twice in a day), diarrhea that doesn't resolve within 48 hours of dropping back a ratio, lethargy lasting longer than a day, or a complete refusal to eat for more than two meals — that's not "transition stuff," that's a vet conversation. Same goes if your pet has a known medical condition (pancreatitis history, kidney disease, IBD) — talk to your vet before you start, not after.
We've never had a Denver customer who couldn't transition successfully, but a small handful needed an extra week or a different protein. We're easy to reach if you want a sanity check mid-ramp.