good people food for dogs?

[iloveamlet]

the more and more i'm reading online, the more i want to give my dog good people food with his dog food as a suplement. what are some good ideas of things to give him? i've heard eggs and meats, but i dont know what ones are the best, or how to prepare them. i've heard raw meat is good...but then i read it wasn't good. i heard the same about eggs. also, i thought dairy wasn't good for them, and now i'm seeing yogurt mentioned as good all over the place. looking online there are so many conflicting ideas. i want some good, inexpensive ideas that will make him happier and healthier.

[gaddylovesdogs]

Chicken, turkey, beef, fish. I wouldn't feed pork and I wouldn't feed fish raw.

Eggs can be fed raw, you can grind up the shell and feed it too - it's a good source of calcium.

Vegetables are great too. Carrots and broccoli are popular with my three girls!

[Mom2Many]

Supplementing your dogs diet with good healthy raw foods is a great idea. Dog's are carnivours and designed to eat raw meat. They have the digestive juices to handle it and a short digestive tract to ensure no unhealthy bacteria grow, they can handle salmonella and other bacteria that would make us sick just fine.
If you feed pork it is best to freeze if for a bit due to a parasite that it can harbor, trichinosis. Most fish are fine fed raw but there is a type of salmon that also carries a parasite so it needs to be froze for at least a month.
If you are deciding to feed raw meat in addition to your dogs food you need to make sure that you are offering meats with bone, depending on the size of the dog this would include chicken carcass, quarters, etc. This is to ensure that you balance out the phosphorus level in the meat with the calcium that is provided by the bone, natures perfect balance for our canine friends.
Dairy products are not always tolerated well by all dogs so start out slow when offering yogert. Also if you have a puppy that will be large breed the extra calcium is not always a good idea so use it sparingly in those cases. It is best to use plain yogert with live cultures, these are beneficial bacterium to the digestive tract.
Things to avoid when feeding people food include cooked bones of any kind, grapes, raisins, and apple cores, there is a more comprehensive list on the internet if you care to look.

[GSD]

I agree with the above, but with pork, just wash and freeze for 1 month and that should take care of any parasites you're worried about. I feed all of the above and pig hearts and necks. I don't feed raw fish, but I do feed canned fish weekly.

[elegy]

i feed raw so everything my dogs get is "people food". they get various parts of chickens (including organs), various parts of tukeys, various parts of cows, pork necks, fish (canned mackerel makes a great easy fast meal), eggs with the shell, yogurt, cottage cheese, veggies (pulped). etc.

[gaddylovesdogs]

Meat is pretty cheap...at least here it is. Last week my Mom and I went and bought the girlies a lot of meat....bones, some chicken, chicken hearts. Probably spent no more than $18.

[Lexus11]

I feed Lexus all raw. Mostly chicken backs and breasts, pork (above precautions), and ground beef. Also a healthy portion of organ meat, and some fruits and veggies that I blended up and froze in ice cube trays for a supplement (some people feel it's not necessary and I don't argue that, I just feel better about giving it to her for supplimental reasons). She gets large soup bones a few times a week for the value to her teeth and just the mental value of chewing.

She's been on this diet for about a month and a half- It's the best thing I've ever done for her. She used to have very dry flakey skin, and now you be really hard pressed to find a single flake at any time! Her stools are tiny, which shows her body is using most of everything that she takes in, and the texture and appearance of her coat has improved greatly.

[Lexus11]

In addition, just imagine if a person tried to live their entire lives on cereal. Which is basically what most of us expect our dogs to thrive on.
Yeah we'd live on cereal, we wouldn't starve to death, but you can imagine the nutrients we'd be lacking from this simple diet that is not even natural to us?

And the meat that you buy from a grocery store or butcher, is top grade meant for human consumption. Whereas what they use for "meat" in dog foods is left over pieces, ground hooves, and meat NOT fit for human consumption. From sickly animals, etc. After all common sense says, why sell top grade healthy cattle, etc, for dog food, when Joe Farmer can get more money from selling his lifestock for human consumption.

All that said, It is a choice that only you can make and to each their own, these are just my views based on my personal experience!

[iloveamlet]

ok, this is great info...i like the idea that his poo will be smaller....it's a mess. so what about portion size? amlet is almost seven pounds, and he's almost five months. is there a certain ounce per pound scale for meat or something? i'm sure if i'm feeding him raw stuff, i can feed him less than the dog food.