cooking for your dog?

[haylotx85]

I have been trying to find information about cooking for your dog online and have found it kind of difficult. I cook for my dog occasionally ... a few times a week, the rest of the time I feed him Nutro Max. When I cook for him I put a cup of brown rice, frozen peas, carrots, green beans, lima beans, and sometimes broccoli and chicken breast in a rice cooker and let it cook. He loves it and I feel like it should be healthy for him but wanted to some some proof. I spoke with my vet about it and he recommended keeping him on his dog kibble only aswell as only giving him treats from the same brand in order to keep allergies away. I used to give him brewers yeast tablets and the vet said I shouldn't even give Scout (my dog) those. What do you all think? I asked the vet what he personally fed his dogs (he has several champion bull mastiffs) and he answered purina pro plan. He believes in basic care for dogs but I am not sure we are on the same page. Any feedback will be appreciated!

[Beryl]

Your vet is wrong. He probably meant well but if he was trained by pet food companies (e.g. Science Diet), he has been taught that dogs must only eat commercial dog food. Over 90% of vets were taught nutrition by by pet food companies.

What you've posted sounds very good and better than 99% of the kibble available.

Home cooking for your dog is one of the best ways to feed your dog and second only to proper raw feeding, IMO. It is not the rocket science. Dogs have thrived off of raw prey and home cooking (table scraps) for thousands of years -- before the human food industry discovered a way to capitalize off of discarded products by creating "dog food".

Try this for starters: Home Cooking for Dogs Yahoo Group

(I come up with more, I'll post it.)

I feed primarily raw but I also home cook. Here is my advice:

• Meat: strive for about 2% of body weight per day
• Organ meat: (beef, chicken hearts & liver, etc.) You can just dice some up in a meal.
• Veggies: dark leafy veggies, corn is a UNNECESSARY filler (found in most commercial dog foods), rice is OK, brown rice is better. I just add frozen mixed veggies with chicken to make stew
• Vitamins/Minerals: You need this to put back the nutrients that cooking removes. (I like Anitra's by Halopet.) Otherwise you can make your own by using combinations from any HUMAN health food department: Bone meal, flaxseed oil, Vitamin E, fish oil, etc.
• Serve fish once or twice each week.
• Be careful feeding actual "table scraps". Dog don't need the condiments and other things we put on our food.
• DO NOT FEED: cooked bones, onions, raisins (there are other bad foods but these are the most common ones people feed from table scraps).
• Don't worry about a few soft poops and an occasion vomit. Dogs will need to adjust to the various meat enzymes that you will introduce over time.
• Variety is a good thing but don't over do it or you will have a lot of soft (or runny) poops and vomit. You don't have to feed every nutrient required at every meal. Just vary the food over time and the dog will do well.

[haylotx85]

Yah,
I didn't agree with my vet either. I have actually been switching between two local vets since we have been living here and I don't really care for either of them. I watched Oprahs episode about what you should really be feeding your dogs and few weeks ago and raw was the ultimate goal.

Thank you for your input I may have to get a few recipes from you when I have trouble coming up ones of my own.

Also..I never season Scouts food with anything but a few things I read online showed using garlic, olive oil, and salt. Do you use these?

[Beryl]

I don't use seasonings but one of my best friends uses all three -- for decades.

Since I'm mainly a raw feeder, I don't have any elaborate recipes. I only "cook" 2 things.

Chicken "stew" or chicken "glop"

• boil 18-20 chicken drumsticks/thighs or quarters
• remove all large bones (the tiny bones from the quarters might be nearly crushed so I don't bother with them)
• add frozen veggies (mixed veggies and/or turnip greens)
• optionally add vitamins
• bag in 3-4 meal portions using Ziplock freezer bags

Fish meals aren't really "cooked". I just open canned mackerel, salmon and occasionally tuna. I then add some canned veggies (veg-all, canned potatoes, etc.). I freeze the left overs from the can in ziplock bags.

(At serving time, I add the Anitra's vitamin/mineral mix and plain yogurt.)

My dogs like the food cold instead of warm. Therefore, I don't bother to heat it up the food from the fridge.

[Rivsky]

Beryl is right - what you're feeding is much better than kibble.

I'm actually in the process of switching River over to raw to hopefully help his anal gland problems and actually found a vet that supports raw feeding so made an appointment with them to discuss his diet - was well worth the money in my opinion so if you can find a vet that does know a bit about raw feeding it could be worth it for you too.

Sounds like what you're feeding is a good start but I wouldn't be adding salt to anything - dogs just don't need it.

[Leon]

I have a couple of questions.

a)How often is it OK to feed liver?

b)Is there any purpose in adding minerals like magnesium, zinc and others to the food?

[Rivsky]

Raw liver shouldn't be fed any more than once a week. The dried stuff is ok to give whenever though.

I'm only relatively new to raw feeding but from what I understand, there's no purpose in adding any vitamins and minerals to the diet unless they are missing from the foods you are feeding the dog already - or they are needed to help with some kind of medical condition.

[dogs4life]

Looks like you are getting great info.

I like Holistic vets for nutrition information, like Rivskey and Beryl said, vets rely on the pet food companies for most of the nutrition infomation. It's wrong but they are human and sometimes they are clueless about food/health relationships.

You can search the The American Holistic Veterinary Medical Association database for a vet to talk to about your specific concerns

http://www.ahvma.org/ OR http://www.holisticvetlist.com/

Animal Wellness Magazine has a great directory too.

http://www.animalwellnessassociation...aycat&catid=46

We used Dr. Darren Hawks in Montery, CA. She was in Salinas at the time but she sold her private practice. Here is the link for the new doctor who took over: http://www.animalhealthcenterrx.com/

Just wanted to add one more link to spark more digging for info. I find Sherley's Wellness Cafe to be messy, progressive and sometimes she is just plugging products to make a buck. She obviously is making money off her links but she also has a great collection of info all on one page. I just skim looking for published info, then I go to amazon or google to research authors and products she plugs.

I hope I didn't ramble too much, I'm tired but wanted to add some links.

Let us know how it goes

[dogs4life]

Here are a couple more links, mainly RAW food FAQ or intros.

Raw Feeding - the Big Picture by Tracy Bassett
http://www.rawlearning.com/bigpicture.html

The simplest way to do this for starters, is to imagine a dogs diet as an animal. A prey animal perhaps.

Most of the animal is made up of meat and bones. A prey animal in the wild is a lean animal - not fat and plump like those raised domestically for meat. The amount of meat to bone is close to 50/50. Perhaps a little more meat than bone overall, but not overly much. (If you need to visualise a specific 'animal' for the exercise, try using a rabbit perhaps).

Then you have the organs. Imagine the amount of organs compared to the bones. It is a much smaller percentage of the whole animal than the bones and meat.

Now vegetable matter. In the animals stomach and intestines there will be things like grasses, herbs, berries, seeds and so forth. No grains really apart from some grass seeds in season. Lots of leafy green vegetable matter all pulped up. Again though, it is a smaller percentage than the amount of bones and meat

Now, visualise those three things making up the animal - meat/bones, organs, vegetable matter.

Frequently Asked Questions about Biologically Appropriate Raw Food or the B.A.R.F.diet for pets.
http://www.rawfoodlife.com/barf_faq.html

Best of the Web Directory: Recreation/Pets/Pet_Food_Preparation/Dogs/
http://botw.org/top/Recreation/Pets/...paration/Dogs/

* Dog Biscuit Recipes - Displays a collection of dog recipes for a healthy and balanced diet.
* Dog Food and Treats - Lists pet foods and recipes for the nutritional dietary supplement of dogs.
* Dog Treat Recipes: Foods - Contains list of ingredients and cooking instructions in making a variety of dog treats.
* Doggie Treat Recipes - Lists special dietary treat recipes gathered by the clicker handler and trainer.
* Gourmet Sleuth - Small collection of dog treat recipes categorized by its nutritional ingredient.
* Natural Dog Food Web Site - Specializes in dog and veterinary care through food recipes.
* Newf Goodies Dog Treats - Provides a collection of dog recipes to choose from.
* The Little Foxes - Article review about food allergies and its remedies.
* The Poop Pantry - Displays varieties of dog recipes contributed by pet owners.
* TreatWorld.com - Gives details about the dog food recipes in different categories.
* Yahoo! Groups: Totally Home Cooking - Community page for pet owners to share and discuss their dog food recipes.