Markus the Escape Artist and the Raw Diet Thing
Markus wondering what type of shenanigans he’s going to get up to today at McDonald Beach Park
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.
On behalf of Markus and all of us, we wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy Holidays. We have a couple major updates this week about Markus' daring escape and switching him to a raw diet.
Markus the Escape Artist
Markus smiling at the park by McDonald Beach Park after escaping
One of our bigger fears with Markus finally happened: He attempted a daring escape.
First thing first: He's fine and we got him back. He wasn't missing for long, but those minutes of looking for him and watching him run further away weren't fun times.
Still, I can't say we didn't see this coming. In hindsight, there were definitely signs that he'd run off if given a reason. It was the third or fourth time we had taken Markus to McDonald Beach and you could see him gaining more confidence for every time that we had gone. For every visit, he would go off a bit further and it would get harder for us to corral him. This was the first sign.
People like to say that with McDonald Beach, it's "basically" enclosed because there aren't many places for the dog to go while off-leash. On the one side, you have a beach along the Fraser River, which goes down for a couple of kilometres. The other side is mostly fenced off and beyond the fence are trees and swampy lands. While the fences are technically there, they weren't very tall and maintained, which should have been the second sign.
The other thing in play here is that Markus has a very strong prey drive. Whether it's birds, squirrels or bunnies, Markus loves chasing other animals when he gets the chance. So it was the accumulation of all these things that led up to the moment Markus ran away from us.
When we got to the park, Markus was already going further down the beach. The areas that he once found interest in were no longer interesting to him and he just wanted to explore new territories further down. We were already struggling to call him back and then in an instant, we watched as a bird flew down low and Markus took off trying to catch it. The bird made a turn and flew towards the trees and without missing a beat, Markus hopped over the fence and into the trees.
From a distance, we tried to keep an eye on him as much as possible. We were able to pinpoint the general area, but he was quickly getting away from us. By this point, I needed to climb over the fence myself and there were a few minutes where we lost sight of him.
I just kept heading towards where I last saw him and would you have it: Markus was standing there chest-deep in the swampy water. Our saving grace was that Markus hates getting wet.
At some point, he must've lost sight of the bird and realized he was chest-deep in water and didn't know where to go from there. He probably, for the first time, realized that we weren't around anymore, so he just stopped not knowing what to do.
Wrecking a good pair of shoes, I stepped into the swamp and slowly worked my way towards Markus. I wasn't sure if I should be calling him and trying to lure him back with treats or if that would trigger him to take off again, so I just slowly walked towards him. He didn't seem interested in moving by that point anyways.
I caught up to him, put his leash back on and led him back to the beach so both of us could dry off.
At the end of the day, it was only a few minutes and we got him back fairly quickly. Now knowing exactly how strong his prey drive is and what fences mean to him, we'll be viewing our off-leash visits to McDonald Beach differently!
The Raw Diet Thing
Markus’ raw chicken, bone and vegetables from CRUDO being weighed on a scale
It’s been a few months since our last food update and during this time, we've been consistently feeding Valens to Markus. We purchase bigger bags these days to save on cost and Markus has really gotten into a groove with it. Between bags, we go back and forth with the Fisher and Farmer flavours just to change things up, but our hunch is that Markus prefers Fisher just a bit more.
Our feeding routine has improved as well. Previously, we were struggling getting Markus to finish his allotment of food for the day, but these days, we top the food off in the morning and Markus finishes it by the end of the day. That said, he's still not "clamouring" for the food, so we're not sure if he's just not a food motivated dog or if we have yet to find that thing that he loves the most.
Even though we’ve been happy with Valens, we’re also keeping one eye on something that Markus could potentially like more. We notice more owners on Instagram feeding their dogs raw lately and we were intrigued by it. We figured that since Markus loves his meat treats, he'll probably really like raw food so we sought out to learn more about it.
We asked around other dog owners about doing the raw diet - things like the benefits of going raw, what the transition looks like and where to get it. Through recommendation, we ended up going to CRUDO by Surrey Meat Packers in Burnaby (go figure), British Columbia and purchased a few tubes of raw meat to try out with Markus.
CRUDO has a number of different blends that are available in individual tubes, bags of 10 or boxes of 40. They have proteins like chicken, turkey, duck, beef, lamb, venison and even kangaroo for the fancy eaters. The food also comes in plain meat or with blends that include bone and vegetables, which helps to add fibre to the mix, helping your dog go to the bathroom.
There are a lot of health benefits for going raw. The dog's body absorbs most of the raw meat they’re intaking and very little of it becomes waste. Raw food is known to improve the dog's energy (since there are less fillers to burn) and it’s said to result in shinier coats, healthier and better dental health.
Compared to dry dog kibble, raw meat doesn’t need to be processed. It’s usually blended and then frozen, so a lot of the nutrients are preserved, where kibble requires a lot of processing and cooking to get it into its form. When you consider the shelf life of dry kibble and the fact it contains protein, it does make you wonder how that's possible. Raw meat is a lot more natural and easier for your dog’s body to digest.
Going into this, one of the hesitations that we had with doing the raw diet was the cost. By our estimation (we'll confirm this in the future when we've had a chance to find something that works for Markus and we're purchasing in bulk amounts), it'll cost Markus just over $100 for a supply of raw meat that'll last him between 6-8 weeks. We're paying about $90 for a bag of higher quality dog kibble that lasts about 6-8 weeks anyways. We’re starting to think there’s a misconception with the cost of going raw and that it might not actually be that far off from higher end kibble prices. Besides, if raw food improves the health of your dog, what’s that worth?
I think one of the reasons there’s a misconception is because the numbers are compared one to one. People assume that if the dog is eating 200g of kibble, they’re going to feed their dog the same amount of raw. This isn’t the case and we realized how much less of raw the dog needs to eat. They say that a dog should only be intaking between 2-4% of the pet's ideal weight per day, which doesn't end up being that much in Markus' case. By this calculation, we're feeding him just over 300g per day, which isn't even a full tube (roughly 500g at Crudo).
A tube of Markus’ raw Chicken, Bone & Vegetable from CRUDO on a cutting board
It goes without saying, but preparing the raw food is definitely messier compared to kibble. You’ll just need to get used to handling raw meat. We can do it in a way where the blood is minimal, but there's definitely a lot more washing that goes into it since the tubes can be a bit oily. Honestly though, once you've done this a couple times or if you cook meat for your own meals, it's not a big deal. If it’s really not your thing, you can actually feed the meat still partially frozen.
Since the raw meat comes frozen, we thaw it out in the fridge a couple of days before feeding it to Markus. As this happens, blood starts to trickleBy then, we cut the tube open (like a sausage), weigh it out and give it to Markus. As mentioned above, you can also give the meat to them still slightly frozen. If you think they’re going through their food too quickly, giving the raw to them partially frozen will slow them down. It’s also a good way to gnaw through the frozen chunks to scrape their teeth clean a bit.
For this first trial, we picked out the chicken, bone and vegetable and Markus has been loving it so far. This is by far the meal that he's loved the most and he is hyped for each meal. He's also finished every bowl that we've offered him so far, which is another first. We now have a routine where we feed him twice a day (morning and evening) and he finishes the entire bowl every time. This was the routine we were hoping to get, but couldn’t with kibble.
We weren't sure how his stomach was going to take it, so we purposely waited until the Christmas break/holidays before we made the switch from kibble to raw. There's no question that Markus prefers eating the raw meat, but the one thing we'll have to monitor his weight and energy levels to see how good it really is for him. We’ll be sure to check back in with you on this in a few weeks!
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!
