Raising Markus is the series where we share stories about our time raising Markus. Said to be aggressive and having gone unadopted for over a year, Raising Markus is the story of a rescued dog from Korea given a second opportunity, now in Vancouver, Canada. This series will include the lessons, joys and struggles of dog owners fumbling our way through our first adoption. The hope is that if you're considering rescuing a dog of your own, our stories are useful to you.

Since our last update, we’ve had the opportunity to visit some popular parks in Vancouver - Pacific Spirit Regional Park and Queen Elizabeth Park. The two of these parks are very different in nature and we had a blast visiting them with our dog friends. We’re also providing an update on Markus’ transition to the raw diet, including some little bonuses that were unexpected, but I'm not complaining.

Pacific Spirit Regional Park

If you’re looking for a trail to do in Vancouver, let me be the first to recommend the Pacific Spirit Regional Park. Located near the University of British Columbia area, this park is composed of several trails that cut through a forest to give you your daily dose of nature. 

This combination of trails gives you the ability to map and decide on the length of your walk ahead of time. For dog owners, there are a number of trails where leashes are required and others where leashes are optional. If your dog is like Markus and they’re not comfortable with dogs approaching them straight on while off-leash, you might want to pay close attention to the leash-required trails.

Whether it's other dog owners, runners or cyclists, the park gets pretty busy depending on the time of day or week you’re going. If your dog is reactive, you'll likely want to go earlier in the morning or later in the evening. The few times we've gone during those times have been generally pretty calm.

The Pacific Spirit Regional Park is a great way to experience the Pacific Northwest and you can read our breakdown of our time and what you can expect if you’re an owner of a reactive dog.

Queen Elizabeth Park

We go from the trail-type park of the Pacific Spirit to Queen Elizabeth Park - a city park known around the world for their beautifully landscaped gardens of flowers and trees. Depending on the season, you'll experience the many, yet distinctive, vibrant colours and smells throughout the park.

As opposed to a trail walk, the walk around Queen Elizabeth Park is mostly on the sidewalk with paved paths going into the park and around the gardens. While dogs are certainly allowed here, we need to also be mindful of where we're taking them so they don't do any damage to the landscaped gardens.

You can read more about our experience at the Queen Elizabeth Park including the path that we normally like to take!

Small Benefits to the Raw Food Diet

It's been a few weeks since we switched Markus to the raw food diet. We made the switch over Christmas while we were home and available to monitor him throughout the day in case the raw food didn't sit well with him.

We're happy to report that the diet has been going really well and Markus has been loving his food. With his dry dog food, Markus was consistently not finishing his food to the point that we felt like he wasn't eating enough. With the raw food diet, Markus has yet to leave any food in his bowl. He loves it so much that he'll even lick the bowl clean!

One unexpected perk of the raw food diet has been the size of the poops. Since raw food come without the fillers in kibble, a dog's body is naturally more able to absorb more of the nutrients of the raw diet and what remains are these small poops. 

When we first put Markus on the diet, I remember seeing the poop and thinking there's got to be more, so we gave him an extended walk so that he would poop out the rest. Nothing more ended up coming out and overtime, we realized these little poops were the new norm.

It's important to make sure your dog has a strong portion of fibre in their diet for this same reason. Generally, crushed bone or vegetables are blended into the raw meat that you can purchase. Without the fibre and depending on how your dog's stomach digests the raw meat, you might find their poops to be rather dry and crumbly.

Dry and crumbly poops aren't comfortable for your dog and (I'd imagine) the feeling is not unlike constipation. The bone and vegetable keeps it intact, which is important because a solid poop pushing against the walls naturally help express the anal glands. If you've recently switched to a raw diet and you find that your dog is licking their bottom more or scooting around the floor, you might have to introduce more fibre into their diet.

To remedy this, if we find that his poop is starting to getting too dry and crumbly, we add a spoonful of pure pumpkin to his diet (make sure you're not getting the pie filling!). This will give your dog some relief and it'll keep the poop intact so that it can express the anal glands. Adding bone and vegetables to the raw diet helps as well and you can find raw dog food that has everything you need blended together for you already.

We've been feeding Markus on the raw chicken, bone and vegetable diet from CRUDO by Surrey Meat Packers for the past month or so. 

We’re so grateful for your support of The Markus Project. We mostly choose our locations through searching and word of mouth. If you know of a park, trail or location you think we should check out, please share it with us. We’d love to know!